There is this internet poster floating around on facebook right now, quoting Sandra Fluke as saying, "Nobody - politicians, bosses, or anybody else - should be able to block your access to essential care."
This sounds lovely, and as far as it goes I don't think anybody would disagree with it - except perhaps Obamacare's sponsors, what with its boards to determine "appropriate levels" of whatever - but if I learned nothing else in school I learned that you need to define terms, and one term in particular is left awfully vague here: "access".
So how does one get "access" to "essential care"? As it turns out, "essential care" is a thing provided by other people, who have spent large sums of money and long hours of work in training to acquire knowledge that will allow them to take care of you. Like most other people with jobs, they in return expect to be paid for their services. What is "access" to healthcare, then?
Money. Someone has got to pay for these things.
Now, it may be that we as a country or a society have the resources to provide "your access" if you cannot do it yourself. This is a point worth debating. But if it is decided that we do not have this, or should not do this, nothing is being "blocked". Nothing is being "denied". You did not have it to begin with.
So, let us please conduct this debate on the terms of reality. You do not have any "right" to the services of someone else whom you cannot recompense. (It is a more interesting question whether the ability to help another in need brings a duty to do so with it: I would argue it does, but only clearly on a personal level. Social answers to the question are murkier.) You cannot proclaim that I, as a teacher, am obligated to help you, who cannot afford a school, simply because of your need. (You may by all means ask for help, and if possible I should do what I can: but this is charity, not a right of yours.)
(If we are going to provide "essential care" publicly, we should, by the way, do just that. Public schools may be rather a mess in this country, but their purpose is at least clear. A public hospital system, I am inclined to think, would also be rather a mess, but at least we would know what to expect. The current mess of trying to play silly games by over-regulating and (necessarily) increasing the cost of insurance is the most absurd way possible to go about fixing whatever problem exists.)
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
2013/02/20
2013/01/23
The Problem With A Secular World
First, please go watch this YouTube video, linked by Gawker. Read the write-up there, while you're at it.
This video clip is just over a minute long. No substantial debate could have been conducted in that time. No link is provided to a transcript, or a longer clip of the interview (testimony before committee, it appears). This tells us we're being shown this material in an attempt to convey, not information, but an impression.
What impression? Well, as Gawker goes on to explain, we still have these rubes in our government who cannot deal with and have no idea of scientific fact, while the beatific academicians try in vain to save them from themselves.
Alright, now I am summarizing and exaggerating in order to create an impression myself. It is true, the senator is grandstanding - he is trying to lead in to the question of getting "here" from "there" - but study the clip for a minute. Gawker sums the situation up as, "...Walsworth interrupts with another question... the teacher manages to soldier on. Let's give this woman an award." Remember again - impression, impression. Where is the mention of the teacher interrupting the senator's question to begin the clip?
Suppose this clip were summarized as follows: "Walsworth never actually has a chance to phrase his entire question, as the teacher runs him over with a pat answer which avoids the main thrust of the senator's concern". I would argue that is an equally accurate (or, to be fair, equally inaccurate) summary of what we see here.
What is that concern, anyway? Following my hypothetical sympathetic-to-the-senator coverage, he is clearly trying to bring up the biggest problem people have with evolutionary theory: how did nothing turn into something turn into life turn into intelligence turn into consciousness? This is at the very least a legitimate and troubling philosophical question; in the face of entropy it ought to be one posed by and to science - but to my knowledge the best answer, apart from the barefaced, "Well it had to have happened like this," is the hypothesis that all of existence as we know it is a mere eddy of random chance which happens to have produced us. This is unsettling at least, but it is also what any naturalistic theory of abiogenesis and macroevolution comes down to in the end, since any Purpose is denied. This is the question the senator is trying to ask, and he is eventually hectored into asking - as the canned speech rolls on (remember we're being sympathetic here) - whether this experimental e. coli evolved into a human.
Which is met, of course, with the blank "what". The question, everyone knows, is manifestly absurd. Everyone knows that it takes time and mutations and infinitesimal steps and stuff. Now, there was an idea that floated around for a while arguing that added time does not make the improbable more probable. This is true in one particular case - the impossible - and, speaking strictly of probability, is always true. But time - which, speaking mathematically, can be considered repeated experiments - makes the improbable more likely to happen eventually. You would expect, rolling a die 100 times, to turn up more sixes than if you only rolled it 10 times. So if this evolution - recognizing that science uses several terms here, I am still going to stick with the popular usage - is merely improbable, then added time is an entirely reasonable way to account for Things Happening.
But there is another way the question is absurd: the researchers would be extremely surprised if these mutating e. coli ever turned into something that was not a bacterium. This is a step that is essentially necessary to demonstrate the possibility of the Theory of Evolution so confidently taught - and a step which is, to my knowledge, still conspicuously missing. Small-scale evolution, noted originally by Darwin, has been observed and confirmed, even the development of new "species" of the same kind of animal - normal mice become six kinds of mice - but beyond that? It is not so clear. Of course, under the current theories, truly unique changes would be the result of multiple mutations building up on a long time-scale, so it is early to rule out the theory as an explanation of origins (especially considering the apparently correlating evidence of the fossil record, not that that is without questions either); but it is also extremely premature to have established this theory as accepted scientific gospel, the way the Gawker piece - and a vast number of other people and texts - treat it.
Even if the science were on more solid ground than it actually is, the philosophical question would remain: "So we did not need god - if he exists - to get here. Now what? So what?" Look at what we see as the result of the secular worldview. The same texts which confidently preach an evolutionary origin which, due to time constraints, cannot possibly have been confirmed yet by observation, are commonly fond of declaring the backwardness of Medieval society, the tyranny of the Puritans, and the prudishness of the Victorians, and tend to blame these things on superstition, which an intelligent reader quickly comes to realize is a polite term for religion. Well, the Christian church has had its faults, and must bear blame in our accounting for the excesses of the Inquisition and the Crusades and the like. But if this is the case, then secularism must carry its burdens, too: the tyrannies of socialist and communist states in the 20th century, the massacres perpetrated by their dictators, the eugenic experiments carried out by over-enthusiastic scientists - and here lies the final problem.
To sum up the problem neatly, in the secular world chivalry dies and there is nothing to replace it. I am of course using the term chivalry loosely here. It would be more accurate in some ways to speak of natural law, but I am looking at effects - results, actuality - and so the general code of manners of Christendom will do service. Any society will have its unique manners, but in these supposed darker ages, there was the understanding - and this is true whether we appeal to Confucius or the Thomists - that proper manners, customs, and justice come from a correct understanding of the nature of things (to steal a phrase, perhaps inappropriately, from the atheist Lucretius). The materialist may attempt the same thing, but comes up short on the question of authority. A nebulous principle - Google's "Don't be evil", perhaps - comes in as a stopgap measure for society in the short term, but good and evil themselves become subject to the whims of - well, of whoever. The more enlightened may attempt to deduce such rules of behavior from science - an acquaintance of mine champions one such endeavor and Heinlein's Starship Troopers imagines a society built on such a structure - but all these attempts have a common problem: "What if I don't want to?" What if I can swindle my way to millions and get away with it? What if I can drink and sex myself into a cheerful haze? The "advice" once given, "Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse" comes to mind, but it is useful, if that is the word we want, only to the individual.
Nothing is left to the secularist as a system of control except for the strong arm of society, against which there is no appeal but a stronger arm. It should not be a surprise that the tendency of a secular age has been to tyranny by despots or by bureaucracy. The only answer left for the majority of people who want (for whatever now mysterious reason) to get on with an ordered life, is, "Behave, or we will make you."
(This is not to deny the possibility of religious tyranny. "Do this because god says you should (and I have an army)" is equally as persuasive as, "Do this because I say so (and I have an army)". But there is this difference: the religious tyrant can never establish himself as an ultimate authority. If one interprets the Imperial Papacies of the late Renaissance as such tyrannies, we see resistance dressed as Reformation, as, "But god actually says...", where a secular revolution could be driven by nothing other than, "But I would prefer..." Yes, this is oversimplification as well. The worst of the Popes had their opponents within and without church councils, and were resisted by civil authorities in their overreaches. The Roman church itself generated a movement of reform which, due to the vagaries of history, got itself dubbed the Counter-Reformation. But if anything, this only strengthens my point. Compare the "reforms" of Communist China, and you see a program carried out by officials determined to remain in charge, and embracing merely what seems to be a more useful form of godlessness.)
And as to the morals of this secular society? We are seeing a breakdown of traditional morality being celebrated as "tolerance" - and that breakdown pushed beyond the bounds of logic. A homosexual relationship - which to be fair, is a thing allowed by many past civilizations (although the Athenians and Spartans, both practitioners, apparently amused themselves by calling each other gay) - is supposedly the same as a fruitful marriage, despite the obvious differences between a person who can carry a child and one who cannot. A person of male sex who thinks he is a woman is allowed - encouraged, sometimes - to call himself one, rather than being considered insane, which is what the facts of the case would suggest. A supposedly tolerant society, protesting careful regard to human life and the rights of baby seals (or whatever fad is current), is perfectly happy to be cavalier with the lives of the most vulnerable of humanity, the unborn. Some few are willing to admit that they take life, and while couched in terms of relative value, the fact that that "value" is being determined by the more powerful individual in the case is impossible to avoid.
Let us suppose that the repression of past religious cultures was as bad as advertised. What can you show me that indicates our new bureaucratic overlords have, in their wisdom, given us anything better? If the materialist proposal had been shown to be true beyond a doubt, it is not even clear why we should accept the results - in the name of a truth which has no final relevance? But when the position does not in fact have such a sure foundation, why should we be in such a haste to embrace the annihilation of concrete good and morals?
This video clip is just over a minute long. No substantial debate could have been conducted in that time. No link is provided to a transcript, or a longer clip of the interview (testimony before committee, it appears). This tells us we're being shown this material in an attempt to convey, not information, but an impression.
What impression? Well, as Gawker goes on to explain, we still have these rubes in our government who cannot deal with and have no idea of scientific fact, while the beatific academicians try in vain to save them from themselves.
Alright, now I am summarizing and exaggerating in order to create an impression myself. It is true, the senator is grandstanding - he is trying to lead in to the question of getting "here" from "there" - but study the clip for a minute. Gawker sums the situation up as, "...Walsworth interrupts with another question... the teacher manages to soldier on. Let's give this woman an award." Remember again - impression, impression. Where is the mention of the teacher interrupting the senator's question to begin the clip?
Suppose this clip were summarized as follows: "Walsworth never actually has a chance to phrase his entire question, as the teacher runs him over with a pat answer which avoids the main thrust of the senator's concern". I would argue that is an equally accurate (or, to be fair, equally inaccurate) summary of what we see here.
What is that concern, anyway? Following my hypothetical sympathetic-to-the-senator coverage, he is clearly trying to bring up the biggest problem people have with evolutionary theory: how did nothing turn into something turn into life turn into intelligence turn into consciousness? This is at the very least a legitimate and troubling philosophical question; in the face of entropy it ought to be one posed by and to science - but to my knowledge the best answer, apart from the barefaced, "Well it had to have happened like this," is the hypothesis that all of existence as we know it is a mere eddy of random chance which happens to have produced us. This is unsettling at least, but it is also what any naturalistic theory of abiogenesis and macroevolution comes down to in the end, since any Purpose is denied. This is the question the senator is trying to ask, and he is eventually hectored into asking - as the canned speech rolls on (remember we're being sympathetic here) - whether this experimental e. coli evolved into a human.
Which is met, of course, with the blank "what". The question, everyone knows, is manifestly absurd. Everyone knows that it takes time and mutations and infinitesimal steps and stuff. Now, there was an idea that floated around for a while arguing that added time does not make the improbable more probable. This is true in one particular case - the impossible - and, speaking strictly of probability, is always true. But time - which, speaking mathematically, can be considered repeated experiments - makes the improbable more likely to happen eventually. You would expect, rolling a die 100 times, to turn up more sixes than if you only rolled it 10 times. So if this evolution - recognizing that science uses several terms here, I am still going to stick with the popular usage - is merely improbable, then added time is an entirely reasonable way to account for Things Happening.
But there is another way the question is absurd: the researchers would be extremely surprised if these mutating e. coli ever turned into something that was not a bacterium. This is a step that is essentially necessary to demonstrate the possibility of the Theory of Evolution so confidently taught - and a step which is, to my knowledge, still conspicuously missing. Small-scale evolution, noted originally by Darwin, has been observed and confirmed, even the development of new "species" of the same kind of animal - normal mice become six kinds of mice - but beyond that? It is not so clear. Of course, under the current theories, truly unique changes would be the result of multiple mutations building up on a long time-scale, so it is early to rule out the theory as an explanation of origins (especially considering the apparently correlating evidence of the fossil record, not that that is without questions either); but it is also extremely premature to have established this theory as accepted scientific gospel, the way the Gawker piece - and a vast number of other people and texts - treat it.
Even if the science were on more solid ground than it actually is, the philosophical question would remain: "So we did not need god - if he exists - to get here. Now what? So what?" Look at what we see as the result of the secular worldview. The same texts which confidently preach an evolutionary origin which, due to time constraints, cannot possibly have been confirmed yet by observation, are commonly fond of declaring the backwardness of Medieval society, the tyranny of the Puritans, and the prudishness of the Victorians, and tend to blame these things on superstition, which an intelligent reader quickly comes to realize is a polite term for religion. Well, the Christian church has had its faults, and must bear blame in our accounting for the excesses of the Inquisition and the Crusades and the like. But if this is the case, then secularism must carry its burdens, too: the tyrannies of socialist and communist states in the 20th century, the massacres perpetrated by their dictators, the eugenic experiments carried out by over-enthusiastic scientists - and here lies the final problem.
To sum up the problem neatly, in the secular world chivalry dies and there is nothing to replace it. I am of course using the term chivalry loosely here. It would be more accurate in some ways to speak of natural law, but I am looking at effects - results, actuality - and so the general code of manners of Christendom will do service. Any society will have its unique manners, but in these supposed darker ages, there was the understanding - and this is true whether we appeal to Confucius or the Thomists - that proper manners, customs, and justice come from a correct understanding of the nature of things (to steal a phrase, perhaps inappropriately, from the atheist Lucretius). The materialist may attempt the same thing, but comes up short on the question of authority. A nebulous principle - Google's "Don't be evil", perhaps - comes in as a stopgap measure for society in the short term, but good and evil themselves become subject to the whims of - well, of whoever. The more enlightened may attempt to deduce such rules of behavior from science - an acquaintance of mine champions one such endeavor and Heinlein's Starship Troopers imagines a society built on such a structure - but all these attempts have a common problem: "What if I don't want to?" What if I can swindle my way to millions and get away with it? What if I can drink and sex myself into a cheerful haze? The "advice" once given, "Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse" comes to mind, but it is useful, if that is the word we want, only to the individual.
Nothing is left to the secularist as a system of control except for the strong arm of society, against which there is no appeal but a stronger arm. It should not be a surprise that the tendency of a secular age has been to tyranny by despots or by bureaucracy. The only answer left for the majority of people who want (for whatever now mysterious reason) to get on with an ordered life, is, "Behave, or we will make you."
(This is not to deny the possibility of religious tyranny. "Do this because god says you should (and I have an army)" is equally as persuasive as, "Do this because I say so (and I have an army)". But there is this difference: the religious tyrant can never establish himself as an ultimate authority. If one interprets the Imperial Papacies of the late Renaissance as such tyrannies, we see resistance dressed as Reformation, as, "But god actually says...", where a secular revolution could be driven by nothing other than, "But I would prefer..." Yes, this is oversimplification as well. The worst of the Popes had their opponents within and without church councils, and were resisted by civil authorities in their overreaches. The Roman church itself generated a movement of reform which, due to the vagaries of history, got itself dubbed the Counter-Reformation. But if anything, this only strengthens my point. Compare the "reforms" of Communist China, and you see a program carried out by officials determined to remain in charge, and embracing merely what seems to be a more useful form of godlessness.)
And as to the morals of this secular society? We are seeing a breakdown of traditional morality being celebrated as "tolerance" - and that breakdown pushed beyond the bounds of logic. A homosexual relationship - which to be fair, is a thing allowed by many past civilizations (although the Athenians and Spartans, both practitioners, apparently amused themselves by calling each other gay) - is supposedly the same as a fruitful marriage, despite the obvious differences between a person who can carry a child and one who cannot. A person of male sex who thinks he is a woman is allowed - encouraged, sometimes - to call himself one, rather than being considered insane, which is what the facts of the case would suggest. A supposedly tolerant society, protesting careful regard to human life and the rights of baby seals (or whatever fad is current), is perfectly happy to be cavalier with the lives of the most vulnerable of humanity, the unborn. Some few are willing to admit that they take life, and while couched in terms of relative value, the fact that that "value" is being determined by the more powerful individual in the case is impossible to avoid.
Let us suppose that the repression of past religious cultures was as bad as advertised. What can you show me that indicates our new bureaucratic overlords have, in their wisdom, given us anything better? If the materialist proposal had been shown to be true beyond a doubt, it is not even clear why we should accept the results - in the name of a truth which has no final relevance? But when the position does not in fact have such a sure foundation, why should we be in such a haste to embrace the annihilation of concrete good and morals?
2012/06/11
Words With the Meaning Removed
"[FDR] knew that fascism is capitalism without boundaries, that both fascism and communism (with a small "c") are apolitical, and that economics trumps politics every time."First, let me admit that Blodget does have the right of the case, in material terms, in one particular. She has figured out that "reckless spending at all levels of society" is largely to blame for the current fiscal problems and credit crunch. The bubble always bursts.
- Bonnie Blodgett for the Twin Cities Star-Tribune
You would think this would probably make her a Tea Partier - but you would apparently be very, very, wrong. Actually cut spending? Maybe reduce taxes to encourage the economy when the spending cuts start making us able to afford it?
Nope: Blodgett just wants to hammer "the [Republican] elite" some more. After all, if it was not for their "spin", everyone would know overspending is bad. (Again, I do not want to be too hard on her, because it sounds like she really would make a good Tea Partier if she had any idea what the current argument was actually about. Her factual deductions are reasonable, but her causes are wildly misunderstood. The temptation is to blame "the mainstream media", but since my acquaintance with CNN is maybe monthly 10-minute segments at McDonald's, and any other television even less, I would be talking about I-know-not-what.)
But the real problem here, as cited at the top of this piece, is that Blodgett has no idea what her vocabulary means. Facism as apolitical? Name the world's three most (in)famous facists: that would be, yes, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. Facism is not just political but overwhelmingly political. It is totalitarian; it is total control.
Communism can claim to be apolitical in final goals; but it would be more accurate to call even that goal anti-political. And in the reality, outside of small communes (largely protected by the rule of law imposed by traditional societies) or the interactions of families and friends, communism has never attained to any "height" beyond socialism - to the point where the two in practical terms are synonymous, though conceptually different. Socialism, as I used to assume everyone knew, means the state has control of the means of production (either by ownership or heavy regulation). Anything that involves the state is political by necessity and definition.
Capitalism, on the other hand is only incidentally political. Of course it is more comfortable and possible in some political climates than others, but a capitalist, considered only as a "capitalist" and thus speaking only with regard to the economy, is unconcerned by anything about government that does not affect his market; I suppose this does make him a bit heartless but it does not make him particularly political. But in conversation, on the one hand, "capitalism" is (mostly Leftist) short-hand for "people who are more successful than I think they ought to be", or sometimes, "not paying me what I think you should". (Okay, I guess maybe it is more commonly, "You don't pay that guy what I think you should.") On the other hand, we use the word capitalism more technically to refer to the system of a free market which is essentially unregulated. Of course, this means a capitalist economist will stand against, politically, socialism, fascism, mercantilism, etc. - any system designed as or with elements of a "command economy". A capitalist is therefore likely to support some political views and reject others.
What one real problem is, of course, is so-called "crony capitalism", where the businessman goes to Washington to get regulations passed that favor him, or to pull down contracts by quietly greasing palms. This practice is apparently as old as civilization itself - but it is worth pointing out that in a deregulated market it would be nearly entirely pointless. "This legislation would really help my business, and I'm carefully not mentioning that it would hurt my competitor." "And you want us to regulate the market why?"
Blodgett ends up blaming risky finance not on, for example, government regulations enforcing and subsidizing cheap loans, but on "deregulation". She talks about rises in campaign spending, but does not ask who is spending, or on whom. "Economics trumps politics", she says, while protesting that the economics winning the political argument are bad economics, "reckless spending". She clearly is looking to beat up on the crony capitalists, but does not realize how the environment of regulation enables interference with governance (after all, the government started the interference first).
Off the soapbox. What I am trying to point out here is that even trying to analyze this piece is almost pointless. The words are misdefined and then misused even in their redefinitions; isolated examples and broad generalizations are used to evoke a worldview, rather than an argument; logic is attempted but muddled beyond recognition. I am sure there are better examples, maybe even good examples, of writing making a similar point, if I only knew for sure what the point was. There are probably equally horrible examples of work attempting to make an opposite case. But my point is that this column of gibberish got published, and that fact means that American journalism, particularly the Star-Tribune, ought to be ashamed of itself.
2012/05/10
False Premises
South Carolina amended its state constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. I am still not sure why this requires a Constitutional amendment - a dictionary, a world history course, or a biology textbook should any of them be sufficient. But here - especially with that last - we reach a problem.
After fighting for "sexual liberty" and so forth for lo these many years now, the liberal left has reached the point where suddenly they cannot talk about sex within the one context it has always been approved because the biological facts of sex ruin the case for their cause du jour - "gay marriage". Two men cannot have a kid. At this point, the homosexual lobby is falling back on rhetorical silliness. I have been told to "stop focusing on the sex" - what, are we to be repressed now? I thought that was bad - and realize that marriage involves more than just sex. Love, affection, friendship, and so forth are the keys.
Speaking historically, we could (sweeping generalization here!) say this is largely a legacy we owe to the ideals of the late Medieval courtly ("romantic") love affair - usually very much extra-marital, whether or not merely Platonic (and mostly not) - being co-opted by various people and applied to marriage. This is not a bad thing by itself. Even on Biblical grounds, we are told that, "It is not good for man to be alone." (Yes, I am a bachelor. Obviously I think the statement is a generality.) Even without children, marriage is a good thing. But when passion is the measuring stick and the expected number of kids is 1.4 or something, we see where the argument for homosexual marriage comes from. Two children per family will not maintain the human race or the culture producing them; clearly something else has become more important. (To say nothing of divorce.)
If this is the only criterion, that "two people love each other very much", then of course there is no reason to object to homosexual "marriage", especially as a civil institution. It is little more than a formality, an affirmation, a legitimizing token - the $500 tie, as it were, to proclaim that here stands a wealthy man.
So I find it impossible to get extremely upset by the "gay marriage" lobby and its nonsense, because it is a symptom, not really a cause (and Paul's description in Romans of the progression of cultural decline and depravity is consistent with this view, if not specifically laying it out). The other reason I find it hard to get upset about it is that I am still somewhat bemused by the phenomenon. It is somewhat like arguing with a fifth grader, and not just any fifth grader, but the fifth grader who had somehow never heard the rhyme that runs,
First comes love, then comes marriage,
Then comes the baby in the baby carriage.
Banal and terrible verse, of course, but at least it knows the order in which things naturally work - the order which makes homosexual "marriage" not an abomination so much as an absurdity.
2012/02/27
Putting the Worst Face on It
Or, I promise to write about something else next time.
As I have made clear recently, of the major candidates for President of the United States beginning in 2012 - which I currently estimate as current president Obama, and challengers Romney, Paul, and Santorum - I am most sympathetic to Santorum, with Paul running a close second and Romney a distant third. Practically this matters very little at the moment as I am not registered with any party affiliation at all, but there it is.
The reasons for my attraction to Paul and dislike for Obama should be clear to anyone reading this blog; I will not go into them in detail here. Romney I distrust as a consummate politico, though I have little objection to his current "face". Why Santorum? There are three main reasons.
In the first place, I agree in large part with Santorum's presuppositions and, unsurprisingly, also most of his political conclusions.
In the second, he is of all the candidates - and this includes Paul - the one most open about what he believes and has done. Even if I disagreed with him substantially, I could respect him for that, as I hold Biden or Nader in relatively higher regard than our current actual President, given what I know of them. Santorum is the only candidate about whom I can confidently say that the reasons for voting for him are the same reasons as those for voting against him.
And in the last place, Santorum is the candidate most maligned and misrepresented both in the mainstream press and by my recent favorite whipping boys, the internet liberals. After my last post, I wanted to let the subject drop, but then the ugly side of uncivil discourse raised its head again.
I have The Daily What in my feed for a number of reasons - tech stuff, nerd news, cool videos of Messi, random trivia - but when it comes to political discourse they exemplify the failures of the collective liberal internet. Here is the post in question.
Let's look through what this supposedly informative post does to Santorum. It takes little analysis to conclude that the entire post is made from a viewpoint of supporting Obama.
First, the graphic presents a good picture of Obama and a bad one of Santorum. (Thus my headline.) We like to think superficialities like that don't matter, but we know they really do make a difference.
Second, Santorum's positions are given either the worst possible spin, or misrepresented entirely. Look:
Now it is important in civil discourse to be as accurate as possible and - perhaps more importantly - to assume the best when possible. Thus I largely keep silent on the record of Obama's administration. But I am losing patience, and feel called on to demonstrate what could be done. If I wanted to apply an "internet conservative" approach to the President, I would discuss in detail at least the following two things, which - unlike the attacks on Santorum - are beyond disproof.
Bring it.
As I have made clear recently, of the major candidates for President of the United States beginning in 2012 - which I currently estimate as current president Obama, and challengers Romney, Paul, and Santorum - I am most sympathetic to Santorum, with Paul running a close second and Romney a distant third. Practically this matters very little at the moment as I am not registered with any party affiliation at all, but there it is.
The reasons for my attraction to Paul and dislike for Obama should be clear to anyone reading this blog; I will not go into them in detail here. Romney I distrust as a consummate politico, though I have little objection to his current "face". Why Santorum? There are three main reasons.
In the first place, I agree in large part with Santorum's presuppositions and, unsurprisingly, also most of his political conclusions.
In the second, he is of all the candidates - and this includes Paul - the one most open about what he believes and has done. Even if I disagreed with him substantially, I could respect him for that, as I hold Biden or Nader in relatively higher regard than our current actual President, given what I know of them. Santorum is the only candidate about whom I can confidently say that the reasons for voting for him are the same reasons as those for voting against him.
And in the last place, Santorum is the candidate most maligned and misrepresented both in the mainstream press and by my recent favorite whipping boys, the internet liberals. After my last post, I wanted to let the subject drop, but then the ugly side of uncivil discourse raised its head again.
I have The Daily What in my feed for a number of reasons - tech stuff, nerd news, cool videos of Messi, random trivia - but when it comes to political discourse they exemplify the failures of the collective liberal internet. Here is the post in question.
Let's look through what this supposedly informative post does to Santorum. It takes little analysis to conclude that the entire post is made from a viewpoint of supporting Obama.
First, the graphic presents a good picture of Obama and a bad one of Santorum. (Thus my headline.) We like to think superficialities like that don't matter, but we know they really do make a difference.
Second, Santorum's positions are given either the worst possible spin, or misrepresented entirely. Look:
- "Rape victims should make the best of it," is what is quoted. This is part and parcel of the steadfast refusal to admit the humanity of unborn children, on which point myself and others have said so much as to make further commentary here fruitless. But not even a tiny effort is made to understand Santorum - the poster is only interesting in discrediting him to like-minded people.
- "Free prenatal testing leads to more abortions," is, I am forced to assume by the tone of the post, held up for ridicule. Yet we live in an age where "sex-selective abortion" is the new big PC worry, and where mothers are encouraged to abort "defective" or handicapped children. How exactly is Santorum wrong on this one?
- "Contrary to the Constitution, the separation of church and state should not be absolute," - oh wait, I just wrote about that.
Now it is important in civil discourse to be as accurate as possible and - perhaps more importantly - to assume the best when possible. Thus I largely keep silent on the record of Obama's administration. But I am losing patience, and feel called on to demonstrate what could be done. If I wanted to apply an "internet conservative" approach to the President, I would discuss in detail at least the following two things, which - unlike the attacks on Santorum - are beyond disproof.
- The administration itself, if not Obama himself, is fundamentally dishonest. The Obamacare package was rushed and bullied through Congress and we still don't know the half of it; bad enough, but that is politics. Worse, the package was reputedly passed on the back of an executive promise to issue an order mandating protection for those not wanting to be forced to pay for abortions: even if not, the Constitution and all of American law is rife with such protections. Obama still has not, to my knowledge, given such an order, and in fact - well, you've maybe heard of the HHS mandate which is both diametrically opposed to the alleged promise and in clear defiance of American traditions. His so-called compromise is anything but.
- The administration has made investments - in, most notably, Solyndra - driven by ideology, cronyism, or sheer bad judgment. Meanwhile, such economic progress as has been made has been made in the interval while the freshly reinvigorated Republicans in Congress have tied the administration's hands to prevent any of the neo-socialist bailouts that didn't help the mess in the first place (thanks Bush - or Keynes? FDR?). And the lesson goes unlearned by either Democrat bigwigs or the administration itself, while the Republican candidates, noticing facts and listening to constituents, are all doubling down with promises to continue the approach and in fact go farther.
Bring it.
2012/01/26
The Stupidity of Abortion
The thing that irritates me most about the self-righteous pro-abortion crowd, who somehow want us to identify the killing of unborn children as an essential part of "women's rights", is their near-complete disregard for reality. The average pro-abortion liberal, who plans to vote for Obama no matter what because all the Republican candidates are pro-life, takes a stand as though he recognizes in himself the second coming of Gandhi or MLK Jr., while it would be more accurate to assign him the moral and philosophical stature of the hidebound slave-owner refusing to vote for "abolitionist" Lincoln – and perhaps even less scientific credibility than that fine hundred-fifty year old gentleman.
He, after all, at least had a centuries-old belief in "inferior races", apparently borne out by the obvious superiority of his culture. The modern advocate of "abortion rights" is forced to steadfastly ignore everything the human race has ever known about the conception and growth of children in order to make any sort of case.
Of course, I am assuming that the killing of human beings is wrong. If that is indeed so, as we almost all believe, the case for abortion breaks down from the beginning. Attempts to avoid the vise founder on the fact that any requirement for humanity conceivable beyond simple physical humanity depends on judgment. When a practical authority of one group to judge another as a lesser party is established, the precedent renders a free, much less a moral, society untenable. If, on the other hand, morality is non-existent in any kind of objective form; if the "right" to abortion really is merely a social preference, a convenience, then its supporters have no case to make against those who would rather ban the practice, except mob opinion. A popularity contest, if you will.
Speaking of popularity contests, the presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been roundly criticized for his stance on abortion, as he is willing to deny its validity even in cases where pregnancy is a result of rape – and more controversial still, in cases where the mother's life is in danger. Yet the absurdity of the spectacle should be obvious: people willing to kill or let be killed hundreds of thousands of children are protesting that someone might die. Santorum at least makes it clear that he knows what he is advocating: the average abortion advocate wanting to crucify him displays a complete ignorance of the reality being debated.
We start, as I said before, with the assumption that killing another human is wrong in and of itself. We may admit, if pressed, that certain situations may necessarily justify, or perhaps excuse, killing: self-defense, perhaps; or the punishment of a murderer or rapist. Yet the run of the mill advocate of abortion does not even go so far as to admit that abortion involves death: facts are ignored. The argument given is not often that the death of an infant is the lesser evil (though this argument seems at least plausible in the "mother's life" scenario – no doubt why it is the focus of the abortion activist who could clearly get no logical traction elsewhere). No: the normal argument is that it is not our business, a defense many wife-beaters would no doubt also like to have applied to them. Those who come closest to admitting the inherent evil still hedge, talking about how killing the child is better than forcing it to live in poverty and misery (the programs these same people tend to advocate to relieve poverty and carefully shield people from misery are apparently not applicable to babies and mothers), which brings us right back to one part of humanity deciding another part should be deprived of rights.
If the mainstream apologist for abortion would admit to the truth – that a human being is killed – and still say they considered it acceptable, we would all know what the stakes were. Instead, they ignore the facts and the big picture, and end up looking ignorant – either deceived or self-deceived.
He, after all, at least had a centuries-old belief in "inferior races", apparently borne out by the obvious superiority of his culture. The modern advocate of "abortion rights" is forced to steadfastly ignore everything the human race has ever known about the conception and growth of children in order to make any sort of case.
Of course, I am assuming that the killing of human beings is wrong. If that is indeed so, as we almost all believe, the case for abortion breaks down from the beginning. Attempts to avoid the vise founder on the fact that any requirement for humanity conceivable beyond simple physical humanity depends on judgment. When a practical authority of one group to judge another as a lesser party is established, the precedent renders a free, much less a moral, society untenable. If, on the other hand, morality is non-existent in any kind of objective form; if the "right" to abortion really is merely a social preference, a convenience, then its supporters have no case to make against those who would rather ban the practice, except mob opinion. A popularity contest, if you will.
Speaking of popularity contests, the presidential candidate Rick Santorum has been roundly criticized for his stance on abortion, as he is willing to deny its validity even in cases where pregnancy is a result of rape – and more controversial still, in cases where the mother's life is in danger. Yet the absurdity of the spectacle should be obvious: people willing to kill or let be killed hundreds of thousands of children are protesting that someone might die. Santorum at least makes it clear that he knows what he is advocating: the average abortion advocate wanting to crucify him displays a complete ignorance of the reality being debated.
We start, as I said before, with the assumption that killing another human is wrong in and of itself. We may admit, if pressed, that certain situations may necessarily justify, or perhaps excuse, killing: self-defense, perhaps; or the punishment of a murderer or rapist. Yet the run of the mill advocate of abortion does not even go so far as to admit that abortion involves death: facts are ignored. The argument given is not often that the death of an infant is the lesser evil (though this argument seems at least plausible in the "mother's life" scenario – no doubt why it is the focus of the abortion activist who could clearly get no logical traction elsewhere). No: the normal argument is that it is not our business, a defense many wife-beaters would no doubt also like to have applied to them. Those who come closest to admitting the inherent evil still hedge, talking about how killing the child is better than forcing it to live in poverty and misery (the programs these same people tend to advocate to relieve poverty and carefully shield people from misery are apparently not applicable to babies and mothers), which brings us right back to one part of humanity deciding another part should be deprived of rights.
If the mainstream apologist for abortion would admit to the truth – that a human being is killed – and still say they considered it acceptable, we would all know what the stakes were. Instead, they ignore the facts and the big picture, and end up looking ignorant – either deceived or self-deceived.
2012/01/17
In Which I Become the Professor Kirke at Length
I am seeing a bothersome trend in recent conversations with liberal friends. Today – the back-breaking straw that provoked this post – someone was expressing a desire to move to not-the-USA – a typical election year sentiment expressed by worried people – if Santorum was elected as president. The stated reason? He is an extremist. The nature of extremism? That he thinks all contraception should be illegal. I seriously fear someone has conflated personal belief with likely legislative agenda. The position of the Catholic church is well known; I have not heard Santorum make any motions towards trying to impose that on the USA by law. If he has said such things, I apologize for my skepticism.
At any rate, at face value the lack of perspective embodied by that complaint is stunning. I noted that Santorum, even if he did try to ban contraceptives, would get nowhere; the objection was dismissed. But consider: the issue is obviously an unreality in the political climate, and I doubt he could persuade even half of the Catholic Republican congressmen to get behind such legislation. Even bans on the most heinous forms of abortion have been fought tooth and nail: to attempt to replicate Catholic doctrine in secular law would quite likely result in an attempted impeachment on grounds of gross overreach or something.
If, as I instead suspect from conversations with others, this was nothing more than a polite way of complaining that Santorum is pro-life and against abortion, then any of the Republican candidates – except Governor Johnson, if he is still (however technically) in the running – are equally "extreme", and so are something like half the people in the United States. Which is of course another topic, and other people have said in so many words that this is the one reason they could not vote for a Republican candidate who would, at the very least, not veto anti-abortion legislation.
The counter-attack, the fact that Obama's agenda has been on the whole quite leftist, tends also to get nowhere. If you take that tack, then either "leftist" gets defined in global terms, and Obama's policies end up looking center-ish; or the right is labeled "extreme" and discounted... and Obama's policies end up being the only thing "legitimate" so how can they be extreme themselves? For an example of common reasoning: Obamacare was a good thing; the Democrats lost seats because of the Tea Party; but there is nothing reasonable to complain about; therefore, the Tea Party are dangerous idiots – and in the worse cases of logic-failure, people end up thinking that the fiscal-responsibility wing of the Republican party (which is what the Tea Party, on the whole, is) can be discounted entirely in the political calculus. These are not the worst examples of inability to add two plus two and get four that I have seen. The connection between the passage of the (deeply flawed) healthcare bill and the almost immediate success of the Republican party is not made or ignored. For a party that by and large professes to practice relativistic ideology, the overall tone of opinions on other parties' views is incredibly dismissive when not downright incoherent and pleased with themselves for being ignorant of their opponents' supposed ignorance.
At any rate, at face value the lack of perspective embodied by that complaint is stunning. I noted that Santorum, even if he did try to ban contraceptives, would get nowhere; the objection was dismissed. But consider: the issue is obviously an unreality in the political climate, and I doubt he could persuade even half of the Catholic Republican congressmen to get behind such legislation. Even bans on the most heinous forms of abortion have been fought tooth and nail: to attempt to replicate Catholic doctrine in secular law would quite likely result in an attempted impeachment on grounds of gross overreach or something.
If, as I instead suspect from conversations with others, this was nothing more than a polite way of complaining that Santorum is pro-life and against abortion, then any of the Republican candidates – except Governor Johnson, if he is still (however technically) in the running – are equally "extreme", and so are something like half the people in the United States. Which is of course another topic, and other people have said in so many words that this is the one reason they could not vote for a Republican candidate who would, at the very least, not veto anti-abortion legislation.
The counter-attack, the fact that Obama's agenda has been on the whole quite leftist, tends also to get nowhere. If you take that tack, then either "leftist" gets defined in global terms, and Obama's policies end up looking center-ish; or the right is labeled "extreme" and discounted... and Obama's policies end up being the only thing "legitimate" so how can they be extreme themselves? For an example of common reasoning: Obamacare was a good thing; the Democrats lost seats because of the Tea Party; but there is nothing reasonable to complain about; therefore, the Tea Party are dangerous idiots – and in the worse cases of logic-failure, people end up thinking that the fiscal-responsibility wing of the Republican party (which is what the Tea Party, on the whole, is) can be discounted entirely in the political calculus. These are not the worst examples of inability to add two plus two and get four that I have seen. The connection between the passage of the (deeply flawed) healthcare bill and the almost immediate success of the Republican party is not made or ignored. For a party that by and large professes to practice relativistic ideology, the overall tone of opinions on other parties' views is incredibly dismissive when not downright incoherent and pleased with themselves for being ignorant of their opponents' supposed ignorance.
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