Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Politics

  • Guard Your Mind

    20My child, pay attention to my words,
    Listen closely to my sayings.

    21Don’t let them escape from your sight,
    Guard them deep in your mind.

    22For those who find them find life,
    They bring healing to the whole person.

    23Above everything guard your mind*,
    Because from it flows your life.

    24Turn your mouth away from crooked speech,
    And keep lying speech far from your lips.

    25Keep your eyes looking straight down the path,
    And gaze only at what lies ahead.

    26Clear the path your feet must follow,
    and all your ways will be firm and safe.

    27Don’t turn to the right or the left,
    Keep your feet away from evil. — Proverbs 4:20-27 (my free translation)

    * Literally heart. In this case the seat of thoughts, wisdom, and rational processes.

    One of the things that I notice in American culture, and particularly in the church is that people are not discriminating in what they read, hear, and watch. I’m not pushing censorship, or heavy limitations on what you give a listen or look to, but rather with how you listen or look.

    Ads on television, for example, are designed to leave you with an impression. If you actually watch most TV ads, and analyze the words and the information content, you’ll find that there is very little there. A certain insurance company informs you that by spending 15 minutes on their web site, you could save 15% or more on your insurance. Now you really haven’t learned that much new, have you? It didn’t say you would. It couldn’t. The company doesn’t know how much you’re currently spending. But their intention is to leave you with the connection between their brand name and saving money. I don’t object to them doing that–it’s what advertising on television is about, and they’ve been very successful at it.

    Political and church ads are very similar. An ad from my denomination (United Methodist) informs viewers that our hearts, our minds, and our doors are open. What exactly does that tell you? Really very little. Again, the idea is to place in your mind a connection between the church and welcoming. In practice you will find somewhat varying levels of welcome in different United Methodist churches, which should be no surprise. Methodist churches, like all others, have people in them, and people aren’t always the same.

    Political ads are very much the same. Have you noticed how hard it is to find concrete information on a candidate? You have to go to a variety of issue related web sites, various journalistic sites, and so forth, then you have to evaluate your various sources, because they each have their own agenda, and finally, if you put in the effort, you may be able to get a substantial picture of a particular politician.

    Why is this? The politician is counting on a large enough number of voters not checking them out thoroughly. They want to create a particular impression. Why is it that negative political ads tend to work, even though substantial percentages of voters claim not to like them? Because the impression is left. Normally we take breaks during television ads. We see them out of the corners of our eyes, and we don’t concentrate on them. “Who could?” you say. True, but by looking but not thinking, we allow the impression the ad maker desires to get into our minds. The handsome candidate in front of his church with his perfectly angelic kids is giving us the impression that he’s a family man with family values. His opponent might show his image with various other scenes along with it–scenes of guys with cards in a smoke filled room, of money being exchanged in a furtive way, or of other negative images. It won’t matter if the man is really the someone who launders money and makes shady deals in smoke filled roooms, nor whether or not he actually is a church-going family man. The point is that his image is associated with that particular image in enough people’s minds. And believe me, if you don’t actually give full consideration to the candidate and factual information about him or her, you will be influenced by the image.

    I refuse to vote based on my image at the time. I look up each and every candidate and find as much hard data about him or her as I possibly can. I make lists. Then my wife and I sit down and compare notes. Sometimes one of us will have found information that the other missed, or will see a flaw in some plan that the other didn’t notice. We sit down with the complete sample ballot and look at each item. Sometimes we find we’re going to vote different ways. Sometimes we change our minds. But we guard our path carefully and keep focused on the right way, looking for the truth to the best of our ability.

    Christians face another trap–the piety trap. By this I don’t mean that you want to avoid candidates who tell you they are Christian. But as the saying goes you can walk into a garage, but it doesn’t make you a car, and you can walk into a church, but it doesn’t make you a Christian. Even further, we know that being a Christian does not make you perfect, and we have many fallen Christian leaders as examples. We also have many Christian politicians who have not behaved in an exemplary fashion. Claims and associations do not guarantee good character.

    I have seen this come up in business as well. I once was contacted by a man who was creating a Christian business directory for the area. He told me he thought that Christians should give their business to other Christians. He was quite put out when I told him I was all about being in contact with people who were not Christians. I had no problem doing business with people of other faiths or of no faith at all.

    But I’m most concerned with the reverse. There are many fads and scams out there, and they offend me, because they prey on people in need. Just join our marketing scheme, they tell you, and you will become healthy, wealthy, and wise. I do not mean to disparage all business opportunities for all people. You need to exercise judgment here as well. There might be that business opportunity that is just right for you. But check it our very thoroughly. Talk to other businessmen. Check small business support organizations in your area.

    What does this have to do with Christianity? Well, some scam artists know very well that there are vulnerable Christians who are in need, and if they just suggest that this is God’s plan, and that they are simply fine Christian people sharing God’s blessings with you, they will seem very safe. But many, many people have lost huge sums of money by investing it in supposedly “Christian” scams. The claim of being a Christian is not proof that one is honest; it is even less relevant to the claim of being wise.

    Don’t go with the impressions! Seek the facts. Apply wisdom. Let God’s wisdom into your heart and guard your paths. The book of Proverbs is in the Bible for a reason. God has given you a brain. Use it!

  • Good Judgment and Iraq War Flip-Flops

    I’m watching the list of GOP legislators who are breaking with President Bush on the war in Iraq with mixed emotions. On the one hand it’s nice to see people realizing that we are trying to force our military to accomplish the impossible. On the other hand, I have to ask why they are doing this and what changed their minds.

    According to an MSNBC story:

    More than a dozen Republican senators who are running for re-election next year head the list of lawmakers to watch. But others, too, have expressed concerns that the GOP has grown increasingly vulnerable on the issue. As the clock ticks toward Election Day, voter pressure is building against any lawmaker still standing with President Bush on the war.

    So what’s driving these defections? Is it a sudden realization that they were wrong about the original invasion? Is it an attack of strategic good sense, in which one examines the goals and the means available to accomplish them and then reassesses the appropriate use of one’s resources?

    Well, no. The legislators in question are in election campaigns. They are watching Bush’s popularity drop, and they feel the need to get out.

    The wildcards in the debate are senators, like Roberts, Stevens and Chambliss, who have staunchly defended Bush but are watching his poll numbers drop.

    Now my question is this: How will the voters react to a flip-flop to get out of Iraq just because of the poll numbers? Shouldn’t the voters in those districts have expected these legislators, who after all have research staffs and access to much sensitive information, to have made a better judgment call in the first place? And if the Iraq war was a good idea, as these senators seem to think (or have thought, at least), why is it now a good idea to pull out after thousands of casualties? If the goal is attainable, as they apparently used to think, shouldn’t one put in the resources and accomplish things? If it is not attainable, what has happened in the last few months that would change that assessment?

    I personally believe the goal of a united, democratic, and secure Iraq was never attainable in the first place, and if we did invade, that should not have been one of our aims. I’d say that the last four years lines up with my assessment. But this is not just my assessment. There are plenty of experts on the region who were prepared to say this and back up their claims before the invasion. In comparison to other wars, and in relation to the war aims, this one has not gone all that badly. In fact, I personally expected it to go a bit worse. The government building efforts have gone better than I would have expected, though not enough better to change my mind in favor of the war. I have been hoping from the start that I would be proven wrong, but time is not doing so. It is so tragic to have these numbers of deaths without success. But the bottom line is that the “Iraqi people” would need to bear the major burden of creating a free, democratic, and secure nation, and there isn’t even a truly definable “Iraqi people,” and to the extent we can imagine such an entity, their goals are not our goals.

    I welcome the idea that we will have an effort to withdraw troops. I just think these senators who have supported the war up to now and are switching in the face of opinion polls do not have the courage of their own bad judgment. They hope to place all the blame on President Bush, who is term limited, and somehow to escape their own responsibility. I hope the voters don’t let them by with it.

  • The Wrong Way to Repair the Election Process

    Over the last couple of decades we have had two major movements designed to make our election process more responsive to the public and to try to make the American people less cynical. The first is campaign finance reform, and the second is term limits. It’s interesting that in both cases we propose to make the system freer by restricting it. Sometimes paradoxical approaches like that work. Neither of these is one of those cases.

    Robert Samuelson has an excellent column on campaign finance reform on MSNBC. He points out that there is no evidence that campaign finance reform has actually improved anything. This could have been predicted without all the cost of doing studies.

    From the time of the founding fathers we have realized that free speech was the best way to give ideas a hearing. Speech has always had its costs. I have to pay for the server on which this blog is hosted. Others who use free services only have to pay a cost in the time they take to produce the information. One of the major premises underlying campaign finance reform is that speech, particularly political speech, should not only be free, it should be paid for. In some countries, this is accomplished by providing time on publicly owned media, or by requiring the media to give certain amounts of time to certain candidates. Here, we have simply tried to keep down the spending–with essentially no success.

    This lack of success is a good thing. It means that Americans don’t take well to being told they have to shut up. Why should I not be permitted to express my views on the election in the public media by buying ad space if I want to. What possible public interest is served by this?

    The complaint is that major corporations buy elections. But with the multiple sources of information available today suggest to me that the only thing that would allow anyone to buy an election is the laziness and apathy of the voters. Surprise folks! Politicians will keep on doing the things you reward them for. If you re-elect them after they have done unethical things, they will believe you don’t care, for no better reason than that you have shown them you don’t care. If you re-elect them based on negative ads about their opponents, they will believe that negative ads work, again for no better reason than that they do work.

    We can make law after law, but none of those laws will fix the basic problem if the American people don’t pay attention to the election, don’t use the sources of information available to them, and don’t get out and vote. It’s amazingly ironic that probably the most empowered people in the history of the world–potentially–sit around at home and whine about not being able to change things.

    Heightened regulation of the flow of information is no way to fix and election, or rather, it will tend to provide a way to fix it (pun intended). What all these regulations do is reduce the power of the people and increase the power of lawyers and regulators. Let’s cast a vote for voter responsibility and empowerment. Limit terms–vote the guys out. Manage campaign money–give to the candidate of your choice. Manage campaign advertising–reward and punish the folks who lie in campaign ads.

    It’s up to us.

  • July 4

    I’m not doing a separate post her for July 4. I posted a story on my Jevlir Caravansary posing some questions about obedience, patriotism, and morality. You can post any comments about not quitting my day job there!

  • Sensible Candidate Selection

    I found this article on ethics and choosing candidates while preparing Christian Carnival #179 over on my Participatory Bible Study Blog.

    Jeremy is discussing the issue of voting for a candidate who holds a position you might regard as immoral, for example a pro-lifer voting for a pro-choice candidate such as Rudy Giuliani, because the alternative would be worse. Many Christian pro-lifers would say that they could never vote for someone like that, but Jeremy thinks there is a good ethical basis to choose otherwise.

    I found his reasoning both interesting and helpful, because I so rarely find a candidate I actually like. There is always a question of who is better, or perhaps who is “less worse.” Jeremy formalizes and makes sense of the ethical reasoning involved.

    Check it out.

  • Libby Sentence Commuted

    According to the Washington Post, President Bush has commuted former Cheney aid I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. He left intact probation provisions and the fine.

    I greet this news with mixed emotions. On the one hand I’m tired of lengthy investigations in Washington that produce nothing but convictions for lying to investigators and grand juries. Consider what happened to President Clinton under those circumstances. At the same time, lying to investigators is a pretty serious problem, and what’s more, in this case the issue is the leaking of an important piece of classified information. With Cheney’s office right now behaving as though they are above the law on that point, I dislike sending the signal that this type of behavior is OK.

    For the most part, it appears that nobody will be held responsible for the actual crime.

  • Government Regulated Media != Free Media

    The following from YouTube illustrates why I simply don’t trust politicians for anything. There being a perceived imbalance in talk radio in favor of conservatives, to which I say “Who cares?”, a number of liberals are now calling for government control, obviously because we all know that the government is always fair in the way it handles information.

    Here’s Sen. John Kerry:

    Sorry, no points for you Senator. It’s still free speech, even when people say things you don’t like. It’s still free speech, even when people pay for speech you don’t like. Get over it!

  • Great Moments of (choose your label) Hypocrisy

    Fellow philophronos blogger Laura has made a number of excellent points in a post titled Great Moments in Conservative Hypocrisy. Now I’m not linking back so I can crow and say, “See! Those conservatives were hypocrites all along, and finally one of them is recognizing it!”

    First, I would have to note that I can’t bring up a case of Laura herself being hypocritical about any of these issues. That aside, however, I can mirror image most of her points. Let me just note one on abortion and one on free speech. I believe abortion should be legal. But others who would agree with me on that point tried for years to use the RICO laws (note libertarian Ed Brayton’s comments) against those who opposed abortion. It was an illegal trick to prevent legal protest. I don’t want to take the time to mirror every one, but I’m pretty sure I could. Many liberals are strongly in support of free speech when pornography is involved, but not so happy with it when hate speech is involved. (Let me note that I support free speech in all cases short of incitement.)

    In addition, there is the matter of procedural issues. For example, partisans on both sides are much more favorable to the electoral college (it’s the law!) when their party will benefit from an electoral college with combined with a popular loss, but they don’t like it when their candidate loses (it’s unfair!). Thorough senate review of judicial candidates is good when the other side is nominating, but the senate should only consider qualifications when your own side is monitoring. This has been repeatedly demonstrated by both conservatives and liberals, resulting, I believe, in a number of mediocre choices, folks whose decision and publication record was minimal, and thus provided less of a target during confirmation hearings.

    So Laura’s point is well aimed, but I want to help aim it at both sides of the aisle. We need to be consistent on all of this.

  • Two Cows

    I think I first saw this thing about two cows several years ago, but there have been several more instances added in this version. Some of the new ones are even funnier than the earlier ones. It looks like people have just been tacking examples on the end. (HT: 42)

  • Richardson Misunderstands Diplomacy

    This story and video shows why Richardson really doesn’t understand how diplomacy actually works. He’s going to withdraw all the troops and then he’s going to go seriously into diplomacy.

    Let’s not make a mistake about this. When we withdraw from Iraq, we’re going to lose most of our ability to impact the country diplomatically. What some people refuse to understand is that there are people in the world whose motivations are not good, who are not going to be persuaded by our good arguments, and who prefer killing us to peace. Once the threat of force is gone, countries like Syria and Iran will have no reason to cooperate.

    The threat of sanctions is futile and always has been. The sanctions will leak, and Iran (the sanctions target specified by Richardson) will go right on doing what they intended to do all along.

    I support withdrawing from Iraq, but I do so because we cannot create a democratic Iraq through military means. We are now pursuing a goal we cannot accomplish. It’s not because our troops are not good; it’s because a unified and democratic Iraq is simply contrary to the nature of the country itself. We need to withdraw for two reasons: 1) People are dying for an impossible goal–horrible strategy, tragic reality; and 2) We need those troops to take action elsewhere. We need them, for example, as a credible threat to add to the negotiating mix with Iran, amongst many other things.

    The idea that we’ll pull out our troops and then settle in to serious diplomacy is absolutely ludicrous. After the withdrawal we aren’t going to have any chips to throw into the game in Iraq. It appears some politicians are living in dreamland and don’t have the courage to recognize the negative side effects of their policies.