EvilGenius posted:

Politics has always infuriated me, as it seems to be largely based on ideology and intuition, rather than evidence. Example - in the UK, there are certain conditions you have to meet in order to claim unemployment benefit. If you fail to turn up at the job centre, or an appointed interview, you can have your payments temporarily stopped.

To those that implemented it, it prevents people from perpetually remaining on welfare, because they get punished for not finding work.

To it's opponents, it's self defeating in that taking money away makes it harder to make appointments, leads to hunger, depression, homelessness, etc.

Neither position is evidence based. But why is this, when it would be fairly easy to study whether or not benefit sanctions are working? Why does the government get to ignore any evidence contrary to their ideas? Why do they not welcome evidence and alter policy based on it?

Evidence based policy to me would seem like the adult way to go. Take Obamacare as an example of it's application. Bizarrely unpopular, but all evidence was that the US health care system was hugely unequal, and that it needed to be closer modeled on more successful implementations in other countries.

Evidence is independent of the childish political pantomime that seems to be gripping the US at the moment. It reduces the role of government to a body that carries out studies and implements change to benefit people, rather than to fit some political ideology.