Truth Be Told

I’m always on a search for truth. I feel I have something in common with someone when I learn they are also searching for the truth. So I get interested when I read a piece that declares the value of the search for truth.

But then, I get to reading, and find out they define truth as their viewpoint, and everyone who differs is some sort of sub-human that should be dealt with unmercifully.

I’m trying to be certain that I do not do the same. But what I’m finding is that the self-proclaimed truth seekers who disdain dissent are on one side of the spectrum—what they call left, but here at the Spherical Modelwe call south, into tyranny, poverty, and savagery, rather than freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

So the argument isn't new. But I sure miss
the congenial way he said it.

I’m not saying they are purposely and knowingly choosing tyranny, poverty, and savagery; they think they are choosing something good. But there’s a closed-mindedness that keeps them stuck in their misconceptions.

I’ve collected a few pieces to illustrate what I mean.

This first I saw in the Houston Chronicle opinion section “To some, ignorance has become impervious to fact” by Leonard Pitts, Jr. (It’s his column from October 5, although I think it appeared in the Chronicle October 8.) He begins with an anecdote from 2010. Some reader named Ken refused to believe that an African-American soldier was a World War I hero—even after being sent multiple credible sources of documentation.

I would call that an anomaly. I don’t personally know any person who would refuse to believe such a thing. It would require both racism and ignorance—to a degree of self-assuredness that drives the person to challenge the story repeatedly. Seriously, who is both that ignorant and energized in that direction?

But, instead of dismissing the guy as a crank, self-described truth seeker Mr. Pitts extrapolates to a very broad spectrum of people:

It’s not just Ken who makes me doubt [that efforts to improve journalism will help]. It’s also Fox “News” and talk radio. It’s Trump’s lies, his war on journalism and people’s tolerance for both.

I use a pretty wide variety of news sources, only occasionally including mainstream media. That’s because the mainstream media—the Houston Chronicle, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, etc.—are so obviously biased, they are a waste of time for anything other than big events of the day. That has been so for a long time.

A decade or more ago I read a piece by Orson Scott Card, the fantasy writer. He was doing a column for his local North Carolina newspaper that got picked up by an online magazine I read. He is a Democrat. But he is also a Mormon, so on a number of issues, usually social issues, he is surprisingly conservative. His piece covered a front page of the news, pointing out the numerous biases evident in a casual read, on a random day. The list was astounding.

I occasionally highlighted my paper that way too. [Here’s one example.] Eventually I mostly stopped reading beyond the food section.

Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College, included a piece on the demise of journalism earlier this year, by Michael Goodwin. His evidence is unassailable.

So claiming this is because of Trump's “war on journalism” lacks self-reflection at minimum.

Another “you have to believe what I believe or you’re not a truth seeker” article showed up a few days ago on Vox. As Pitts did in his piece, David Roberts lists a number of “crazy conservative fairy tales.” These include “Pizzagate”—a supposed Democrat-run prostitution ring in a pizza parlor, which I never saw taken up in any source I go to for news, and:

Hillary Clinton has had multiple people killed, that Obama is a secret Muslim who wasn’t born in the US, that Trump had millions of votes stolen, that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump’s White House, that Seth Rich (the mid-level Democratic staffer who was tragically murdered) was assassinated for stealing DNC emails and giving them to WikiLeaks, or that Antifa, the fringe anti-fascist movement, will begin going door-to-door, killing white people, starting on November 4.

I suppose you can find these stories on sensationalist sites with only occasional ties to truth (maybe Alex Jones, although I haven’t gone there to look, because I don’t go there). But it’s not part of any talk radio or podcasts I listen to, including Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, Hugh Hewitt, Larry Elder, Michael Medved. I haven’t listened to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity lately, but I have in the past, and they just didn’t peddle stories like that. I typically have talk radio on in the background during my workday, so I get a pretty large sample.

Roberts and Pitts are painting with a very broad brush, so far out of the lines that a typical conservative like me does not even encounter what they say “millions of Americans fervently believe.”

I do agree with Roberts on this assertion:

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy having to do with how we know things and what it means for something to be true or false, accurate or inaccurate. (Episteme, or ἐπιστήμη, is ancient Greek for knowledge/science/understanding.)

The US is experiencing a deep epistemic breach, a split not just in what we value or want, but in who we trust, how we come to know things, and what we believe we know—what we believe exists, is true, has happened and is happening.

Yes. But his sense of where this comes from is about 180 degrees wrong:

The primary source of this breach, to make a long story short, is the US conservative movement’s rejection of the mainstream institutions devoted to gathering and disseminating knowledge (journalism, science, the academy)—the ones society has appointed as referees in matters of factual dispute.

In their place, the right has created its own parallel set of institutions, most notably its own media ecosystem.

No. The primary source of the breach has been the media and academia being so biased that people cannot and should not trust them any longer as sources for truth, and must therefore search for truth elsewhere.

Writing with a different opinion this week was Erick Erickson. He tells of a question a friend asked on Twitter:

He just wanted to know how many political reporters know anyone who owns a pickup truck.

It seems like a rather mundane question. After all, the top three best-selling vehicles in America are the Ford F-150, the Chevy Silverado and the Dodge Ram. All three are trucks. Very few political reporters gave a number. Most actually raged that it was an unfair question or they dared to pull the "how dare you" card suggesting their questioner dared to suggest they were out of touch. Their reaction proved just how out of touch they are.

Erickson recounts this story: In heated political rhetoric, a Democrat in Virginia called Republicans “evil.” Not just his particular opponent, but all his voters. And the Democrat ran an ad showing a “typical” Republican, with a Confederate flag on the back of his truck, “trying to run over Muslim, Hispanic, and black children.” That’s how that side views those of us who don’t see the world the way they do.

Erickson comments:

The contrast between the fever dreams of the Democrats and reality could not be more striking. In Democrat rhetoric and dreams, Republicans in general and Trump voters in particular are the racist, evil monsters who run over Muslim children. In reality, a Muslim terrorist ran over a diverse group of people in New York City.

Why are conservatives viewed in this unrealistic, untruthful way? Maybe because the Pitts, Roberts, and other media from that side haven’t ever met us:

In their mostly large cities, progressives and the press have isolated themselves from others. It is far easier for a progressive to avoid daily contact with a conservative than it is for a conservative to avoid progressives. It is also far more likely that a Republican will encounter more diverse voices in his party than a Democrat will.

Another story popped up recently, about former NPR head Ken Stern, who decided to do field research, by planting himself among the regular people, and then became  a Republican. (He has written a book about his conversion):

Spurred by a fear that red and blue America were drifting irrevocably apart, I decided to venture out from my overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and engage Republicans where they live, work and pray. For an entire year, I embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race, hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike.

He tells a story from Texas, where a store owner defends himself from an armed robber, and then says,

It is an amazing story, though far from unique, but you simply won’t find many like it in mainstream media (I found it on Reddit).

It’s not that media is suppressing stories intentionally. It’s that these stories don’t reflect their interests and beliefs.

It’s why my new friends in Youngstown, Ohio, and Pikeville, Ky., see media as hopelessly disconnected from their lives, and it is how the media has opened the door to charges of bias.

Truth comes from diverse sources. There’s that “diversity” word we get thrown at us so often. But, as Erickson says,

Democrats talk a great game on tolerance and diversity, but they increasingly view anyone who thinks differently from them as evil. They can do so only because they have chosen the superficial diversity of color and gender over the more complex diversity of thought.

Roberts thinks the way to truth is to stomp out the sources of opposing voices. Pitts thinks it may be hopeless, because people who disagree with him are too stupid to accept his “facts”—even when biased fact checkers like Politifact tell you what the facts are.

image found on Pinterest

They think I’m evil in all kinds of ways I’m not. For some reason that attack doesn’t make me more willing to believe they’re right. Especially when there’s so much evidence that almost no one out here among us is racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise hateful. Evidence: Hurricane Harvey in Houston.

But I’m willing to think those people might benefit from some time among diverse thinkers, like myself. After all, we handle standing up for ourselves in school and public discourse all the time. We’ve had practice. And that’s one way we know our beliefs—what we believe is truth—stand up to scrutiny.

View from Inside

Eventually, here, I’m going to talk about last night’s GOP debate. But to get where I’m going, I need a little context.

In our church we often get told we should be the ones defining who we are—because if we don’t, others will. That’s why there’s so much on the website LDS.org, the many related sites and pages. I think that’s the right decision.

I made the mistake, some years ago, of starting my Sherlock Holmes reading with A Study in Scarlet, which may be an interesting story, but it was offensive to people of my faith, in the extreme, and was at its basic level wildly inaccurate about what we believe. Including what we believed during the time the story was about (late 1800s). The story couldn’t have happened. It isn’t conceivable to someone who knows the truth. Basic assumptions were so far off, I lost all respect for the great detective. I’ve still read several, plus the occasional movie or series. But I know he’s not infallible.

A similar experience happened when I read a Brad Thor book, The Lions of Lucerne, that had a section located in Park City, Utah. An elderly couple gets murdered by terrorists who want to use the couple’s home as a staging area for kidnapping the president. But the couple was Mormon, and several of the circumstances related to that. And because I am an insider, I knew that the things in the story couldn’t have happened. There was a pretty sizable list of errors in the relatively short segment of the book.

Both of the authors had clearly done research. Quite a lot. But they were critically wrong nevertheless.

A couple of weeks ago, Ben Carson’s religion came under scrutiny in the news. He’s a Seventh-Day Adventist. I liked Glenn Beck’s approach to understanding (Glenn Beck Radio, October 22, “A Look into Ben Carson’s Faith.” He went to the source, found a Seventh-Day Adventist spokesperson, had him on his show, so someone on the inside could define their beliefs for those of us wondering, from the outside. It was respectful and fruitful.

It’s hard for someone on the outside to understand how people on the inside think. That’s true for religion. Sometimes it’s true for ethnicity, but that has more to do with culture: how a person is raised, what is their common experience. It’s also true for major ideological belief systems: conservatives, and liberals/progressives/socialists/democrats. There’s not a useful term for that side. That’s why the Spherical Model perspective of southern hemisphere is useful. I’ll go ahead and use that term for them in the rest of this piece.

We watched in last night’s debate a cadre of southern-hemisphere partisan media reveal their disdain—because of their lack of understanding—of the Republican candidates. Their purpose was not to reveal who the candidates were, and what their stands on issues were, or their plans for our country. Their purpose wasn’t even to pit one candidate against another in an ill-advised attempt at increasing their ratings, as we’ve seen in the previous debates (including the disappointing Fox News debate).

Their purpose was to attack each candidate with Democrat party talking points, twisted untruths, sneering innuendos, and outright lies—and then expect the candidate to answer the implied question, “Because we know how awful you are, why don’t you leave the race in shame?”

These moderators are supposedly professional “unbiased” journalists. (Note: in today’s media, the term journalist almost always implies southern-hemisphere bias.) They were supposed to be specialists on the economy. Yet they favor big government, government control, and crony capitalism. They seem unaware that free-market economics works, every time it’s tried, because the data, common sense, and common experience support our side. They’re too ingrained in their own culture to even recognize that a legitimate point of view exists that doesn’t agree with them.

We have had moderator interference before. In fact, as Republicans, we assume that the moderator will be a hard Democrat (i.e., always or nearly always votes straight Democrat in elections). We’re used to that. But it used to be that they tried to hide it. I think Candy Crowley, who stepped in to “correct” Mitt Romney and support Obama in a question, still thinks she was being fair—even though all of us with a transcript or video of what Romney was referring to could prove Romney was right and Obama was obfuscating.

That was about Benghazi, shortly after it happened, in 2012, and shortly before the election. Would the election have gone differently if Romney had been allowed to hold the president accountable? We won’t know.

What I think we’re seeing now, however, is that what should have happened (but Romney was too nice to do) was a rebuttal: “I have memorized the transcript, Ms. Crowley. I am not wrong. And I will thank you to stop interfering in an attempt to favor your candidate.”

Last night we had a candidate who shifted the power from that tyranny-loving media. He organized an opportunity for substantive debate—despite the questions.

Ted Cruz saved the night. And he may have saved future debates from ever repeating that mess. It might get us the opportunity to refuse moderators who do not, and cannot, understand the conservative way of thinking.

[video no longer available]

I’d like to show the full context of Ted Cruz’s historical moment. So first, we’ll see the question and his full answer. Then we’ll see, side-by-side, what he’s referring to.

Carl Quintanilla: Senator Cruz, Congressional Republicans, Democrats, and the White House are about to strike a compromise that would raise the debt limit, prevent a government shutdown, and calm financial markets that fear another Washington created crisis is on the way. Does your opposition to it show that you’re not the kind of problem solver American voters want?

Ted Cruz: Let me say something at the outset: The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions: “Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain?” “Ben Carson, can you do math?” “John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?” “Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?” “Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?”

How about talking about the substantive issues people care about? And Carl, I’m not finished yet. The contrast with the Democratic debate, where every fawning question from the media was, “Which of you is more handsome and wise?” And let me be clear...

CQ: You have 30 seconds left to answer, should you choose to do so.

Ted Cruz: Let me be clear. The men and women on this stage have more ideas, more experience, more common sense, than every participant in the Democratic debate. That debate reflected a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

And nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators has any intention of voting in a Republican Primary. The questions that are being asked shouldn’t be trying to get people to tear into each other. It should be “What are your substantive issues that people want to hear?

CQ: For the record, I asked you about the debt limit, and I got no answer.

Ted Cruz: You want me to answer that question? I’m happy to answer that question.

(The moderators talked over him.)

Ted Cruz: You don’t actually want to hear the answer, John? You don’t want to hear the answer, you just want to give insults?

John Harwood: You used your time. Senator Paul…

Take note that the question asked wasn’t, “What is your approach to the debt limit?” as Villanova claimed. It was “Does your opposition show you’re not the problem solver the American people want?” That is a yes-or-no question, with an assumption of superiority behind it, arranged to be a no-win for the candidate. Ted Cruz recognized it for what it was, recognized the pattern of the evening (this was a half hour into the debate), and recalled multiple examples. Accurately and in order.

The media seems unaware of how extremely bright Ted Cruz is. He has an audiographic memory. He remembers what he hears, word-for-word.

JH to Trump: Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?

Cruz: “Donald Trump, are you a comic book villain?”

Becky Quick to Carson: I’ve had a really tough time making the math work on this. You’d have to cut government by about 40% to make it work with a $1 Trillion dollar cut.

Cruz: “Ben Carson, can you do math?”

CQ to Kasich: You said yesterday that you were hearing proposals that were just crazy from your colleagues. Who were you talking about?

Cruz: “John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?”

CQ to Rubio: You’ve been a young man in a hurry ever since you won your first election in your 20s. Why not slow down, get a few more things done first, or at least finish what you start?

Cruz: “Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?”

JH: Governor Bush, the fact that you’re at the fifth lectern tonight shows how far your stock has fallen in this race, despite the big investment your donors have made.

Cruz: “Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?”

After the first question—“Tell us your greatest weakness,” disallowing “I work too hard” or “I’m a perfectionist,” which is pretty much no-win for the candidates as well, Cruz identified every stabbing question that had been asked up to that point. Without notes.

What happened from there was different. Not that the moderators had improved, but the candidates were now united in a cause—to get out their message. Not just their personal message, although there was that, but the message of conservatism. Fresh ideas, better approaches. Things other than, “Things are still bad, so let’s give more money to government.”

Anyone who claims Cruz is a divider ought to witness what he just accomplished. That is what the real Ted Cruz naturally does.

The candidates had better opportunities to express their ideas in this debate than in any previous. Time per candidate was more even (although Rand Paul yet again got short shrift). Trump didn’t dominate—either time-wise or using his overbearing presence to take over. He was milder, for him. Carly Fiorina got the most time, and she used it well, but she had no breakout moment. There were good moments for every candidate. Marco Rubio and Chris Christie had opportunities to let us see who they really are.

I also watched the pre-debate, including the four lower-tier candidates. As last time, Bobby Jindal was excellent. He could use the exposure the main debate stage shows. He certainly deserves it more than some of the main ten.

Here’s more evidence that the southern-hemisphere media can’t see what the rest of us see. The commentators that came on between the two debates opined that it was Lindsey Graham’s night—that he had more energy than they had ever seen. Even Larry Kudlow, the supposed “conservative” in that group, believed it was a Lindsey Graham win. In our house, we thought Graham had a couple of campaign ending moments, served up with whininess. One of the commentators believed that a couple of Graham soundbites would end up being the news stories of the following day.

They were, of course, wrong. Cruz’s call to talk about the substantive issues was the story of the day.

In the after shows, Cruz suggested to Sean Hannity of Fox that a good panel of debate moderators would be Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh. I read a headline today that such a panel is being considered (I don’t know how seriously to take that). It would certainly be an improvement. They, at the very least, know what questions would lead to a clear view of what conservatives care about.

Word to Republican Chair Reince Priebus: Stop letting the opponent media define the Republican Party or conservatives. Control the moderator choice first, then offer up the debates to various outlets. If no “mainstream” source picks up something that could rival viewership of major sports events, let C-SPAN do it. Or The Blaze. Or stream live from a GOP website.

Let people a chance to get the information they want, and people will come. People who believe we are heartless, stupid, and bigoted have no business controlling the chance us to show who we really are. 

Admitting Bias

Earlier this week a couple of stories appeared concerning abortion—specifically concerning whether abortion clinics can be required to meet the standards required of other ambulatory surgical centers. One story is that Texas’s law is having another day in court. The other is that a judge blocked such a law in Alabama.

Tuesday's Houston Chronicle front page

I’m dealing with the news section of August 5^th Houston Chronicle, front page above the fold, and A-7, where theoretically you get news instead of opinion. But what we get here is the news from the point of view of the “abortion-rights” side.

The Texas story’s first paragraph is:

Abortion providers returned to court Monday seeking to block a provision of Texas’ stringent new law that would require abortion facilities to comply with the standards of ambulatory surgical centers, a restriction opponents said would force more clinics out of business and leave hundreds of thousands of women without easy access to the procedure.

Stringent is a subjective term, not news. What the law actually did—in the wake of the Gosnell horrors—was cause abortion clinics to meet the standards expected already of other surgical centers. Why that is considered “stringent” is not mentioned. It should be noted that just days after the Gosnell verdict, Texas employees at an abortion clinic came forward with evidence of similar situations in Houston, with babies being killed.

US Rep. John Culberson gave this reaction to the story:

On the heels of Kermit Gosnell’s conviction, I am deeply saddened to learn about more atrocities committed against precious unborn babies, this time in our own backyard. Douglas Karpen of Houston, TX, has been accused of brutally murdering babies born after twenty weeks. He is innocent until proven guilty, but the descriptions from his former employees are gut wrenching and absolutely heartbreaking. Taking a baby from its mother’s womb and terminating its life is murder. Throughout my years in public service I have been committed to protecting the lives of the innocent, and as a Member of Congress, I will work with my colleagues to ensure that we put an immediate end to this practice in every corner of this nation. I will never stop fighting to protect the lives of the most vulnerable.

So the Texas legislature’s law had two missions: prevent abortions after 20 weeks, when it is now known the fetus feels pain (which also prevents the botched abortion-live birth killings that have been reported); and bring the clinics up to normally accepted health codes for the sake of women’s health.

This is the law, you may recall, that won Wendy Davis (now candidate for Texas governor) notoriety for filibustering, forcing a second special session to get a vote; it passed easily once a vote was taken. Afterward Davis seemed unaware of the actual provisions in the law, and seemed to think it was to outlaw all abortions. Maybe she just seemed confused while revealing she simply can’t bear the thought of any abortion ever being thwarted. Claiming that prevention of any abortion under any circumstances is a "war on women" is hardly a basis for leading the strongest state in the nation.

The providers testifying against the law weren’t led by people actually affected by the Texas law, but the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights. Their lawyers spoke in front of US District Judge Lee Yeakel, asking him to block implementation of the law’s provision, scheduled for September 1^st. Judge Yeakel ruled House Bill 2 unconstitutional last year—his decision was overruled by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. So going before this judge again is likely to go as before.

The pro-abortionists' main argument is that requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles means that the clinics have to close. They also claim that these regulatory burdens are “not imposed on any other health care providers in Texas,” which is false on its face. There are various simple procedures, like dental extraction, that are done in doctor’s offices, but if they are procedures in which there’s a risk of bleeding to death or other serious complications, they are already done in surgical centers meeting the requirements, or in hospitals.

Let’s take a close look at the admitting privileges question. When this came up last year, my question was, “Why don’t the doctors just go get admitting privileges?” They were given ample additional time to do so. And everything I read made it sound pretty standard. But here are the abortionists still complaining that they can’t qualify.

So I looked it up. The main thing is providing credentials. There’s some paperwork involved, but any practicing physician probably has his/her diploma and licenses available. There are two levels of admitting privileges. There are courtesy privileges, which are simply that the doctor is allowed to occasionally use the hospital, to perform rounds with patients and do procedures within his/her specialty on an as needed basis—just in case a need ever arises. This level is relatively simple to get, and would meet the law’s requirements.

The second type is full admitting privileges. This may require that the doctor become a part of the hospital staff, attend staff meetings, and provide a certain number of patients to the hospital per year. Sometimes the doctor must belong to the same insurance group as the hospital. This is admittedly harder to get, and might not be possible for an abortionist to meet.

Here’s where I have a problem with the story—and with the abortionists’ argument: the story says, quoting a coalition attorney: “Almost half of the roughly 40 abortion facilities operating in Texas before the passage of House Bill 2 already have closed because of doctors’ inability to obtain admitting privileges.”

It is not necessarily that doctors couldn’t obtain admitting privileges; it is that they didn’t. An online story I found, describing what it takes to get admitting privileges, quotes the CEO of the untruthfully named abortion provider Whole Woman’s Health, talking about the process: "We’ve worked with at least 25 hospitals around the state in the last six months trying to get privileges on behalf of our physicians."

I see a couple of problems here. First, 25 hospitals isn’t that many. As of 2012 there were 630 hospitals in the state. There are 80 just in Harris County, where Houston is located. Why work with only 25 hospitals? Why not apply with all of them, or at least all that are within 30 miles of an abortion clinic? And how do we know whether these 25 hospitals were the least likely to accept the requests? Catholic hospitals, or other Christian supported hospitals, or possibly hospitals related to specific insurance groups? After all, these are people trying to provide evidence that the law is too restrictive, not people actually trying to meet the requirements. It also appears, from the descriptions, that only full admitting privileges were sought—possibly so that they would be turned down, and then they could claim they couldn’t meet the requirements of the law, giving them "evidence" for appeal.

Second, why is the abortion provider clinic organization, rather than the physician, doing the applying? At some point the doctor has to apply. And generally applications are available for download from a hospital website, so the intermediary isn’t really necessary. Apparently we’re just supposed to take it as fact that they’ve exerted every effort and failed, because the law is too stringent?

On that note, if requiring that a doctor be credentialed and not barred because of various malpractice complaints is too stringent, aren’t we really undervaluing women’s health?

Another problem with the story is the numbers. The pro-abortion coalition claims that there’s a particular shortage of clinics in El Paso and generally in the southwestern portion of the state: “That would leave some 900,000 women of reproductive age in the Rio Grande Valley and West Texas living at least 150 miles from a Texas abortion facility.”

They are counting all women, not just the relative few who choose abortion as their birth control method. Let me proclaim, loudly, that abortion clinics do not serve me. Nor any woman in my family. Nor any woman I know at church. Possibly not any woman in my circle of friends and acquaintances. They are vastly overestimating the number of women they “serve” by killing their babies.

And they’re assuming the state should go to great lengths—even to the point of dumbing down safety requirements that can affect women’s health—just to encourage more clinics where there hasn’t been enough of a market thus far.

This is similar to the argument in the Alabama story (Houston Chronicle p. A7, Tuesday, August 5): “Judge blocks Alabama’s Abortion Law.” In that state, with a law similar to Texas’s, the claim is that, because the abortion doctors live outside the state, they wouldn’t be able to get admitting privileges. The state has just five abortion clinics, and three have this challenge. The claim is, “it’s unlikely that local doctors would begin performing abortions because of a history of violence across the South that includes bombings, shootings, and arsons against clinics, the judge said.”

First, as if I need to say it, violence is not the right approach to persuading people not to commit abortions. And any such violence should be prosecuted according to the law—as it has been; most perpetrators are on death row, have been executed, or are serving life sentences. That said, I haven’t heard of abortion clinic violence in a long time. So I did a Wikipedia search. I found one case listed for Alabama, in 1998. The story says “the South,” so I broadened the search. There are two Florida cases, one in 1993, and one in 1994—with a follow-up bombing in 2012 at the same clinic. One in Kansas in 2009.

There are some additional incidents of attempted murder, death threats, and criminal mischief. I found one case of criminal mischief (breaking in, threatening, damaging equipment) in Alabama, in 1984.

So, my question is, why, if the damage is aimed at the clinics, does a doctor feel safe performing abortions in Alabama clinics, but not living there? And since Alabama is only part of the South, why do those doctors feel safe living across state lines but still nearby? The argument doesn’t hold water. What abortion clinics are saying is that, in some places they find it difficult to find doctors willing to enter into that profession—so they want government to lower standards for women’s health to make it easier for them to ply their grisly trade.

A similar problem is happening in Mississippi, where the single abortion clinic might close, and abortionists are asserting that each state should be required to make sure it has at least one abortion clinic, regardless of nearby access across state lines. They don't say why.

The subheading reveals bias

One more complaint about the Chronicle piece on the Texas law: One of the subheads is “Other Victories.” The paper is telling the story of the struggle of abortion providers; it is on their side. You can get facts about the issue from the story, but know that you might not be getting them all, because the reporter has revealed a pro-abortion bias.

If you think there’s reasonableness on that side, you need to read their protest signs: “Abortion on Demand & without Apology” and the absurdly irrelevant “Forced motherhood is female enslavement.” That is not exactly “safe, legal, and rare” message most pro-choice people would say they support. These religiously pro-abortion activists are perfectly willing to risk women’s health, as long as they press for what they want: to kill any baby up to birth, and even beyond. It’s an ugly business.

On the other hand, the signs at the anti-abortion prayer rally read, “Abortion harms women,” which it does. Not to mention women's babies. 

People need to rethink that whole “war on women” claim. Abortionists aren’t for women; they’re for profit. And they really resent being held to responsible standards if it could cost them money.

What Might Have Been

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”—John Greenleaf Whittier

We don’t get to live parallel lives, to see what would have happened if other choices had been made. So I don’t intend to spend a lot of time in regrets. But maybe it’s instructive once in a while to re-examine circumstances and choices.

Last week I heard radio host Hugh Hewitt interviewing Mitt Romney about the documentary, Mitt, just released on Netflix. [The transcript of the interview is here.] Which got me to go home and watch it.

What you see in the movie is a man who is perfectly suited, in temperament, in integrity, in ability, to address the specific problems our nation has been facing. He offered to help; he would have been glad to tackle the problems. But he was personally fine with not being required to do it. The heartbreak is for the nation, not for himself.

For me, there were no surprises in the documentary. I watched many short pieces on Romney during the two races, and I’ve followed him for a long time. I knew who he was, what he was like. I don’t know when I’ve known any candidate so well. [During the campaign, I wrote about him, a seven-part series starting here, as well as here, here, here, and here.]

But in my own local Tea Party, where people often listen to me respectfully, most people called him too liberal, too much of an insider, and too disconnected from regular people. Absolutely wrong on all accounts. In 2007-2008, the party insiders saw to it that the “progressive” McCain got the nomination. Romney was not a Washington insider, but he was the most conservative in that primary field, which was represented as a flaw.

His positions remained constant. He responded by helping wherever he felt he could be useful. He would have been content doing just that. His wife, Ann, who believed after the first defeat that they never wanted to do that again, was the one who pushed him to run the second time—because the country needed him.

Obama was even worse than many anticipated, and that got a lot of people to wake up, start re-reading the Constitution, and start getting involved. That’s how the Tea Party was born—individuals waking up and asking, “What can I do to make things right?”

Coinciding with the rise of awareness of conservative principles was also a matching distrust of anyone who contributed to getting us into this mess. So a lot of people new to politics were disposed to distrust anything that comes through traditional channels. Sometimes they’re right about that, but sometimes this predisposition causes them to dismiss the long years of effort for the conservative cause that many people have offered.

So coming in as an experienced “outsider” meant Romney had to pay his dues in the national GOP. Fine. He was always a willing helper. But doing exactly what would be required suddenly turned him into an “insider” who must therefore be distrusted.

Nothing bothered me more during the last campaign than fellow conservatives complaining that Romney was a bad candidate.

In the Hugh Hewitt interview, there’s this exchange:

Hugh Hewitt: There was a segment of Mitt where you’re talking in 2008 about being branded as the ‘flippin’ Mormon.’ And you say I won’t fix the Mormon part. You’re proud of your faith. And I can’t fix the flip-flopper thing. They’ve got to stop buying, I think this is a direct quote, the dog food that’s been shipped to you by McCain. That is a problem of all American media. I mean, Governor Christie right now is getting branded, and I don’t know what he does about it. What’s your advice to Governor Christie to avoid getting branded as you did in ’08 and ’12?

Mitt Romney: Well, you’re right, Hugh, and I look back at someone like, and I said on the film as well, I was talking about Dan Quayle, and said you know, they branded him as someone who wasn’t bright. And actually, he’s a very bright person, a very capable investor and manager of a large investment firm. They used to joke about Jerry Ford, you know, a stumblebum, uncoordinated. Actually, he’s the only American president who’s an All-American. I mean, they completely can get these things wrong, but they brand people. The opposition party obviously wants to do that, and sometimes, the media wants to play along with it, I’m afraid. And when that happens, you’ve got to say okay, what can we do to try and correct that? And it’s hard to do.

 

The result of this media branding showed up yet again at our last local Tea Party meeting. There’s someone challenging our county party chair, an unpaid position. I’m open to arguments about that. I think in general our party chair has done a decent job, except for recruiting enough precinct chairs. But there are always things I don’t know. And a friend who often knows more than I do recommended this challenger. So I listened. First, he didn’t convince me that change was needed for any reason other than the “throwing out the insiders” argument. And second, he complained, “Mitt Romney wasn’t the best candidate to talk about conservatism.”

Actually, Romney was the best to talk about it. He had tackled the liberal mess that was Massachusetts, worked with an 87% democrat legislature, and moved the state from drowning in debt to in the black. He worked miracles—using conservative principles, talking about them using data that persuaded even democrats to do the right thing. No one else in the race had such a record, or even much executive experience.

So this candidate for our county GOP chair was unaware of Romney’s record, apparently hadn’t heard or read his speeches—and noticed their conservative consistency over time—and taken a look at the long line of people who have worked with him or known him and consistently attest to his connection with normal people and dedication to living a civilized life. This candidate was instead willing to go with the unfortunate combination of lies put out by mainstream media, spin put out by his primary opponents, and jaded dismissal by zealous but not fully informed newcomers. Instead of finding the truth. This is a common error on our side that ought to be corrected.

One caller to Hugh Hewitt’s show, Joe from Houston, added this data:

I just wanted to say that I think the rejection of Mitt Romney by the American people will go down in history as probably the greatest political mistake we’ve ever made. And one of the criticisms I hear from people that don’t know any better is that Romney wasn’t a conservative, wasn’t conservative enough. In the 2012 election 35-38 % of the voters identified themselves as conservatives—the most in any election in political history. And Romney got over 82% of the vote of those people who voted for him. He got more self-identified conservatives to vote for him than anyone, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. So that’s a canard that needs to be put to bed.

 

Another Hugh Hewitt caller, Tammy J of Portland, said this:

I just started watching the show, and then I had to stop, because I had to listen to your interview of Mitt, and all I can say is, I am just sick to my stomach when I think of the direction our country could have been in had he been elected. And I think, going forward, the lesson we need to take from this is, we cannot take for granted that the media will do us any favors. We have to use new media. We have to use digital media—everything we can to end run mainstream media. They control the debate; they control the narrative.

 

She’s right; we need to go into the next round with the expectation that alternative sources are the way to go.

Ann Romney was interviewed on Fox News, about the documentary, and said this:

I truly believe this, that truly the country lost by not having Mitt as president…..

I always believed he was going to be the President of the United States. In my heart I just knew the country needed him, and I believed he was going to be there. I knew he was going to make a huge difference for Americans’ lives.

We spent so much time on the road, we felt the hurt of so many people who were suffering without jobs. And I really believed Mitt was going to be there, to help the country—to help the country get back on its feet.

I was with Ann; I knew what he was capable of, and I knew how much the country needed him. I also felt calm about it being in the Lord’s hands. At the time I interpreted that to mean he would win, because that was what we so needed. So I had to combine the surety that it was in the Lord’s hands with the certainly that things would get worse for the country—the reality we have seen and continue to see. For some larger purpose, to bring His people back to Him, that I can't fully see yet.

In the last presidential election I thought we had the starkest contrast possible, between “liberal” failure and conservative solutions, between social decay and civilization. Yet the message didn’t get through.

I have my doubts that we’ll ever see a candidate so suited for the job of president, and such a fine human being besides. But we will have someone who contrasts with the current failure. Whatever that person’s story is, I hope we can help make it known, so the contrast will be obvious even to those who were fooled last time.

 

Overseas Narrative

This past week Mitt Romney has had an extremely successful overseas tour, building positive relationships in Great Britain, Israel, and Poland. I’ve watched the interviews, heard or read transcripts of speeches, seen photos. So it is an experience in cognitive dissonance to hear the news narrative that claims he’s an embarrassment, with one gaffe after another. That’s wishful thinking on the part of a biased media who want a negative outcome from this trip. But they have had to make it up.

In last Friday’s post I mentioned the supposed gaffe, where Romney was said to have criticized the London Olympics. In a very positive 9-minute interview, he acknowledges, in answer to a direct question from Brian Williams, that he is aware of concerns the Olympic planners are challenged with. He includes three main parts, two of which are very positive, and then the third, which is always an unknown until the games are underway. He was pulling for things to go well. The only thing he didn’t do was guarantee that all would be well, as though he were unaware of the specific challenges; that would have also been perceived negatively, as though he hadn’t been paying attention, when the Olympics are a huge and positive part of his record. All the rest of his public communications, and also his meeting with the Prime Minister, went well, and clearly he made a good impression there on everyone but the American press.

Here is the interview Piers Morgan had with Mitt and Ann Romney, definitely worth seeing.

Romney Pays Respects at the Western Wall of Temple Mount in
Jerusalem on Sacred Day of Mourning.
Photo from Mitt Romney Central on Facebook

The next part of the trip was to Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is a long-time personal friend. He was respectful to the man (who had been snubbed by our sitting president during his visit to our country) and complimented the people and their culture. This was considered a “gaffe,” because he pointed out that the strong work ethic and the millennia-old Israeli culture has led to prosperity for the people. The comparison was made between per capita income of Jews versus Palestinians. It’s demonstrable with data; the only error was in overestimating Palestinian per capita income by several thousand dollars. No matter what the press claim, this was a positive development between US relations and our greatest ally in the Middle East.

Lech Walesa and Mitt Romney
photo from Mitt Romney Central on Facebook

Then there’s Poland, where Romney complimented the people, who have regained freedom from tyranny, and have continued economic progress where countries around them have lately fallen into recession. Lech Walesa endorsed Romney as his choice for president—not that he has a vote, but he clearly has a preference of who he’d rather deal with. The press complaint of Romney’s Poland visit says that an aid had a meltdown. Here’s what happened: they were having a sacred moment at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Rather than respecting the people and the moment, US press people called out rude, taunting “questions,” and were called on it at least twice before the aid used an expletive in pointing out their inappropriateness. That’s what the press thinks Romney should be embarrassed about?

Concerning the cluelessness of the media, radio host Hugh Hewitt says in his July 31^st blog:

Press reaction to Romney's trip will make a great study in the years ahead on just how clueless and inept political reporters have become as a result on their dependency on each other and cable commentary to shape their world view. They don't talk to voters and they don't live among voters. Thus they invent stories that didn't happen and wouldn't matter if they did—a failed trip—even as they miss major events—Romney's speech in Israel—or major trends—the backlash against the enforcers threatening Chick-fil-A.

Meanwhile, back at campaign headquarters, here’s a chart showing money Obama et al. have poured into negative ads (because they can’t very well make ads about his record):

 

And this week Romney came out with this beautifully positive ad, called “Believe in Our Future”:

Media Misinformation

My purpose in this blog about the Spherical Model is to raise awareness of the freedom and economic success that come from living civilizing principles. My purpose in spending time here talking about the political primaries has been to offer an alternative to the right/left way of looking at political philosophies.

A major concern I’ve had so far in this political season has been getting to the truth. So often what is common knowledge just isn’t so. I’m not an investigative journalist, so sometimes I can’t get to the truth either; I can only ask questions to raise awareness that we’re not getting it.

Over the weekend I came across a little piece about media bias. The Center for Media at George Mason University did a study, measuring positive vs. negative reports on candidates at the three major news networks. Here are the percentages.

                  Candidate           % of Stories Positive       % of Stories Negative
                    Mitt Romney                    22%                                78%
                    Newt Gingrich                 52%                                48%
                    Rick Santorum                56%                                44%
                    Jon Huntsman                71%                                29%
                    Ron Paul                           73%                                27%

The study reveals that, the more viable and electable the media perceives the candidate, the more negative the portrayal.

What about Fox News, with their (probably inaccurate in relation to actual news reporting) conservative viewpoint? On their “Special Report” they portrayed Mitt Romney negatively 63% of the time and positively 37% of the time. Overall Fox News was found most balanced, with 52% positive and 48% negative stories.

Is it possible that there is that much actual negative to tell about Romney? When you look at the stories, the negatives are repeated until they are believed true. I’ve been through most of them in this blog, and most of the negatives are verifiably false.

Romney is consistently more conservative than Newt Gingrich, using their own words and their own records. Romney has lived as a cultural conservative his entire life and has a flawless record against abortion and for marriage, according to the most powerful voices on those issues. (Maggie Gallagher of National Organization for Marriage recently defended Romney, based on her personal work with him in Massachusetts.) Romney worked with an 85% liberal legislature and was able to balance the state budget, recover from deficit, and do it without raising taxes, which is downright amazing.

His state had a problem with health care funding, like many other states, because the federal government requires medical care of the uninsured, and people take advantage of that. The solution he wanted was to encourage more people to buy health insurance, through free-market incentives and state subsidies for low income earners, using existing private insurance sources. He nearly succeeded, but the leftists in his state insisted on changing incentives into penalties (what is called the mandate). And this is his Achilles heel?

What would Gingrich have done in a similar situation? First, he couldn’t have persuaded Massachusetts voters to let him try anything, because, using elementary school language, he doesn't play well with others. Second, according to his own words, his favorite presidents are FDR, Woodrow Wilson, and Teddy Roosevelt; he would have been philosophically comfortable with government-imposed programs.

The stories surrounding last week’s attack piece on Newt in the form of an interview with wife number two seemed orchestrated to give sympathy to Newt (and indeed contributed to an astounding shift in the South Carolina polls of 20 percentage points within half a week). Apparently the big accusation was whether Newt had asked wife #2 for an open marriage; but, while that sounds despicable to moral people and we’re willing to believe Newt when he says he didn’t ask for such a thing—the fact remains that he did want an open marriage, defined as having sex with someone in addition to his wife, because he was doing that without asking. That was kind of lost on the SC audience, which seemed titillated by the takedown Newt did on the debate moderator for daring to ask the question on everyone’s mind.

We like to think of ourselves as forgiving. I’m willing to believe Newt and wife Callista are contrite for the adultery they in fact committed—at the very time Newt was prosecuting Bill Clinton for his lies about adultery. But there is a difference between forgiving and trusting. Newt himself explained his behavior as a result of loving America too much. Well, the fact is, he hasn’t had a position of power since then to test his resolve to change. We can forgive his past massive sins without offering him our support as the most powerful leader in the world. Maybe we should even consider it our Christian duty not to put him in a position where he might be tempted beyond his strength to resist. In short, I have a hard time supporting a serial adulterer to represent our efforts toward civilization against a post-constitutional socialist who appears to be a good husband and father.

If we could just get the full truth about Romney, I believe we would see a preponderance of positives. And if we could just get the full truth about Gingrich, I believe we would see a preponderance of negatives. When we go up against the most negative president in my lifetime, I would prefer to do it with someone on the positive side of the balance sheet.