Three news stories neatly show why America is having problems. Each shows a different version of the same problem: faulty thinking.
The first: Bryce Dejean-Jones was fatally shot while breaking into a Dallas-area apartment. So, what was a famous NBA basketball player just at the brink of success doing breaking into someone's apartment? Well, he'd had a fight with a former girlfriend, and apparently thought he was breaking into her apartment. Wrong apartment! Just an honest mistake.
The news is full of his former team mates gushing about the tragic loss. I don't buy it. He got exactly what he deserved. If he'd busted into the right apartment and got shot, would that have been okay? Well, no. But what he actually did was even worse. A locked door means, "Keep out!" Only firemen and military commandos on active duty have the right to break into a locked apartment. Even the police need a search warrant. Anything else is Breaking and Entering, which is a felony. This is not rocket science. Even a famous athlete should be able to figure it out. Being shot by the victim while while in the act of committing a felony against them is not tragic. It's justice.
What's tragic is that there are people who think it's okay for a big, strong man to bust into someone's apartment if they have a disagreement with them, just because they can. That's called, "savagery."
The second news article involves a real savage-- an adult, male gorilla who was dragging around a four year old boy who had crawled into the gorilla exhibit at a zoo. The zoo's Emergency Team had to shoot the gorilla to save the life of the child. Predictably, animal rights nuts are calling this "murder" and demanding the arrest of those responsible. Let's get a few things straight.
1. Murder is the unwarranted killing of one human being by another. No human was killed; it was an animal. An intelligent, human-shaped one, but still an animal. In fact, a wild animal. The gorilla was not shot in anger, hatred, or for a trophy, but because he was endangering a human child in a zoo. If it had been a 400 pound man dragging the child around and endangering it's life, and the SWAT team had shot him, it still wouldn't be murder. The only relevant factor was the danger to the child.
2. The child was not supposed to be in the gorilla exhibit, but had squeezed into the enclosure, attracted by the gorilla, no doubt. In doing so, he had acted exactly like a four year old child. Can't blame him for that! Must be the parents' fault, right? Ever taken a small child to the zoo? Most of the enclosures are there to protect the animals from the people! Zoo designers go to fantastic lengths to make it impossible for people (including four-year-olds) to get into the cages. In the hundred year history of the zoo, no one had ever managed it before! Nope.
Nobody felt good about killing the gorilla. Nobody is blaming the zoo, or the child. It was an accident. But the safety of the child, even a wayward one, trumps all other considerations.
Speaking of Trump, this brings up my third news story. Donald Trump's Presidential campaign is bankrupt. Financially, not just logically. He wants the Republican Party to bankroll him from now until the Convention, even though he recently publicly assured the party, "We have money."
If they buy it, this will be the FIFTH time Donald Trump has used bankruptcy to force someone else to pick up the tab for his mismanagement of his ventures. The other four were business ventures, and some of them are still going through the courts as we write this.
The purpose of our bankruptcy laws is to allow those who inadvertently get in over their heads a chance to pay off their debts as best they can, and have that accepted as "good enough." They were never intended to give billionaires a free ride by saving them from the consequences of their own poor decisions.
Misusing laws like this is properly called "cheating." That's what we call it if a person who is on Welfare "works the system" to make more money than they could expect to get from employment. That's what we call it when a person uses tax "loopholes" they are not entitled to, in order to reduce their tax burden. And that's what it should be called when a candidate outflanks the competition by spending all his campaign money months too early, and then expects the RNC to pick up the tab for months of pre-Convention politicking, because he is "the presumptive Republican nominee."
That is properly called CHEATING. Mr. Trump seems to believe that it's okay if you can get away with it. Here's the logical flaw. Getting away with cheating is not the same as "not cheating." Getting away with lying is not the same as "honesty." Getting away with racism is not the same as "fairness." And not being proven wrong is not the same as being right.
All three of these logical flaws all boil down to the same idea: there IS such a thing as objective reality. Misdirected savagery is not tragic. It's EVIL. Killing an animal that is in the act of injuring a child is not "murder". It's NECESSARY. Getting away with wrong-doing is not innocence. It's CHEATING. Remember the old joke about, "If you call a cow's tail a leg, how many legs does a cow have?" The answer is, "FOUR, because calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg."
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Tempest in a Teapot?
Mormon writer and editor Kristine Haglund recently argued in a blog post that BYU should offer Honor Code amnesty in reporting sexual assault — a move sought in a petition signed by tens of thousands of individuals.
“After all, if a male student got shot at Starbucks,” she writes, “nobody would check to see if the cup he was drinking from at the time contained coffee [prohibited by the Honor Code] or hot cocoa.”
This seems reasonable enough, yet an over-riding principle of Western law is that another person’s crimes do not excuse yours. If you were in a car crash caused by another motorist, and you were subsequently discovered to have been driving while impaired, you would still be liable for the DUI, even though you were the victim of the accident.
What no one is saying is that the victim in this rape case has not been charged with any Honor Code violations, but is simply being looked into. Such an investigation should take into account that the accusation was made by a friend of the rapist, and only after the rape was reported. While Honor Code investigations are serious, they are not to be equated with rape. Calling this a “rape culture at BYU” suggests that rape is common or condoned there, neither of which is true.
In the practice of criminal law, minor infractions are often overlooked in the interest of solving a greater crime. The difference between the horrific felony of forcible rape and even a major Honor Code infraction is great enough that extending Honor Code amnesty to anyone reporting a sexual assault should certainly be appropriate, and would do much to dispel the myth of “rape culture”.
“After all, if a male student got shot at Starbucks,” she writes, “nobody would check to see if the cup he was drinking from at the time contained coffee [prohibited by the Honor Code] or hot cocoa.”
This seems reasonable enough, yet an over-riding principle of Western law is that another person’s crimes do not excuse yours. If you were in a car crash caused by another motorist, and you were subsequently discovered to have been driving while impaired, you would still be liable for the DUI, even though you were the victim of the accident.
What no one is saying is that the victim in this rape case has not been charged with any Honor Code violations, but is simply being looked into. Such an investigation should take into account that the accusation was made by a friend of the rapist, and only after the rape was reported. While Honor Code investigations are serious, they are not to be equated with rape. Calling this a “rape culture at BYU” suggests that rape is common or condoned there, neither of which is true.
In the practice of criminal law, minor infractions are often overlooked in the interest of solving a greater crime. The difference between the horrific felony of forcible rape and even a major Honor Code infraction is great enough that extending Honor Code amnesty to anyone reporting a sexual assault should certainly be appropriate, and would do much to dispel the myth of “rape culture”.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Discerning Truth from Lies
When opinions are sharply polarized and each side is sure that they are right, it can be very hard to separate truth from lies. Here are seven red flags to watch out for in the coming months.
NAME-CALLING
When logic and reason are insufficient or lacking, rhetoric often turns into personal attacks. Name-calling is a dead give-away. It can be as obvious as calling your opponent “a pig” or “a wacko.” Or, it may be more subtle. Instead of identifying your oponent by his or her correct title of Senator Smith or Doctor Jones, they may be identified as “Anti-LGBT spokesman George Smith”, or “Anti-gun advocate Judy Jones.” It’s still name-calling.
HIDDEN OPINIONS
The names above have something in common-- they are matters of the writer’s opinion, not facts that can be checked. This distinction is extremely important. If a person claims to be a medical doctor, that can be verified. Calling someone a “spokesman” or an “advocate”, however, is entirely a matter of the writer’s opinion. Who does he speak for? Who elected him spokesman? What is involved in being an “advocate”? We simply do not know, so there is no way to verify the statement. Watch out for opinions masquerading as facts and titles.
LOADED WORDS
Watch out too for words with strong connotations. A recent op-ed piece characterized another writer’s article as a “hoax”. This does not just mean it was incorrect. “Hoax” implies that the first writer was aware of the falsehood, and had something personal to gain by it, without actually calling the other writer a liar.
SPIN
Politicians frequently put bad spin on their opponents, while excusing themselves. For example:
I mis-spoke; he lied.
I missed an opportunity; he refused to do his job.
I was otherwise engaged; he failed to show up.
I made a mistake on my tax return; he cheated on his taxes.
I learned from my mistake; she flip-flopped. And so on.
Examine what both sides say about each other and about themselves, substituting a neutral term for both. This can produce interesting results. You may find that both candidates actually did the very same thing. Such research can be tiresome. An acceptable substitute may be to use a neutral, fact-checking website. Just make sure it really is neutral.
DISRESPECT
In the op-ed piece above, the first writer was a psychiatrist, head of Johns Hopkins University Psychology Department for forty years, and Chief Psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital for thirty years, yet the second writer, who has no medical credentials, never once referred to him as “Doctor.” Surely, one who has risen to the very top of a demanding profession and remained there for three or four decades has earned the right to their title! Such omission can only be construed as deliberate disrespect, perhaps to camouflage the difference in credentials between the two writers.
Similarly, you can often tell the party affiliation of political writers by how they refer to the President. Democrats call him, “President Obama”; Republicans just say, “Obama.” Surely a man who, overcoming tremendous odds, was twice elected President of the United States, deserves to have his title used in formal writing, even if you don’t like him.
NEGATIVE TONE
Those with logical arguments to make, make them, and usually do so calmly. Those who are short on logic stoop to demonization. Watch out for a negative tone. Pointing out your opponent’s errors is one thing, fault-finding and mud-slinging is another. A true statesman can recognize that there is more than one side to every issue, and does not need to demonize their opponent. If someone seems to be running an entirely “negative” campaign, it’s dollars to donuts that their logic account is bankrupt.
PROPAGANDA
Politicians are often accused of using propaganda. Actually, any communication designed to change your opinion is properly called propaganda. There are three main types, classified as white, black, and gray. White propaganda’s origin is clearly labeled, and it has a clear purpose. Gray propaganda is information of questionable origin or purpose that is never sourced, and whose accuracy is obviously doubtful. Black propaganda pretends to be “failed” white propaganda coming from the other side.
If Donald Trump were to claim that Hillary Clinton is really a transgender man, that would be an example of white propaganda. True or false, you’d know who made the claim, and why.
If a meme were to appear on the Internet claiming that Hillary Clinton is a man, with no source or substantiating details, that would be gray propaganda. There is nothing anywhere to back this up, you would have no way of knowing the source, and the story is highly suspect. But some people would still believe it.
If Trump supporters were to create an organization calling itself, “Hillary for President”, and then used that organization to commend her for her courage in “coming out” as trans, that would be black propaganda. Some might believe that her campaign had sanctioned the message, and that the claim that she was really a man was therefore true, despite its unlikeliness.
Such “black propaganda” is sneaky, and can easily backfire. The creator has to walk a fine line between being too obvious and being too effective-- for the other side. Done well, it can take root, as has “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” An infamous, anti-Semitic forgery urging “Jewish world domination,” it was created by the Tsarist Russian government in 1903, and is still circulating today, despite thorough debunking.
The best way to guard against propaganda is thorough fact-checking. And remember the old saw about how to tell when a politician is lying: Check to see if his lips are moving!
NAME-CALLING
When logic and reason are insufficient or lacking, rhetoric often turns into personal attacks. Name-calling is a dead give-away. It can be as obvious as calling your opponent “a pig” or “a wacko.” Or, it may be more subtle. Instead of identifying your oponent by his or her correct title of Senator Smith or Doctor Jones, they may be identified as “Anti-LGBT spokesman George Smith”, or “Anti-gun advocate Judy Jones.” It’s still name-calling.
HIDDEN OPINIONS
The names above have something in common-- they are matters of the writer’s opinion, not facts that can be checked. This distinction is extremely important. If a person claims to be a medical doctor, that can be verified. Calling someone a “spokesman” or an “advocate”, however, is entirely a matter of the writer’s opinion. Who does he speak for? Who elected him spokesman? What is involved in being an “advocate”? We simply do not know, so there is no way to verify the statement. Watch out for opinions masquerading as facts and titles.
LOADED WORDS
Watch out too for words with strong connotations. A recent op-ed piece characterized another writer’s article as a “hoax”. This does not just mean it was incorrect. “Hoax” implies that the first writer was aware of the falsehood, and had something personal to gain by it, without actually calling the other writer a liar.
SPIN
Politicians frequently put bad spin on their opponents, while excusing themselves. For example:
I mis-spoke; he lied.
I missed an opportunity; he refused to do his job.
I was otherwise engaged; he failed to show up.
I made a mistake on my tax return; he cheated on his taxes.
I learned from my mistake; she flip-flopped. And so on.
Examine what both sides say about each other and about themselves, substituting a neutral term for both. This can produce interesting results. You may find that both candidates actually did the very same thing. Such research can be tiresome. An acceptable substitute may be to use a neutral, fact-checking website. Just make sure it really is neutral.
DISRESPECT
In the op-ed piece above, the first writer was a psychiatrist, head of Johns Hopkins University Psychology Department for forty years, and Chief Psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital for thirty years, yet the second writer, who has no medical credentials, never once referred to him as “Doctor.” Surely, one who has risen to the very top of a demanding profession and remained there for three or four decades has earned the right to their title! Such omission can only be construed as deliberate disrespect, perhaps to camouflage the difference in credentials between the two writers.
Similarly, you can often tell the party affiliation of political writers by how they refer to the President. Democrats call him, “President Obama”; Republicans just say, “Obama.” Surely a man who, overcoming tremendous odds, was twice elected President of the United States, deserves to have his title used in formal writing, even if you don’t like him.
NEGATIVE TONE
Those with logical arguments to make, make them, and usually do so calmly. Those who are short on logic stoop to demonization. Watch out for a negative tone. Pointing out your opponent’s errors is one thing, fault-finding and mud-slinging is another. A true statesman can recognize that there is more than one side to every issue, and does not need to demonize their opponent. If someone seems to be running an entirely “negative” campaign, it’s dollars to donuts that their logic account is bankrupt.
PROPAGANDA
Politicians are often accused of using propaganda. Actually, any communication designed to change your opinion is properly called propaganda. There are three main types, classified as white, black, and gray. White propaganda’s origin is clearly labeled, and it has a clear purpose. Gray propaganda is information of questionable origin or purpose that is never sourced, and whose accuracy is obviously doubtful. Black propaganda pretends to be “failed” white propaganda coming from the other side.
If Donald Trump were to claim that Hillary Clinton is really a transgender man, that would be an example of white propaganda. True or false, you’d know who made the claim, and why.
If a meme were to appear on the Internet claiming that Hillary Clinton is a man, with no source or substantiating details, that would be gray propaganda. There is nothing anywhere to back this up, you would have no way of knowing the source, and the story is highly suspect. But some people would still believe it.
If Trump supporters were to create an organization calling itself, “Hillary for President”, and then used that organization to commend her for her courage in “coming out” as trans, that would be black propaganda. Some might believe that her campaign had sanctioned the message, and that the claim that she was really a man was therefore true, despite its unlikeliness.
Such “black propaganda” is sneaky, and can easily backfire. The creator has to walk a fine line between being too obvious and being too effective-- for the other side. Done well, it can take root, as has “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” An infamous, anti-Semitic forgery urging “Jewish world domination,” it was created by the Tsarist Russian government in 1903, and is still circulating today, despite thorough debunking.
The best way to guard against propaganda is thorough fact-checking. And remember the old saw about how to tell when a politician is lying: Check to see if his lips are moving!
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