Monday, February 20, 2017

Semi-Random Thoughts: Political Edition

I periodically make decisions to stay out of political conversation on Facebook. Then I periodically have them, sometimes to my regret.

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This is a pretty good article about Jesus' parable of the "merciful Samaritan."

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Getting back to politics: I tremble for my country.

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Trump is loosey-goosey when it comes to facts. Sometimes he stretches the truth, often he conveniently ignores certain truths, and at other times he tells great big whoppers. After months of briefings from State and Intelligence, etc., he still conjures his "policies" from impressions he gets from Fox News and Twitter memes.

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Well, he went into office with the settled conviction that he was smarter than everybody in the world on just about every issue (yes, he avowed it before his adoring crowds time after time). If you really think that, you're not going to have much inclination to listen to experts in the field.

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Politics is addicting. Hey, even Donald Trump is strangely addicting. You have this little twinge of excitement each time you go to your favorite news sites, anticipating the latest of Trump's grammar-murdering truth-deficient pronouncements.

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Well, needless to say, I'm not a fan. I was Never-Trump before the election. Now that he's president it makes no sense to use that label, but I anticipate being Never-Again-Trump in the next election.

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This is the best thing I've read on Trump. One of those articles that makes you mutter, yes, my thoughts exactly. It gets to the issue about Trump that most disturbs me, and that is the impact he has had on the way we think and talk about issues. It really is the culmination of years of relativistic teaching with regard to matters of fact--you have your truth, I have mine. The Right used to inveigh against this sort of thinking, but apparently we are all relativists now. It is perhaps the genius of Trump that he deploys this--what shall we call it--"flexible" approach to the truth in defense of whatever latest whopper he has told. [In the article, see especially the discussion around the Bill O'Reilly interview.] In other words, he doesn't rise to the challenge by defending the truth of what he has said, providing the evidence, citing the sources, etc. He just says, whatever! Pfft. I'm the smartest guy around, so there.

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When many people vote for one candidate over another because they fear/hate the other more than they fear/hate the one they voted for, that's not a recipe for post-election satisfaction. In other words, when you vote the lesser-evil candidate, you're probably not going to be enamored when that candidate proves to be, well, pretty dang evil. The winning candidate shouldn't expect high approval ratings in the polls when maybe half his voters considered him a smelly mess but voted for him anyway. Will Trump as president be able to win them over to a truly positive assessment? Hard to say, but that's his task if he wants to win re-election in 2020.

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That's enough. I promise not to make politics a frequent subject here. Perhaps the best thing to do now is end with a song.


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