… through politics (HT to myself at Under Christ’s Archy).
Category: Politics
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Fact Checking and Opinions
I’ve previously said a few good things about fact checking operations such as Politifact, but I’ve also noticed a few questionable items where opinion interfered with facts.
But today I read the article Lies, Damned Lies, and ‘Fact Checking’, and having looked into this a bit further, I must say that the few issues I have found personally with the service are not really representative of the facts. There is, in fact, quite a serious problem here.
The errors that Hemingway points out are of the same type as I have noticed, but his stories make it clear that the problem is much more pervasive.
It is, however, a very easy problem to spot and to correct for. The issue here is being able to distinguish between fact, theory, and opinion. As I’m using these terms here, that means between the data on which one’s opinions are based, theories that connect these facts together, and opinions, which are built on the previous two.
Some might question my distinction of theory and opinion, but I would maintain it is a valid one. Theories provide a consistent way in which we tie various facts together. A theory can be checked against another one by how well each theory explains the facts at hand.
Fact checking is important, and I think it is what an organization like Politifact should do. I do believe that in many cases they do check facts. But they also treat their own opinions as better facts than those of the people they “check.” There is a certain amount of journalistic arrogance involved in that. Who checks the journalists?
Read the complete article. I found myself in agreement with this article in general. The one issue I have is one I have not myself done enough research on. The question is just how valid a favorable and unfavorable story count is in determining bias. I think it has to be corrected based on who is providing the most opportunities.
For example, I would expect a greater number of fact checks done on Republicans right now due to the presidential debate. They are simply making more claims. This doesn’t mean that the balance is not biased. I haven’t made a count that would let me say something like that. It just makes me take the claim of bias with a grain of salt.
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Controlling the Money Means Controlling the Speech
Image via Wikipedia … and this amendment will limit free speech. I understand the concern, but I believe that people gathered together in groups must have the same freedom, insofar as possible, as individuals. I don’t think creating greater government control is going to have the effect that people desire.
We keep creating government agencies, such as the FEC, to regulate various activities, and then we’re surprised when the people with the resources get control. It’s inevitable. It simply makes it much more complicated to run an election campaign, and much more dangerous to comment on government during an election, when such comment is most necessary.
The proper response to corporate money is for people to get together and use what they do have to communicate the message and get others involved in the process. I’m not a fan of the big corporations either, but I see the largest problem as the fact that they tend to control the regulatory agencies intended to regulate them. Once you have big money combined with the power of government, you are much worse off.
Related articles
- Occupy Boston Court Decision: Occupation is Not Speech (my.firedoglake.com)
- Assemble Freely, Lose Your Rights (forbes.com)
- Missouri: Apologies to Government Leaders … and Student Speech (ammori.org)
- Is Spending Speech? (aphilosopher.wordpress.com)
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Polls and Headline Writing
Image via Wikipedia . . . or how to lie with headlines.
I get very annoyed with the reporting of polls. One way to create news is to incorrectly headline or even incorrectly describe polling data.
For example, CNN uses the headline Poll: Romney & Gingrich Tied for Top Spot in reporting on the latest USA Today/Gallup poll regarding the Republican presidential race. In the text they explain that Romney and Gingrich are at 20% and 19% respectively, that this is well within the margin of error of the poll (+/- four percentage points), and is thus essentially a tie. The number part of this is essentially correct.
Then they say that Cain is following close behind, but they don’t point out at this point that Cain’s 16% is also within the sampling error of both of the leading candidates, or rather, that the probable range of Cain’s percentages largely overlaps those of the leading two candidates.
The margin of error provides a range within which the real percentage of the whole population is likely to fall. If you go to the Gallup site for this poll you’ll find that the confidence level is 95%, in other words, there is a 95% probability that each candidates percentage of the real population falls within +/- 4 percentage points of the poll’s result. Thus there is a 95% change that Cain’s percentage is between 12% & 20%, that Gingrich’s is between 15% & 23%, and that Romney’s is between 16% & 24%.
If you’re wondering why the polls seem to swing quite a lot among the leaders, this would be your explanation. If in a future poll, the number varies by less than four percentage points, that number would not necessarily reflect any change in that particular candidate’s support.
Essentially, the news writers can produce the story they want. It’s possible (though with multiple polls showing him dropping, it’s not likely) that Cain could still be leading this.
Now this particular headline may seem minor. But if you examine the headlines after just about any poll you’ll find that different news services spin the results differently, and that by reading the headlines and the first few paragraphs, you’ll get a somewhat different picture than you would if you read to the end of the story, or even better, go to the source of the poll.
In this story, while we are told that the difference between Romney and Gingrich falls “well within the poll’s sampling error” in the second paragraph, we don’t find the actual margin of error (+/- four percentage points) until the very last sentence. At that point, if we look back, we can see that Cain is also within that margin of error, or rather that the intervals of all three top candidates overlap considerably.
(For a write-up on this, see the Wikipedia article Margin of Error.)
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To the IRD: Democracy is Biblical?
Mark Tooley of the Institute for Religion and Democracy thinks that religious leaders should not be supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement:
“Religious activists who have aligned with the Wall Street Occupation should model mature Christian discernment, not echo angry resentments that dream of a secular utopia.”
That quote is highlighted at the top of the IRD statement titled IRD Challenges Religious Left over Support for Wall Street Occupation (HT: Christian Post).
Now I have reservations about religious leaders becoming tightly connected to a particular political movement. I think it is way too easy to let our commitment to the kingdom of God be hijacked by various political agendas.
But that’s not IRD’s point. They believe that the agenda of these leaders in the religious left is, in itself, not biblical. Their own statement says, “The Institute on Religion & Democracy works to reaffirm the church’s biblical and historical teachings, strengthen and reform its role in public life, protect religious freedom, and renew democracy at home and abroad.” In fact, if you look over your web site, it becomes apparent they have their own political agenda, for example on the death penalty, in which Mark Tooley again suggests that only those supporting the death penalty are presenting “careful reasoning rooted in Christian tradition . . . ”
If one believes Mark Tooley, those who show “mature Christian discernment” apparently must support democracy, but oppose big government, and particularly redistribution of income. Now while I am leary myself of schemes to redistribute income, I do not make the assumption that my own political position is the only Christian one. I believe that God calls us to care for the poor and unfortunate; he has not told us in scripture the precise method to use.
And please tell me just where it is that the Bible supports democracy. I have heard this over and over, yet I don’t see any case where democracy in any form recognizably similar to modern democracy, was practiced or advocated. Might it be the best way to run a country in which one may live as a Christian? I would imagine so. I like it myself. But the Bible doesn’t make that the one and only Christian option.
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The Dominionism Debate Continues
Joel Watts and Peter Kirk are at it about dominionism, and now a book I publish, The Politics of Witness, is getting a place in the debate.
I have a couple of problems with the title “dominionist.” First, in response to Joel, I think it is important to make distinctions between different viewpoints, even when we see some relations. Similarity is not the same as equality. I object when the right wing calls President Obama a socialist, because I think that blurs the distinction between his mixed approach to the economy and that of a real socialist. I also object when someone who thinks more Christians in office would be a good thing is equated to R.J. Rushdoony. I’ve read the latter; the two ideas are different.
Second, my problem with the label “dominionist” is simply that I don’t see a reasonably defined movement that should all be painted (tarred?) with the same brush. It seems to me that the label is covering more people than deserve it, at a minimum.
I’m going to write a bit more in a few days as I write one of my posts reflecting on publishing a new book, this time on The Politics of Witness. I am not favorable to the idea that we need to get more Christians in office. Personally, my voting is religiously neutral. There are many Christians for whom I would never vote. There are atheists for whom I would. I am never favorably impressed when a candidate puts his or her “born again” status front and center. I’ll explain why this is my position in that future post.
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Unity of Love – Unity of Hate
There are plenty of posts going up today commemorating the events of September 11, 2001. I do remember where I was. I was hoping to sleep in for some reason (usually late working or reading), and was awakened by being told there was something I just had to see. On the TV was a picture of smoke coming from the towers.
I did not lose any closer friends or family on that day. There is that sense of national loss, but I would not compare that to the loss of those whose loss was personal and direct.
In the days following I watched as our country pulled together, found a new unity, and came closer to God. I have also watched much of that unity evaporate, along with much of closeness and new spirituality that came out of the event. We saw heroes arise in unlikely (and some likely!) places: First responders of all varieties, our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines, and thousands of civilians who just happened to be at the right place.
Good things can come out of evil deeds. They never justify the evil deeds. They are part of how we try to build and make a better world, part of how we deal with grief, fear, and the disruption of our lives.
One thing that can result from a threat is unity. People who are under a common threat tend to grow together as they face it, at least as long as the threat is current and real. And unity is a good thing. At least it is some of the time.
I’ve found that many vices are simply virtues that have gotten tainted by something else. For example, there is discernment, a good thing (Heb. 5:14). On the other hand, there is judgment (Matt. 7:1-5), which I think might be discernment mixed with pride or self-righteousness and directed at others.
In the case of unity, there is that unity that comes of our love for one another, and that results in a loving group reaching out to others (1 John 4:7-21). This is the kind of unity we Christians are supposed to seek. You could call this a unity of inclusion.
Then there is that unity in which fear brings us together to hold others at arm’s length or even to attack them and to seek revenge. You could call this a unity of exclusion.
You could also call the first a unity of love, and the second a unity of hate.
Now it happens I am not a pacifist. I am, in fact, a veteran, and proud to be able to say so. But violence, or any kind of force, is a blunt and dangerous activity. It has a tendency to go beyond itself, to breed new and greater dangers, and to fail to accomplish its intended goals. Remember World War I, the war to end all wars?
I don’t believe that a unity of inclusion means an absence of defense. I believe there is evil, and there are evil people. Against such, action may be necessary. But my belief that violent action—by nature dangerous even to those who use it—may be necessary leads me to support a unity of inclusion even more strongly.
I believe that it is only by rejecting revenge that we can successfully apply the necessary actions to evil people. Hate will rot out the good structure of unity and cause us to choose actions that are unnecessary and that only breed more problems. Hate will also change us in ways that are hard to predict, and never good. Hate may see true enemies; in fact, it often does. But it also makes us see enemies where there might be potential friends.
Are there people who will hate us no matter what we do? I suspect so. But there are also people who may be angry at us for good reasons, and if we could look at ourselves closely enough and carefully enough, we might just be able to change that.
I would like to see us reexamine ourselves as a nation and see if the changes we see after 9/11/2001 make us the people we want to be. For a few days right now we’re going to be more unified. We’ll see people like George W. Bush and President Obama on a platform together.
But it won’t be long until we’re sniping at one another again. Peace and unity may only last for hours. So now is the time to ask ourselves this: Do we like what we are becoming?
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Dominionists, Dominionisimists, Theonomists and Political Labels
If you’re expecting me to do a rundown on the definitions of all of these terms, then you’ll be disappointed. There’s plenty of writing trying to define the terms. Jeremy Pierce wrote the key post discussing “dominionismism,” titled simply Dominionismists. In it, he compares those who are concerned about dominionism with Birthers and Truthers. On the other hand Chip Berlet, (Inside the Christian Right Dominionist Movement that’s Undermining Democracy) amongst many others, sees this as a quite clearly defined movement that is “undermining democracy.”
I don’t deny that there is a certain hysteria involved from time to time, but I think there is a much different sort of dynamic involved in mislabeling some people as dominionists, and even in trying to find a specific theological stream of movement that can properly be labeled “dominionist.” I would suggest that the fundamental problems here are different, and they are ones that regularly occur in discussing political and religious movements, doubly so when discussing a movement that is both religious and political.
First, relatively few journalists or commentators have a serious understanding of theology or of the details of Christian movements. Even many theologians don’t really understand the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements all that well. Thus they have a hard time understanding things such as spiritual warfare or claiming dominion over territories in a spiritual sense, or what they mean by calling something demonic.
Second, there are quite a few things that might be regarded as demonic. I believe in trying to be conscious of variations in belief. Few beliefs really exist in binary form. You can almost always find a spectrum. There are those who believe in demons, and those who don’t. But between those points there are very different beliefs about the demonic realm. Some who believe in demons actually simply take them as a sort of short hand for evil tendencies of movements. Others see actual, intelligent spiritual beings behind almost everything that happens. Failing to differentiate between those views will result in mislabeling and misunderstanding.
Third, political labels are dangerous. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those folks who things labels are unimportant. We have to use labels to communicate. The problem with political labels is not that they are a bad idea in general, but rather that they are normally used manipulatively. This shouldn’t be surprising, considering the political process.
The reason I don’t like political labels and use four to describe myself in the header of this blog, is not that labels are bad, but rather because I don’t quite fit into a movement. I have aspects of the four labels I use in my belief system, but I haven’t invented a single term. “Passionate moderate” is the closest I can come to one.
But in politics labels are used more as accusations. Again, using an example from my header, “liberal charismatic” was bestowed on me by an opponent who disliked me a great deal. He disliked both liberals and charismatics, and used the label to express the extreme dislike for my views. And, quite frankly, he was closer to right than he knew.
But in politics, labels are extended by association. Let’s suppose we have a politician who is a Christian evangelical, and believes that the gospel of the kingdom should be preached in all the world. To him, evangelism is a good word. He believes everyone should have the chance to accept the gospel, and would be happy if they all did. Christian readers will recognize this as a fairly standard Christian view. For reasons that will become apparent, I’m going to label this guy X.
So X has friends and associates, and he reads books. He reads books by people who are more conservative than he is. He goes to a church where the general position of the congregation is to his right. The members and the pastor believe that one should vote for people who are Christians or Jews, i.e. have a “Judeo-Christian ethic.” We’re going to call the pastor Y.
Now Y also reads books and associates with various people, whose average position is to the right of X’s friends, though there is considerable overlap. He has a friend we’ll call Z who read R. J. Rushdoony in college (incidentally so did I, for that matter), and who recommends reading Rushdoony frequently and publicly. Z doesn’t actually agree with everything that Rushdoony has to say, but he agrees with many things, and things it’s a good idea for people to hear these ideas and give them consideration.
So X runs for office, and the press starts looking through his record and associates, and they find Y and then they realize he also has a connection with Z. How many sermons has he heard that might have quotes from Rushdoony? Who really is X anyhow? Perhaps they even have a label that now includes all three.
But despite going to a church pastored by Y, and perhaps even reading a book recommended by Z, X doesn’t believe that only Christians or even only Christians and Jews should hold office, nor does he accept a significant portion of Rushdoony’s positions.
At the same time, people on the far right, which we’ll define for purposes of this post as people to the right of Z, have a very different agenda. They’re looking at Z and are wondering if he’s really on their side. They find that he goes to a church pastored by Y, who won’t recommend reading Rushdoony, even though he acknowledges having read some things by him, and they discover that he meets with X who, horror of horrors, says he might vote for a Muslim or an Atheist, provided he agreed with them on the important issues. So Z, who thinks only Christians should hold office, gets labeled as a leftist.
Now whether “dominionist” is a good label or not, I’m not absolutely certain. Personally, I don’t need it, and don’t quite see how it could be properly defined. I’d like to find a group of people who actually espouse a label such as that. I can oppose people based on easier to discover issues. For example, those who oppose equal rights for gays and lesbians, espouse what I see as an extreme view on abortion laws, or oppose freedom of expression won’t get my vote.
Some of those folks may fall into the category of “dominionist,” but I find it both much harder, and of much less practical value, to try to figure out the boundaries and the membership of such a group.
Oh, and the big difference I see between this a Birthers or Truthers is that one is falsehood in clear black and white, while this tends to be more of a fogging of differences between various people.
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A Comedian Shall Lead Them?
“Them,” in this case being the media. I’m not about to start recommending Jon Stewart as a balanced news source, but he has definitely put his finger on some things, and often comedy gets closer to the truth than anything else in our political system. And while I disagree with Ron Paul on a number of issues (generally social issues), he’s got some good points that deserve to be heard.
