I thought I was different. I have a well-documented history of being more skeptical than the average person. At this website, for instance, I have vigorously attacked the hypocrisy of all politicians, regardless of party. In the spirit of letting the chips fall and seeking the truth, even if inconvenient, I’ve often taken positions contrary to family, friends and “country.” I tend to not be a joiner. I have long-agreed with David Hume that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” Therefore, I tend to be on-guard regarding runaway emotions. I also agree with Jonathan Haidt’s conclusion that humans function like tiny lawyers attempting to control big emotional-laden elephants upon which they ride. The observations of Hume and Haidt dovetail well with the findings of Antonio Damasio, who carefully examined rationality. See Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. Phineas Gage, a 19th century railroad worker who suffered brain damage to his pre-frontal cortex, couldn't no longer connect emotion to decision-making. He’s what Damasio discerned from the evidence about Gage (and about modern-day people who suffered damage to the pre-frontal cortex): He “could no longer set priorities or make decisions. He had no sense of the relative importance of any situation.” His accident made him “rational.” Damasio further noted that this pure rationality “is helpless to make decisions; it paralyzes us. In fact, he proclaimed that “Rationality” is the way “brain-damaged people make decisions.” I’ve known all of this for a long time, and I try to stay on guard that when I write that I will keep emotions in check enough that I can be seen as a trusted source of information. That’s why what I’m about to mention is embarrassing and frustrating to me. Back on April 28, 2011, the night I read the U.S. Supreme Court Case of AT&T v. Concepcion, I became angry at the majority opinion, and I steamed full speed ahead and published an angry post at this blog (since deleted, for the reasons discussed below). I stand by many of the concerns I raised in that post, including the following: [More . . . ]