Amendments: Property Rights

There's a lot of confusion about constitutional rights. A lot of people will tell you they're God-given and immutable. I don't agree with that. (I'd argue that the entire concept of defending your own rights is, to a great degree, antithetical to Christianity. But that's not today's post.) Arguments about rights descended from on high are for philosophy and religion; while those topics are fascinating and useful, they're not what you use to build a functional government.

What we're talking about are rights that people need to have for society to function. The Constitution is not holy writ, to any degree. It works amazingly well because it's a well-crafted work of man. But that's also why it's flawed, and why it can be improved.

Even though it's flawed (as all works of man must be), the Constitution is brilliant, so let's start from what we've got. Most or all of the rights listed in the Constitution are there in response to specific issues the founders saw in their time. They saw problems, and fixed them! But there are problems they couldn't anticipate. So let's look at what they gave us, see what problems we have today, and go from there.

I'd argue that the rights listed in the Constitution are great in concept, but sometimes they're stated in too narrow a fashion. Our government often completely bypasses the spirit of the law, focusing entirely on the letter of it. (And sometimes on a very bizarre interpretation of that!) If we clarify the rights in the Constitution, the government will no longer has such end-runs available.

Let's start with property rights. There's a concept called civil forfeiture. The concept is that if property is used in a crime, the government can take it from its rightful owner, even if the owner wasn't involved in the crime. A person can be punished for crimes they did not commit. This is clearly an un-American practice and needs to end, immediately. Read more at fear.org.

1) Property shall only be taken from its owner without consent if that owner is convicted of a crime, or if just compensation is given. No other takings are permitted.

And while we're on the topic of just compensation, how about eminent domain? The constitution allows the government to take your property for public use, but only if you are justly compensated for it. However, what qualifies as "just compensation" is not stated clearly, and so we end up with injustice. The typical standard is "market value", but what's actually offered by the condemning agency is often far less than that. On the occasion a citizen goes to court to demand a higher price, they often get one.

The fundamental problem is that the condemning agency benefits from low-balling the estimated value of the property. The agency determining the value of the property can't be the same as the one paying for it. Instead, all eminent domain cases should have their prices set by a court, eliminating conflict of interest. This may clog the courts, but if the people aren't getting justice for lack of courts, you need more courts.

2) In cases where private property is taken for public use, what qualifies as just compensation for that property shall be determined by a judge.

Some people take issue with the use of eminent domain for uses that are not public. At this point, I'm not addressing that. From the perspective of the person losing their property, it's all the same, and for this immediate post I'm focusing on that person's rights. I may discuss that at a later time.

Amendments: Congressional Process

After watching the joke that our Congress has become over the last few years, it's clearly time to redefine how Congress operates. Again, let's start with the problems we see today, and go from there.

How about bills that cover more than one topic? Riders are often used to either advance an unpopular bill, or kill a popular one. This happens all the time; the recent shutdown was one obvious example. Regardless of which side you may deride more for what went on, the simple fact is that a bill that couldn't otherwise pass both houses was attached to an important but unrelated spending bill. Bills should pass or fail on their own merits; we should remove this constantly abused avenue for political games. Bills should be limited to a single subject, as they are in 43 states already. I'll just borrow language from one of those constitutions.

1) Each bill, except general appropriation bills and bills for the codification and general revision of the laws, shall contain only one subject, clearly expressed in its title. If any subject is embraced in any act and is not expressed in the title, only so much of the act not so expressed is void.

Still looking at the shutdown, let's look at how Congress spends money. Right now there's a two-step process: first Congress orders money to be spent (the budget resolution), then Congress allows money to be borrowed to pay for that spending (raising the debt ceiling). The system is essentially letting Congress spend money, and then asking them again later if they really meant it. Having two separate steps is absurd; it creates no good, and just asks for more brinksmanship

2) If Congress passes a law authorizing spending, that law shall also be construed to authorize any borrowing necessary to execute such spending.

The fact that a government shutdown can result in so much damage, and yet the Congress responsible is not in any way penalized, is unacceptable. Some have suggested cutting their pay, but that only hurts the poorer members. If you want a real disincentive, it needs to be applied across the board, and it needs to be something no member of Congress can ignore: in the event of government shutdown, we should hold new elections, immediately. I guarantee you, we won't see a shutdown again for a long, long time.

3) In the event of a failure of the Congress to pass a bill funding ongoing government operations, all congresspersons shall be immediately subject to election, to be held within three weeks of the end of the previous spending law. If the Congress passes a bill funding government operations, and the President fails to sign said bill, the President shall also be subject to election. If the Congress overrides a Presidential veto of such a bill, only the President shall be subject to election.

In any interim between laws authorizing spending, the funding levels from the previous spending law shall continue to apply.

Finally, we see cases where a bill would clearly pass if brought to a vote, but procedural games prevent that vote from occurring. Congress presently has the power to set its own rules of order, but those rules are being used to prevent important work from occurring. I proposed that there should be a means of ratifying amendments bypassing Congress and convention; I now suggest something similar for Congress.

4) Any other rules of order notwithstanding, in the event that a majority the members of either chamber of Congress officially declares their approval of a bill, by sponsorship or other means, that bill shall be deemed to have been passed by that chamber.

I have one additional point, which has bothered me for some years now. The Palm Sunday Compromise (I here refrain from comment on its contents or effects) was passed by the US Senate on a vote of 3-0, 97 not present. This is simply an undemocratic way to do business.

5) Neither chamber of Congress shall conduct business without a majority of its members participating.

Amendments: Civil Law

If I have a dispute with someone, or they with me, we should be able to go before a court of law and present our case. The case should be decided on the merits thereof, with no partiality in outcome based on race, belief, gender, or economic status. No matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, no matter who you have a problem with, you can go to court and have justice.

We all know that's not so. How do we fix it?

Let's start with cost of access, with court costs and fees of various kinds. How can we justify forcing someone to pay for access to what's supposed to be a universally accessible system of justice? Some people genuinely can't afford those fees! That's little different than a poll tax: "it's a fundamental right, now pay for it." And if the rich (of whom I'm admittedly one, by most standards) have to pay higher taxes so the poor have access to justice, I'm fine with that. That's part of having a civilization.

1) No fees shall be charged for access to the courts.

But court fees aren't the only thing making justice inaccessible to the poor. The cost of lawyers is also an issue. If the poor sue the rich, the rich may win simply by weight of lawyers. And if the rich sue the poor, the poor may settle to avoid legal costs. Neither of these is justice. The depth of one's pocketbook should not make you more (or less) likely to win in court.

One common solution proposed is "loser-pays". But that will just have the tendency to reduce suits by the poor, who can't afford to pay if they lose. Our goal isn't the reduce the number of lawsuits, it's to make a system of justice that works equally for everyone.

Instead, I propose looking at how real estate agents get paid. (There may be variations, obviously, but this is how I've seen things done.) When a house changes hands, 6% of the sale price goes to the agents involved. If there's one agent, they get all 6%. If there are two agents, they split it between them. This means that if one party has an agent, it costs the other party nothing to have one as well!

Imagine we did something similar with lawsuits. Say all legal fees for a case were put into one pot, and divided evenly among all parties to the suit. Now, every party has exactly as much money for legal representation as every other party. If Sony sues me, they pay for my representation. They can spend ten million dollars attacking me, but I get just as much to defend myself with. They no longer have an incentive to hit me with a huge hammer just to scare me into settling. Extortion lawsuits are now much harder.

Consider the other way around. Say I sue BP. If my suit has merit, they may want to defend themselves with ten million dollars of lawyerage. But in that case, I get that too. If my suit is frivolous, BP may choose to defend themselves with a much cheaper legal team, knowing it will also deprive me of resources. Either way, the playing field is leveled, and set at the level both parties "agree" is appropriate to the charge.

Of course, there are other side-effect situations that could come up. Say I have ten million dollars to defend myself from an extortion suit, but I manage to negotiate myself a cheaper deal, or get pro bono representation? I can't be allowed to keep that money, or now I have an incentive to file suits than I don't mean to win. The unused money has to go somewhere. I propose the most effective place is funding the legal system itself, perhaps in the form of pro bono representation, or public defenders. However, I'm not sure if this provides some incentive for the court to alter rulings in order to get more money. This could be a flaw; advice on this matter from a lawyer would be appreciated.

2) In all lawsuits, money contributed to legal representation shall be divided evenly among all parties. Money submitted for legal representation that goes unused by any party shall be used to fund attorneys for the public defense.
 
And how about binding arbitration clauses in contracts? These are everywhere, probably in half a dozen contracts you've signed. If, say, AT&T were to royally screw all its customers, it's perfectly legal for them to say in the contract that you can't sue them as a group, only as individuals. For all practical purposes, they would be saying you can't sue them at all; why would AT&T care if one person sued them for $15? But a million people doing it, that's much more of a problem. Class-action suits are in some cases the only disincentive towards bad behavior on the part of large companies. If I sign a contract, and the other guy breaks it, I should be able to sue them in open court. Period. It should not be possible for a person to be legally forbidden from access to the courts, even by their own decision.

3) All persons in the US shall have full access to the US justice system at all times, including class-action suits, regardless of prior contractual obligations. Any clause of a contract which denies either party access to a court of law for redress of grievance, is hereby invalid.

Amendments: Criminal Law

Courts are our universal access to justice. No matter what you're accused of, you won't be punished unless you're found guilty. A judge and a jury will evaluate your case, and give you a fair outcome.

I'll wait until you've stopped laughing...

It obviously doesn't work that way. It should, but it doesn't. We need to fix a lot of things about our system of criminal justice.

First, being arrested or charged with a crime can do extreme damage to a person's reputation. Many people are arrested and charged, then found not-guilty. Our entire system is based on the premise of not punishing people until they're found guilty in a court of law, but that's not at all what happens. Even if the accused is never convicted, or if the arrested is never charged, there can be serious long-term consequences.

The best way to fix this is to simply not publish the names of those arrested or charged. Up until the point of conviction, the system is supposed to treat us as innocent. The public has no interest in knowing the name of an innocent person, while that innocent person is clearly and definitely harmed by the public knowing about what's going on. Only on conviction should names be published.

1) Persons arrested or charged with crimes have the right to privacy until convicted. No person accused of a crime shall have their name publicly released until and unless they are convicted. Purposeful violation of the privacy of the accused without their written consent, filed with the court, shall be punishable by law.

Second, how many times have we heard of people being freed on appeal, after years in prison? Because of that, an innocent person has had their life ruined. If the appeals process had been faster, that person might have had a normal life instead of having much of it taken away. It makes no sense to delay justice.

2) No person convicted of a crime shall be punished until all judicial appeals are exhausted. Appeals shall be conducted without undue delay.

Which raises the question, how long do you have to wait to get justice? If someone has done me wrong, and I have to wait a year for a court date, that is not justice. Justice delayed is often justice denied. The same goes for public defenders, who are overworked and underpaid, to the detriment of their clients. Both quick access to courts and easy access to defense are required for a functional system. Right now, we have neither.

If the government is going to fund anything, elections and courts should be at the top of the list. Local law clearly isn't going to fix this, or it would have already.

3) Every jurisdiction shall have sufficient judges and public defenders to ensure swift justice for all in that jurisdiction, including appeals. These positions shall be funded as necessary by the relevant jurisdiction, with a dedicated funding source.

Amendments: Introduction

As you may have gathered, I'm an engineer. It's not just my trade, it's my personality. I identify problems, and I find solutions. I'm also interested in politics. Many of the problems I observe in the American political system derive directly from the ground rules laid out in the US Constitution. To that end, I'll be posting about various amendments I'd propose.

In case anyone objects to this idea, let me point out that the Constitution is not perfect. It is not divine writ descended from the Holy Founders. It was a political compromise, hammered out to fit the needs of the time. It was a very good compromise, but if it was expected to be perfect, there would be no way to amend it.

The founders expected us to face new challenges, and meet them head-on in whatever way we decided best. Their central belief was that people didn't need a king; we can solve our own problems, thank you very much. But we treat the Constitution as if it is perfect, and the founders as if they had every answer and we need not think for ourselves. The fact that amendments aren't considered by the people on a regular basis is an insult to them!

I'm going to be covering a lot of suggestions, so I'll be breaking them up into sections. First, the amendment process itself. Presently, amendments have to go through two stages. First, an amendment must be proposed. This can be done one of two ways: 2/3 of both houses of Congress can approve an amendment; or an Article V convention can be called by the states. No Article V convention has ever been called, though we've gotten close a time or two.

A word about Article V conventions. A lot of lies are told about them by people who want to avoid one. The most common lie is that a convention could rewrite the entire Constitution. Well, I could do the same thing on the back of a napkin, and it would have just as much weight. Remember, nothing the convention does means anything on its own. Two-step process.

The second step is ratification. Once an amendment is formally proposed, either by Congress or by a convention, 3/4 of the states must ratify it. Otherwise, it has no effect. I don't propose changing the ratification process, at all. Only our methods of proposing amendments should be changed.

First, one concern about Article V conventions needs to be removed. It's presently impossible to call a convention that's limited to a specific purpose. Once called, a convention can propose amendments on any topic, regardless of the original reason. That should be changed, to reduce the (already unwarranted) fear of a convention.

Now, why should we have to hold conventions or wait on Congress? If 3/4 of the states ratify an amendment of the same text, why does it matter whether it was formally proposed or not? One potential problem is that, under article V, ratification can be either by state legislature or by popular vote in the state. Bypassing both congress and convention means that if one party were to control enough state legislatures, it could rewrite the entire constitution without popular consent. We do need a second level of checks in place to ensure the will of the people is being represented.


So I propose the following amendment:

1) Should 3/4 of states ratify identical amendments to the Constitution, and at least 1/2 of the total number of states containing at least 1/2 the total population of the US ratify that amendment by popular vote, that amendment shall be adopted, regardless of whether or not that amendment has been proposed by Congress or an Article V convention.

I'd love feedback on the numbers.

Why did Onan die?

Recall the story of Onan.

⁶ And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. ⁸ Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” ⁹ But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother's wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. ¹⁰ And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.

The long-standing tradition is that this expresses God's displeasure with non-procreative ejaculation. I tend to think that if God had such a position, it would be more directly stated. Leviticus doesn't exactly shy away from listing several hundred detailed do's and don't's. Yet nothing like this is ever mentioned, there or anywhere else. (Further, if God had a policy of killing men for such behavior, I think we'd have one serious gender imbalance.) I think we can discount the traditional view.

So what is this really about? What is special about this particular attempt at contraception that it warrants death? If not the action itself, then it must be the context and motivation. Luckily, we're expressly told Onan's motivation: he knew the child would legally be treated as being his late brother's.

Think about this. Onan's brother Er was dead. Women can't inherit in this culture (which is a discussion for a different day). Er had no children, so who stands to inherit Er's property? The nearest male relative: Onan himself! So Onan has a choice: impregnate Tamar, and give her a child that will inherit Er's property so she'll have some way to survive; or leave her destitute and keep it all for himself.

Onan chooses personal gain over helping his brother's widow. Onan is brutally selfish.

But he doesn't stop there! Onan doesn't just refuse to help this woman, as his father Judah later does. He still has sex with her! More than once! Knowing full well he intends to leave her with nothing, this man takes sexual advantage of his dead brother's desperate widow, all the while trying to look the hero. In some places today, that would be called rape by deception.

Onan was a horrible, disgusting, selfish man. God is quite consistent in inflicting punishment for abuse and neglect of the poor. If you look at the reasons Israel is punished during the time of the prophets, it's right up there with worshiping other gods.

Onan abused a poor, helpless widow. His brothers' widow, at that. The lesson of this story has nothing to do with contraception. There's no need to make up a new rule out of nowhere to explain this circumstance.

League of Women Voters

Earlier this year, I joined the League of Women Voters. To answer your first two questions, yes, they allow men, and no, I'm not the only one.

If you're interested in why I did this, check out the history of the League. For some years they sponsored the Presidential debates. They stopped in 1988, with this epic statement:

The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates...because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

—League President Nancy M. Neuman, LWV October 03, 1988

If you've ever seen a Presidential "debate" you know exactly what they're talking about. That alone was enough to get my attention.

The League is all about fair elections, human rights, and government transparency. Those are my issues, and both major parties have long since left me out in the cold. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. If you've been looking for a group that will act to support good government, regardless of political bent, this is it.

Find your local League, and sign up!

Shutdown: forget politics, how about morality?

Everyone has different beliefs about what's moral and what's not. I know what I believe, and I know other people believe differently. But there's one rule that is essential for civilization: whatever you're doing, imagine how the world would be if everyone behaved that way. If the result is bad, don't do it. ("Do unto others...")

Some examples: stealing from the grocery store; leaving your dog's waste in the neighbor's yard; assaulting someone over an old family feud; not paying your taxes. In each case, if everyone behaved that way, the result would be a much worse world for everyone. So we can declare those wrong, even if (like in America) people believe many different things.

I'm going to ask you to not read further until you decide whether you agree with me or not. You have to be willing to be wrong. Pick a position, and be willing to follow where it leads. With me so far?

Now, apply this principle to the government shutdown. Keep in mind that for this discussion, I'm referring to the parties, but describing only the elected officials. Unless you're in Congress, I'm not talking about (or insulting) you. So please don't take this personally; it's not.

Democrats won't fund government if it defunds an existing law. Republicans won't fund government if it does fund that law. Are we agreed that's what's happening?

Now, apply our standard. What if everyone behaved like the Democrats? We'd keep laws we have, until the opposition wins enough elections to change them. In other words, the system would work as designed by our founders.

And if everyone behaved like the Republicans? Some group or other would constantly be shutting down the entire government to get one law repealed. We wouldn't have a government! And if anyone thinks having no government is good, I suggest that you move to Somalia and see how that works out in practice.

Finally, what if the Democrats "compromised", and everyone behaved like that? Then you'd see more and more groups behaving like the Republicans are. Again, total systemic failure.

The Republicans aren't wrong on the shutdown because of Obamacare (though they are responsible for spreading huge numbers of lies about it). The Republicans are wrong because their actions break the entire constitutional system they claim to protect.

In other words, they're hypocrites.

You can agree with their goals, that's a whole other topic on which reasonable people can disagree. But the Republican House's means of achieving those goals are simply unamerican.

Voter Fraud vs. Voter Suppression

There's a lot of talk lately about voter ID laws. Like many things, this issue has devolved into two sides. One side says that these laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud. The other side says these laws disenfranchise legitimate voters.

I'm not going to get into each side accusing the other of having negative motives. That's just not productive.

Let's instead start with basic premises of democracy, and identify our common ground. In a perfect system, no legitimate voter would be prevented from voting, and no illegitimate voter would be allowed to vote. This applies regardless of political persuasion, race, religion, location, age, anything. The goal is to have a good election, even if it results in your side losing.

(If you don't agree with that, I suggest you go live in Iran, which you might find more to your liking.)

Now that we've identified the ideal, we have to acknowledge that we don't live in a perfect world. Some number of fraudulent votes will be cast, and and some number of legitimate voters will be turned away. We wish to minimize both these numbers. But what if we have to decide between them?

That's what these voter ID laws ask us to do. So instead of arguing about hypothetical models, let's talk about what can be quantified.

These laws will prevent some number of fraudulent votes (and before someone accuses me of taking sides, zero is a number). These laws will also suppress some number of legitimate votes. We can measure both those things and see what effect the laws have.

But before we do that, let's define a standard. Having a standard, then comparing evidence against our standard, gives us a path to admit we were wrong, and thus become right. Again, let's try to find common ground.

Say we wanted to avoid even a single case of voter suppression, but as a consequence we had to accept ten billion fraudulent votes. This is a bad trade, because the ten billion fraudulent votes now dictate the course of the election. The one vote we "saved" didn't matter at all.

Now the other side. Say we wanted to prevent one fraudulent vote, and to do so we had to suppress every other vote in the country. I think we'd all agree that was a bad trade. Sure, there are no fraudulent votes, but there's also no election.

These absurd extremes demonstrate that we all live somewhere in the middle, and that we can (at least in principle) put a number on this problem. The only real difference any of us have is exactly where between these extremes we draw our line. So ask yourself: how many fraudulent votes have to be prevented to be worth suppressing one legitimate vote? The one suppressed voter loses his voice entirely; the one or five or fifty fraudulent voters reduces the value of everyone's vote. Where's the balance point?

I'm pretty confident that if you have to suppress more than one vote to prevent one fraudulent vote, we're definitely in the wrong territory. One fraudulent vote does less damage to the election than one suppressed vote does.

I'm also pretty confident that if you allow more fraudulent votes than the margin of error in the election, you're ruining the integrity of the election for all involved. So that puts a hard upper bound on the number of fraudulent votes that should be allowed in the entire election.

In between those numbers, things get a little fuzzy. I could see easy arguments for any ratio between 1:1 and 1:10, and I'd like to hear arguments for numbers outside that. So we have our standard. Now we ask, how do the numbers work out? Because if more votes are being suppressed than frauds are being prevented, we've created more problems than we've solved.

Let the data gathering commence!

Standards of Evidence

My nephew came home from school a while back, saying that Wikipedia was full of false information. His teacher had told him this, apparently. Now, I like Wikipedia. It's a fascinating project, and I trust it as much as I trust most things I read online. (And I agree, high school teachers should definitely require better sources for homework assignments.) But it was interesting to me that my nephew trusted the teacher more than he trusted Wikipedia. On what basis would he make that determination?

You see similar behavior in most people, including myself. How often do you repeat things you hear as if they were fact? How often do you vote based on things you haven't directly confirmed? "Eating local honey prevents allergies!" "Vaccines cause autism!" "Obama may not have been born in the US!" I suspect some people reading this believe at least one of those things; and I suspect those same people don't have a clear idea defining why they believe them.

The unstated issue is a lack of standards of evidence. What will a person accept as true for a particular purpose? Well that depends entirely on what we're doing. Different activities require different levels of surety, depending largely on the consequences of being wrong.

Sometimes the standards of evidence are defined for us. If you're making a bet, it's between those making the bet. If you're writing a school paper, the standard of evidence is defined by the teacher. If you're writing a scientific journal paper, the standard of evidence is often whether your results are reproducible in the real world or not. If you're on a jury, the standard of evidence is whatever the judge tells you the law says.

On the other extreme is if you're satisfying your own curiosity and don't plan to act. In that case, something like Wikipedia is probably fine, but it's entirely up to you if it's not. There are no consequences if you're wrong, because it's all in your head. Whether you need to find a more reliable source depends on the relative values you personally place on your time and the accuracy of what's in your brain.

But what about cases in between? If you're making a decision that will significantly alter multiple lives, Wikipedia is nowhere near good enough. If you're casting a vote, infotainment (i.e. cable news) isn't good enough. If you're making a public statement that millions will hear and potentially act on, one random person's word isn't good enough. So what is?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say most people don't have clearly defined standards of evidence for most purposes. I don't, and I'm one of the more obsessively rational people you're likely to come across. So I'm not going to suggest that you should have a defined standard of evidence for every activity you undertake.
 
I care about truth. I care a great deal, because it's not good enough to mean well. You have to have real information, or you can't make good decisions. The world works a particular way, and we have to try to figure out what that way is, because that's the only way we can make the world better.

Our goal should not be to show that reality matches our beliefs. Our goal should be to make our beliefs match reality. You make a guess, you test your theory, and if your theory is no good, you throw it out and get a new one. The reason a standard of evidence is important is because it allows you to be wrong. When it comes to things you can test, have an opinion (or don't!), but always be in doubt.

So ask yourself: what propositions about the world do you believe? Politics, science, humanities, nutrition, exercise, trivia, pick a topic. Why do you believe what you do? Because you heard it on the news or read it on Wikipedia or your mother told you? Under what circumstances would you admit your belief to be wrong?

If the answer is "under no circumstances", you're no longer talking about politics or science or what have you. You're now talking about religion. If you're comfortable with mixing your religion with your politics or science or whatever, fine. And if you're comfortable having that little humility, that much pride in your intelligence, okay. But at least be aware that's what you're doing. And if you're not comfortable with those things (I know I'm not), then change.

Admit the possibility of being wrong. Embrace it. Find a way to prove yourself wrong! Nobody will judge you for having been wrong in the past. (Well, some may. But those people are jerks anyway.) At worst, you'll confuse a lot of people who have never seen anyone change their minds before! And at best, you'll be more right, and more humble, than you were before.