No matter how you might feel about what the Alaska Legislature did with the oil taxes this year -- whether you're a long-term critic of the socialist idea that the oil is an Alaskan birthright and the companies that invest huge amounts of money to get the oil out of the ground must thus share their profits with all Alaskans, or one of those people now freaking out that Alaskans are going to pay for the reduction in oil taxes with the loss of public-sector jobs and government services -- one thing about the behavior of the little club that calls itself the "Alaska Legislature" ought to deeply concern you.

Unless, of course, you are willing to accept the idea that the state's politicians are so much smarter and more capable than the rest of us that they should be allowed to dance all over the state constitution, which is pretty much what they did when they decided that legislators with direct financial ties to Big Oil should be allowed to vote on oil taxes.

This Legislature is not the first to willfully ignore such blatant conflicts of interest. The involvement of commercial fisherman and other business lawmakers in shaping laws that directly affect how much money goes in their pockets has been going on in Juneau for years. And the Legislature isn't the only political body in the state to knowingly neglect conflict of interest standards.

Borough and city governments regularly do this as well, deciding in all their wisdom that Paul Pol's or Lydia Litician's conflict isn't really a conflict because, well, somehow he or she is smarter and more capable than the rest of us and can rise above petty, personal interests.

The entry of petty, personal interests into the lawmaking process is what the authors of the state constitution tried to protect against in Article 1, Section 2, which says simply this:

"Source of Government

"All political power is inherent in the people. All government originates with the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the people as a whole."

The key phrase there is "instituted solely for the good of the whole."

This is the foundation beneath so-called conflict of interest rules. When it comes to judges and members of the executive branch, the reality that it is humanly impossible to act for the "good of the whole" when you've got a dog in the fight is clearly and uniformly recognized. Judges and state employees are banned from participating in actions that might touch upon their financial interests, not because they are bad people, but because their personal interests predispose them to what is known as a "confirmation bias."

It is recognized in the judicial and executive branches that no matter how fair people might try to be, there are circumstances in which they are incapable of fairness. They suffer from inherent, uncontrollable biases that might make them act in their own interests even when they wholly believe they are trying to act in the best interests of everyone.

Confirmation bias is a well-documented phenomenon. It is what leads people to see what they want to see.

Psychologist Drew Westen at Emory University in 2004 did some pioneering work that illustrated humans are hard-wired in this way. Using magnetic resonance imaging of brain activity, he was able to demonstrate "where in the brain the confirmation bias arises and how it is unconscious and driven by emotions," as Scientific American magazine later summarized his work.

"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," Westen himself told NBC News after his work was published in 2006. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.

"Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts.'"

All of which brings this around to state Sens. Kevin Meyer, R-Anchorage, and Pete Micciche, R-Soldotna. Meyer, the co-chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, is the facilities support coordinator for ConocoPhillips Alaska, a junior member of Big Oil with huge investments in Alaska. Micciche is the manager of Conoco's liquefied natural gas plant on the Kenai Peninsula.

Both men this year voted for legislation that would significantly cut taxes on Conoco and other oil producers. There is no reason -- none whatsoever -- to believe that they did so to consciously help the company that employs them. But the issue here isn't about conscious acts; it's about unconscious acts.

All of which is why conflict-of-interest standards exist, and why the authors of the constitution charged all Alaska government officials -- be they in the judicial, executive or legislative branches of government -- to act "solely for the good of the people as a whole."

Given where Meyer and Micciche work, the only way they could really put their emotions aside was if they secretly hated their employer. Let's hope that is not the case. But if they like their jobs, if they think of the employer as generally good, then there is a problem.

They bring that prejudice with them to every discussion of oil taxes, whether they are aware of it or not. They look at every assessment of the tax structure through that prism. They are prisoners, if the work of the research psychologists is to be believed, of their unconscious.

They have biases they can't put aside no matter how hard they try because they are not conscious of them. Because of that, they owed it to themselves, not to mention all of Alaska, to bow out of a vote on anything even remotely affecting ConocoPhillips because their jobs make it impossible for them to act "solely for the good of the people as a whole."

But, of course, they didn't bow out. Other pols didn't want them, too. Other pols, being far smarter than the rest of us about everything, decided Meyer and Micciche could rise above their conflicts and be impartial because....

Well, because this has been the behavior of Paul Pol and Lydia Litician in this state for a long time. Who knows where it all began, probably with the misguided opinion of some government lawyer somewhere.

Personally, I remember sitting in Juneau city meetings years ago when the assembly decided a member had to vote because his conflict-of-interest just wasn't big enough for him to abstain. The Juneau assembly took the constitutional mandate and flipped it on its head.

It's only gotten worse over the years.

Can anyone imagine a judge heavily invested in Conoco being allowed to handle a case between that company and anyone? Can anyone believe an employee of the state Department of Natural Resources heavily invested in Conoco would be allowed to negotiate contracts with the company?

Of course not. Those things just wouldn't happen because there is no way to separate the judge or the executive from the confirmation bias. There is no way to keep humans from unconsciously acting in their own best interests instead of the interests of the group.

This is what conflict-of-interest rules are all about.

And yet we have this other standard -- this double standard -- that lets Paul Pol and Lydia Litician get involved in anything they want because they're better than we are and smarter than we are and can somehow control the uncontrollable.

Well, either that or we're dumber than posts and let that little club in Juneau called the Legislature get away with things that just shouldn't be.