A THOUGHT TO HOLD YOU FOR A FEW MONTHS - HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS TRUE?

 

My cute little birdbath in my garden

You can discover the Truth about almost anything by employing journalistic methods and standards.

Mostly, this blog pertains to politics and current affairs because I was recently accosted by an acquaintance who challenged me to tell her how I know that what I believe is true, with regard to a conspiracy theory she presented as fact.

But regardless of which type of truth you are trying to determine, Truth itself is a crucial signature of virtue and a sign of the virtuous person, who clings to truth. The Bible tells us that all lies originate with Satan, the "father" of all lies. Truth is essential to the Christian person.

How do I know what is truth?

The question of the day is: when presented with a preposterous story, how do you determine whether or not it is true?

A few weeks ago, a random person caught me in a random conversation and brought up politics. They asserted a conspiracy theory that was long ago debunked, but it almost needn't have been, because it is one of those stories that is so ludicrous, one finds it difficult to understand why anyone would give it any space in their brain to begin with. But this is the era of the credulous consumer of conspiracies.

The conspiracy I was challenged to debunk...

The claim is that Mexico is emptying out their prisons of violent criminals, loading them onto busses, driving them over the border, and dumping them in the United States. 

Who do we believe?

I nearly laughed when I was presented with this claim, and I confidently told her that it was not true. But this person pushed back and told me that there was no way anyone could know what was true because various outlets are saying contradictory things about the topic.  

I explained that no one has to tell me what to believe, and I am confident that I know the truth, otherwise, I don't express an opinion.

She was skeptical and retorted, "How do you know what is true?"

If we aren't already educated, we need to study

I told her that it was mostly because I was educated, vis-a-vis educational course curriculum centering around journalism and civics, government, Constitutional Law, a few units in classical logic, as well as debate. 

I attempted to tell her how I applied that knowledge and how I used the journalistic methods and standards, but she interrupted me with some hostility, so that I was not given the space in which to answer her question. It quickly became obvious that the nature of Truth and how one discovers it was not important to her. 

Your values will color stories you choose to spread.

If you are a Catholic, and you believe and try to follow everything that the Catholic Church teaches and requires, you will be more inclined to display the love, charity and fellow-feeling of Christ in your attitudes about other people. Your conversation will exhibit a certain amount of empathy. A news story that exposes cruelty toward the poor, the vulnerable, the disabled, the aged, will typically engage your compassionate heart. 

Those who hold a sincere love of Truth, will not automatically believe all the details of the story, however, until they have verified the facts, unless the authority from which it comes is so impeccable that everyone can safely believe it. For instance, if you read something on the Vatican's website that discusses recent homilies of the Pope, further proof of validity may not be necessary.

If, however, you are hostile toward religion and you also lack a devotion to a virtuous philosophy, your values may be primarily selfish, and the same news story might cause you to celebrate the hurtful actions against the vulnerable. People who lack a virtuous set of standards for themselves may have no compunction against spreading stories that celebrate those things which demonstrate the opposite of what is good. If the story lends credibility to a pet theory of such a person, they won't make much, if any, effort to authenticate the article. 

Spreading malignant stories can be an indicator of an individual's personal character and can cause harm to our society, overall. 

Many of us have become surprised upon hearing previously unspoken but repulsive beliefs of long-time friends or associates who have recently been freed to express alarming ideologies because certain celebrities and some prominent government figures have begun to communicate despicable, cruel and reprehensible opinions about "others." The othering of humans into small groups has been responsible for hateful rhetoric being spread about them. Immigrants are particularly vulnerable, such as in the story that my acquaintance was fostering. The remedy for such spurious accounts requires the application of journalistic methods, mentioned above.

Honest folks will make a good faith effort to find the truth.

This is not to say that virtuous people never promote untrue anecdotes, but theirs may be fanciful accounts of "good" reports, such as unproven miracles and that sort of thing. Their tendency to allow these myths to be circulated without fact checking does not usually have animus attached to it, but the absence of Truth may be just as damaging to our culture or the reputation of The Faith, depending on the circumstances.

Are you too biased and predisposed to find the Truth?

I gamely tried to answer the acquaintance's question. After all, she had directly asked me how I could possibly know what is truth. Unfortunately, I could not get a word out, because the original story about the busses full of violent criminals turned out to be only one of a host of complementary stories about immigrants who are somehow responsible for her not receiving Social Security and welfare benefits she thinks she deserves to get. She believes other stories that place the blame squarely on "illegal immigrants" who are supposedly getting Social Security benefits that should be hers.

Have you been brainwashed?

She would not permit me to offer any facts that contradicted her beliefs.  In particular: I tried to inform her of the fact that undocumented immigrants do not qualify for Social Security benefits and that, even if they did, it would have no effect on her benefits. I had studied this topic, in detail, over many years time, and I also had personal experience of it.

People who have been brainwashed are always told that someone else is to blame for whatever is bothering them about their life. Hitler did this in the 1930s, and that is how he came to power. He did not have to overcome by force. The population gave him the keys to the government. 

I suppose the real problem is that she believes the story that there is TONS of "waste, fraud and abuse" in all of the benefit systems and that it is so easy to get money from the government that this is why the undocumented workers so easily "game the system" and get money. It simply is not true. Anyone who has tried to get help from the government KNOWS how difficult it is.

She never researched the criteria.  I tried to explain to her that in order for any of us to get help from the government, we have to have an income that is way under a certain low ceiling. It isn't that someone else is getting her benefits. The point is that she was not entitled to them because the entire benefit system is very tight and chintzy!

Personal experience can be a small part of the research...

I am one of the people who can tell you, first hand, how very difficult it is to get Social Security benefits, for instance, even when you have paid into the system and legitimately qualify for them. It took me ten years to get my Social Security monies when I became disabled at age 39.  In the next ten years, I had 15 different jobs because I could not keep up. My disabilities caused constant problems. I was always taking time off from work due to illness, and finally, when I was 49, the Social Security administration admitted to my advocate, "it is clear to us that she tried as hard as she could to stay employed and she could not do it."  So I was finally approved, after ten years of terrible struggle. If the Social Security system was "easily gamed," I would not have had to go through this.

If you want the truth, close your mouth and get to work

...

My first advice about determination of fact is to keep your mouth shut until you know something is true. Don't present something as a fait accompli until you have established that it is true, to the best of your ability.

Then you have to decide if the topic means enough to you that you are willing to exert yourself and do some studying.  If you are not willing, then don't pretend to know and don't run around town and blab these conspiracy theories to everyone you run into, as if you do know something.

In the beginning, Research facts, not opinions...

The first step in your research: You must gather facts. I have just illustrated one type of fact, and that is personal experience. But personal experience, although it often convinces ourselves of some idea, is the weakest kind of first-hand facts because it is limited and biased, with self interest mixed in.

It is better to gather facts that include large groups of people. You do this by getting those facts from the agencies that directly deal with whatever you are talking about.  In this case, I had to learn about our policies from the Social Security Administration itself. I read quite a bit of their website and I wrote a modest blog post about this topic, years ago.

Are you suspicious of every authority?

If your immediate reaction to the previous sentence is to ask me how I know that the Social Security Administration isn't lying to all of us, this question presupposes a muddy motive and a level of corruption that is not practical. Millions of people rely upon the Social Security Administration and it would be impossible to keep hidden the facts of how one qualifies for Social Security, if they were different than what appears on the website.

If you are suspicious of every authority that holds information you need, then you have been brainwashed, because I would bet that you have far less suspicion about the commentors to whom you are regularly listening.

Ignore the commentary until you know the facts...

Face it. If you sit around listening to nothing but Fox News you are just absorbing the ,primary dispensers of conspiracy theories in America today. On the other side of the spectrum, I do not listen to it, but I am willing to bet that if you only listened to Rev Left Radio, you would be no more informed to make a decision about what is true or not than if you listened to only Fox News. Save the commentary until you know the facts.

After gathering facts from the agency closest to the topic (in this case, Social Security Administration), then I gather more personal experiences of the people who can comment on Social Security. This would include beneficiaries and also "how to" videos that explain how the system works. I guess I might call these "reviews" of the service.

Quality checked Authority counts!

Mainline, established news sources have more credibility because their journalists are made to adhere to demanding sets of criteria for the establishment of fact. Every aspect of a story must be fact checked in order to be included in their news items, and some of the news outlets even require a certain number of eye witness accounts before a story can be run in the newspaper at all!

If a source does not agree with your opinion, it does not mean they are "biased" or "lying."  It usually means you are wrong

A certain amount of detachment is required when searching for the truth. We all have to fight the urge to find those sources that will agree with us. We all want to be right.

Especially in cases where you know that a certain personality is inclined to lie, extrapolate too widely, embellish, or deliberately mislead people, we must be willing to accept the possibility that the person or platform in question may be right occasionally. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. We have to avoid the assumption that a story is "fake" or that a person is lying before we announce it. Find out for SURE that Donald Trump is lying about a certain issue before you start telling everyone that he is prevaricating.

It takes tremendous self-control, especially if we are emotionally invested in an issue, to make sure that we do not dismiss a source out of hand. 

Choose your commentary and analysis wisely...

After you have assembled all your facts, only then should you take a look at the commentary about the issue you have been researching.

Remember that the news programs that are communicated over the airwaves are the only ones that are regulated by the FCC and meant to meet rigid standards of truthfulness, etc.

We are talking about ABC, CBS and NBC, basically. Those are legitimate news outlets that must meet rigid standards or they get into trouble with the FCC.  You should make sure to research those channels of news, in addition to your other sources.

Fox "News" is considered a subscription channel that is (1) NOT a "news" program, and (2) is NOT regulated by the FCC.  They are designated as an entertainment channel and they are allowed to lie as much as they want to lie. You might as well be watching Beverly Hills Housewives for as much reliability.

If the standard channels and sources do not post anything about a story, it means there is something wrong with it:

I often see channels advertised as being sources of information that no other news channel will air. There is a good reason for that! The story is full of holes, or is made up or mischaracterized, or has unreliable witnesses or SOMETHING that makes it unworthy for inclusion in a television news program. No one is trying to hide explosive facts from you. Explosive facts are the ones that everyone wants to read. It does not make sense that a great story is being hidden by all the major news agencies.

Include commentaries and analyses of experts

After I have collected all my facts about a topic, I check many different commentaries and analyses, some of them in the legitimate, mainline newspapers such as New York Times, but also many of the internet sources such as CNN, Fox News, Joe Rogan, and the like - as well as some PBS programs such as "FIRING LINE" with Margaret Hoover, the resurrection of a right wing program originally created by William F. Buckley. PBS also has a number of reliable authorities whose analysis is worth watching.

I often find that the commentaries will sometimes take a slant on an issue that I had not considered, and they sometimes provide me with one last bit to research that is ancillary to the main issue. I just make sure that I watch "both sides" of the topic, which is easy for me because I am as solidly in the middle as one can get. This is a hard position to be in, considering how much both right and left have gravitated toward their corners. These days, I feel like everyone hates me, as I do get hit with missiles meant for the other side. 

Watch your bias, analyze it, and understand it...

With Donald Trump in office, I often land squarely against him because he breaks the law constantly and I continually catch him in lies. I do not approve of his METHODS by any means and I believe he is proving to be bad for the country. This does not mean I am willing to risk my immortal soul by lying about him!  Satan is the father of all lies, and I am not about to hold hands with THAT bad boy.

The fact that I have an opinion about him does not mean that I am being manipulated by "left wing media." As you can see from this blog post, I listen to, watch and read a wide variety of material, on both sides of the left/right spectrum.  I base my opinions about his character on first hand observation of what I have seen him do and heard him say.

It is not difficult for me to disagree with Donald Trump because he himself says these things that I know to be illegal and unconstitutional. It is coming out of his mouth, and I do not need any program or personality to convince me of what I know to be true with my own eyes and ears. Of course, it helps to have a legal background and I do remember my education on the Constitution from my school days. This is an easy one, folks. I don't have to listen to "biased" commentary from the left wing in order to see for myself that Donald Trump has dictatorish tendencies, for instance.

You are allowed to believe your own eyes and ears, as an eyewitness to the words of anyone you see in public life. Don't take anyone else's word for it, but you can certainly believe the evidence of your own eyes and ears! Compare what he does and says to the precepts on which our country was built, and you can form a good opinion about his merit as a leader..  

If you are ignorant of what the Constitution provides, then that's another matter. But that's not my problem. I do recommend that you get up to speed on what the Constitution says.

But even though I generally disagree with what Donald Trump is doing and saying, I STILL fact-check anything that has a fact attached to it. He makes a lot of wild claims and I check them out thoroughly. I never assume he is lying.

Check out the trustworthiness and the curriculum vitae of the person who is giving you the analysis of the issue.

Whatever you do, make sure that the people you rely upon for your analysis of your facts are not just entertaining talking heads that are fun to listen to. Check out their background. Do they have work experience in the area in which they are rendering their analysis?

It is very easy to hop onto the internet and research the bona fides of the analysts. See if their primary career includes the approximate arena that is being discussed.

After gathering facts, acquaint yourself with classical logic...

Biased websites that do not have to meet any criteria will often feed their audience logical fallacies, which is the next step in this process.  You have to make sure that the opinion and/or analysis has not been infected with these fallacies.

I was lucky to have taken classes in classical logic that helps us to make our way through the fallacies that sound good but which do not prove the point they pretend to prove.

For instance, the classical fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Proper Hoc (before, therefore because of) can often be found behind conspiracy theories. Someone will claim that a certain thing is the CAUSE of another thing because it came directly before it! But it makes no sense, when you really work the problem.

It's like saying, "I ate a banana for the first time this morning, and this afternoon I had an auto accident, therefore eating bananas causes auto accidents." This is obviously ridiculous, but when some supposed expert on a purported "news" program tells you that the definitive cause of something bad is a certain thing that happened the day before, you might initially be predisposed to believe it, when causation has not actually been proved.

There are other fallacies of classical logic that can be very helpful, but I'm not writing a book here.

Check your facts with nonpartisan websites:

When you have your facts collected and you've seen some analysis by the experts about those facts, then it is time to do some last minute fact checking to make sure you don't have any garbage in the mix. The two best sources of nonbiased fact checking I have found are:

factcheck.org

Snopes.com

The traditional primary source of news stories has been:

Reuters

Most newspapers "in the day" got many of their initial news items from Reuters and would then go on to develop their own stories, using their own investigative reporters.

After I collect all my facts, I then measure those facts against the fact-checking sources available about the topic.

These nonpartisan fact-checking sites are my final step in determining if a story is TRUE or not.

What do I do about it?

Whether or not I LIKE what is happening is another topic entirely! I have to measure an issue against my personal values, which are mostly religious and spiritual in nature. Once I do all this work that I've outlined, I make up my mind about whatever action I might be able to take. At this late stage of the game, with my body falling apart so much that I am barely able to walk, I can't do much more than pray for a positive outcome, but I know when I do that, I have done all I can to understand the truth of the issue.

And I never worry that I do not know the Truth of the matter, to the best of my ability.

After all this, I can start talking about it.

Silver Rose

Satan is the Father of all Lies

I never used to be very interested in politics, but since the alt. right is promoting the lie that Trump is Christian and that his policies are Christian, I feel I have to jump in, now and then, and defend the faith. Trumpian values are the opposite of Biblical values.

I know it must be very satisfying for religious folk to imagine that our country is finally being run by a God Fearing, Bible believing Christian instead of those Godless commie liberals, but it is all a sham. Donald Trump claims to be Christian, but the church to which he says he belongs has never seen him in the five short years he has claimed membership with them. It looks very much as if Trump joined the Christian club in a cynical effort to coerce religious people to vote for him.

Why aren't Christian Trump supporters more invested in Truth? Most of them seem to just believe whatever Trump, Fox News commentators, and various "religious" outlets say about him, and the messaging is cohesive from all those sources. (Sometimes, Trump lies about things he himself has said on video previously and which can be verified, and STILL his supporters refuse to acknowledge the lie. It drives me nuts.)

Meanwhile, legitimate journalists provide reams of proof, in video and in writing, consistently presenting the actual facts, but Trumpists don't typically read anything that doesn't have a positive slant on Trump. (Personally, I read everything and then fact check all of it.)

Most concerning at the present time is Trump's insistence on bleating out fantasies that contradict everything our intelligence agencies are saying, and then criticizing those agencies in his infernal tweets, in a blatant effort to get his base to avoid any information that will reveal the truth.

As time goes on, and Trump's enemies list grows, his slanderous statements find targets in all the agencies upon which Americans have, until now, depended for the administration of justice. His vulgar taunts are leveled at judges, senators and even the wives and children of people he hates.

If I were to list all the dangerous, repulsive, treasonous, NON-Christian activities and statements that Trump is making on a daily basis, I would have to write a book, rather than a blog. All I can do is plead with people to please, for God's sake, PLEASE, do some actual research, and stop mouthing the slogans and fake stories invented by the Alt Right for the purpose of inflaming its base. Don't be a tool in the hands of anyone else.

With regard to researching factual matters, the most important thing to do is evaluate one's sources. Opinion is not news. This blog is not news. Why? "News" is the presentation of facts. Who, what, when and where are factual. "Why" is not factual. It is commentary. While some commentary is often necessary to put facts into context, the "why" of a thing must not be presented as factual without specific proof of causality. Proving causality is no simple matter.

One of the classical fallacies of logic (which, apparently, is not widely taught in American schools) is "post hoc ergo propter hoc." The translation is something like "before, therefore because of." The meaning is this: Just because something happened just prior to another thing does not mean that the first thing caused the second. In its more ridiculous form, it would appear thus: "I ate a banana for the first time this morning, and this afternoon I had my first auto accident, therefore bananas cause auto accidents."

Everyone's opinion should be based in fact and truth. If it is based on anything else, you are standing on shifting sand, and anyone interested in the Truth is not going to give you any credibility at all.

Things to keep in mind:

1. Anecdotal stories are not proof of larger statistical issues. If you knew one disabled person that you suspected of cheating the government, that does not mean that a lot of people cheat the government. If you read a story about an "illegal alien" committing a crime, it doesn't mean that illegal aliens commit crimes to a greater degree than American citizens. As a matter of fact, it has been proven, over and over again, that undocumented folks commit appreciably fewer crimes than citizens! (Don't believe me. Check it!)

2. "News" programs produced by religious or philosophical or political groups are biased in nature, do not adhere to accepted journalistic standards, have no oversight and are explicitly partisan. Watch them all you want, but think of them as entertainment rather than purveyors of fact. They should be honest, but frequently aren't, skewing the "news" to suit philosophical wishful thinking. EWTN, CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network), Church Militant, Lifesite News, The Heritage Foundation, and other organizations that exist to support and promote a particular point of view are included in this category of biased programming and writing.

If you are really concerned about "fake news" - stick to the actual news, rather than a political, religious or philosophical organization.

Just because a television program expresses opinions that reflect your own does not mean that those opinions are  based in fact. You're just listening to yourself talk.

3. News outlets that hold to traditional journalistic standards are generally the most reliable. Usually, these outlets require that facts have more than one corroborating witness. This isn't to say they are perfect. Nothing is perfect, and mistakes are made by everyone, but generally speaking, these outlets are reliable, since they specifically intend to present the truth, as opposed to outlets that intend to present a philosophy. The Atlantic Magazine, CNN, The New York Times, and other reputable journalistic endeavors that I will list below, can usually be relied upon to tell the truth. To be clear, I am talking about the facts they present. I am not saying that commentary needs to be believed, except insofar as that commentary is built on truth.

Identify the relevant facts in every article, analyze the source(s) and fact check the claims on Politifact, Snopes.com, or Factcheck.org. Reuters is also a great source. For the longest time, news agencies got their news, initially, from Reuters. Reuters does not do "commentary."

4. Compare journalistic outlets to one another to assess the truth. I include Fox News in my collection of news sources, but I often find that its "news" disagrees with all the other outlets, and I dismiss them as a result. Here is why: It is irresponsible and illogical to think that hundreds of thousands of people involved in all the other news outlets are somehow in cahoots to tell lies and present a false narrative. The philosophy behind "Akim's razor" holds true here. The simplest explanation is usually the "right" one.

Another way of looking at this is with the saying that "when you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras. Conspiracy theories are fascinating zebras and are titillating to imagine might be true, but rarely rarely are.

5. The further away from primary sources, the less reliable the information. If I read an article in some tiny little "newspaper" or blog that has an "anonymous" source, but that anonymous source is not pinpointed as a member of a group that has first-hand information, I ignore it. For example, if an article references a source "that works in the Justice Department," I will give it more credibility than a source that is just "anonymous."

6. Fact check your sources. If you read an article that seems a bit too inflammatory, check it with politifact, snopes.com, factcheck.org and/or Reuters to make sure that the writer is not just trying to get more internet 'clicks.'

Here is a list of news purveyors I read or watch daily:

• Network news programs: ABC, NBC, CBS
• The Atlantic Magazine (Published for more than 164 years)
• New York Times
• L. A. Times
• Albuquerque Journal
• Washington Post
• USA Today
• Huffington Post
• The Guardian
• PBS:
• Democracy Now
• BBC World News America
• Amanpour & Company
• PBS News Hour
• New Mexico in Focus
• To the Contrary
• Nightly Business Report
• Washington Week
• Report from Santa Fe
• Firing Line
• The Open Mind
• Focus on Europe
• Rachel Maddow
• Face the Nation
• CNN News
• The New Yorker Magazine
• EWTN
• Fox News
• Keith Olberman
• MSNBC

There are more, but I can't recall them right now. Remember to add:

FACT CHECKING SITES:

• Snopes.com
• Factcheck.org
• Reuters
• Politifact

Don't take my word for anything. Research for yourself. I feel confident that, once everyone is educated on the facts, we will all be closer in opinions than we are currently.

God bless us all

Silver "Rose"

IS YOUR OPINION BASED ON FACT OR IMAGINATION?

I have never been very interested in politics. My interests lie elsewhere. But, during election cycles, I would learn the minimum necessary to ensure that my particular world view was represented, I would vote, and then I would forget it until the next election cycle. I had enough confidence in our constitution and our government that I figured the experts knew what they were doing. Nothing was perfect, but what could be?

This was pretty much my approach in 2016. In fact, I was going to vote for Donald Trump because he was, supposedly, a pro-life candidate. I am pro-life, but not convinced that making it illegal is the way to eliminate abortions. In addition, now that it has been legal for more than 40 years, I seriously doubt that putting the toothpaste back into the tube is possible. However, if I can vote for a candidate that is pro-life, rather than just anti-abortion, I do that.

When the Access Hollywood video came out, and I heard Trump's disgusting brags about grabbing women by "the pussy" and all the rest of it, I knew that my lazy approach to politics was over. I had to do some research. The more I learned about Trump, the more convinced I became that he was very bad for our country. I voted for Hillary Clinton as the lesser of two evils.

Since Trump came to power, I have continued to stay abreast of the news, as well as taking the time to research all the facts for each issue that has arisen. This includes watching Fox "News." (I put "News" in quotes because it does not qualify as a news channel. It is entirely opinion and propaganda.) The research skills that I developed as a writer and genealogist has helped me navigate an area in which I had little experience beforehand.

This morning I watched a video by a female judge whose opinions lay on the far right of the spectrum. She was speaking on the Fox Channel, and I take it she is a regular contributor. She labels anyone who finds fault with Trump as being "crazy."

One of the most well-known fallacies of classical logic is when someone uses an "ad hominem" argument in a debate. This is called a "fallacy" because it is not logical, i.e., one cannot arrive at a reliable conclusion by using that particular line of reasoning.

Instead of addressing the issues and defending their hero with facts, the Fox propaganda machine attacks the person who presents the facts.

In the video I watched this morning (I insert a link to it below), this woman is calling the presenters of fact "crazy", but when you watch the video clips she offers as supposed evidence of said craziness, what you see are reasonable people, seasoned professionals of the Washington political machine and other experts, expressing concern over Trump's behavior. Nothing looks or sounds crazy in those clips at all. There is no hyperbole. There is no false equivalency. There are no ad hominem arguments, and, even though it seems to ME that Trump is behaving in a really crazy fashion, they're not calling him crazy. They are calling into question what he says and does but they aren't falsely impugning his character and dismissing him as "crazy." There are legitimate questions about what he is doing - questions for which there are no answers OR there are several, competing answers.

SEE THE VIDEO HERE

NOTE: In the Fox "News" video, only snippets of interviews are shown in the video clips that are highlighted. I have seen the full interviews elsewhere, and I can tell you that divorcing the presentation of facts from the conclusions at the END of the interview makes a big difference in one's comprehension of the material being discussed.

Why do otherwise intelligent people watch this blather? Why do they parrot the Fox conclusions all over social media and in their conversations? Why do they give any credibility to Fox's obvious bias and hatred toward anyone who finds fault with the policies, words, and/or behavior of Trump?

On the fact of it, Fox is operating as a partisan arm of the hard right political movement. I suspect that people who watch it are not looking for reportage of the "news," since there isn't any. Apparently, they want to hear someone repeating back to them the opinions they already hold. Dissenting facts are irrelevant to them. They have no interest in hearing what any experts have to say about what Trump is doing, unless the expert agrees with their already-formed opinions. I have been told that nothing I offer will have any effect whatsoever on the die-hard opinions of Trump supporters. When Trump claimed that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight and no one would care, he was right.

I have had plenty of opportunities on social media to have exchanges with Fox News devotees, and most of them seem to get some kind of emotional satisfaction from hearing their prejudices repeated back to them. The nastier the opinion, the more they seem to like it. I am STILL shocked by the memory of hearing people shriek "lock her up!" It is frightening on so many levels.

Mostly, I have encountered people for whom nothing matters but making abortion illegal and overturning Roe v. Wade. I happen to think this is a pipe dream and that there are better ways to lessen the number of abortions in our country than to make them illegal. The problem with abortion is that women want them. They will have them, legal or not. It is the WANTING that needs to be addressed - not the legality. My disagreement is with the method that anti-abortion activists have decided is "the" method for stopping abortions, especially since the G.O.P. has so many other policies that are positively hostile to life on the planet.

It is a lot easier to make a law criminalizing it than it would be to evangelize the culture so that no one felt that they had to have an abortion or that they wanted to have one. Abortuaries would be empty if no one wanted an abortion, and, because of that fact, I am not obsessed with making it illegal, but there are plenty of people who ARE.

These "one issue" voters are Trump supporters. Apparently, they believe that the end justifies the means, which is why they do not care how many of our allies turn their backs on us. They do not care that our president is promoting authoritarian figures and dictators. They do not care that American wages have plummeted while prices for health care have soared. They do not care that there are more than 40 million poverty stricken people but food assistance has been slashed under Trump. They do not care about the safety of our drinking water. They do not care about protection of the environment. They do not care about endangered species. They do not care that we have lost 40 billion dollars in solar energy business because of Trump. They do not care if Trump lies continually, and they do not care what any of the experts have to say. All they care about is making abortion illegal, and it is going to backfire on them.

When you sacrifice the rest of the planet for the sake of unborn children, you are pitting one "class" of human beings against another. Thinking that unborn babies are more vulnerable than other populations, is a mistake. Poor people stuck in the vise-like grip of poverty and hateful governmental policies are just as helpless as the baby in the womb. They too are being killed, but at a much slower rate, more excruciatingly torturous and drawn out, but killed nonetheless. Also, when you withdraw protections for the environment, as Trump has done, you risk trying to inhabit a planet that will not support ANY type of life, born or unborn. One has to have a cohesive view with a long gaze over the horizon.

At the very least, I wish that people on the right were more honest. Instead of slandering "the left" they need to answer for themselves. If Donald Trump does something inexplicable, no one should be forced to abandon their first amendment right to inquire about it, and, if the hard right mouthpieces do not like the questions, they might try getting their dear leader to give some answers that make sense and do not change with his mental tides.

Silver Rose

JESUS IGNORED POLITICS

***NOT***

Yesterday I sat, horrified, through a supposed homily that was, instead, a comment on modern politics, in particular REPUBLICAN politics, and a complaint by this priest that the moderator for the recent Republican debates overstepped her role by leading the questions in a direction that the priest thought should not have been done.

Although he did not specifically reference Megyn Kelly's pointed questions to Donald Trump about his frequent and many instances in which he called women disgusting names, I got the point, loud and clear.  He is a Republican, thinks that our God is a Republican, thinks that Catholics are automatically Republican, and probably approves of Donald Trump's misogynistic attitudes, or at least feels that they aren't important enough to call him on his actions during the debates, which is even worse when I think about it.

There is an insidious disease in the Catholic Church in America.  A great number of Catholics have become obsessed with politics, including our priests, which makes me very sad.  Instead of looking at the world through the eyes of Christ, they are looking at the world through Republican eyes and, in doing so, are perverting the faith.  Over and over again, I see "Catholics" posting in social media and all over the internet and being interviewed on television programs whose faith is being twisted to accommodate those aspects of the Republican platform that are the antithesis of the Catholic faith.  Hardly anyone talks about the words of Jesus any more, even when, as in the case of priests, they really ought to be focusing on Him.  It is unquestionably an aspect of their function to do so.

Catholic values have to be applied to our entire lives, of course.  This includes how we vote, no doubt, but a political party should not define us.  For some people, however, it does.  I call these people "Republicatholics."  They are all over social media and in our churches, peddling a philosophy that is not Catholicism.  Hell, it isn't even Christian.  It is a political orientation.  Look at some of the Facebook pages of priests and laity and you will find nothing but political memes, cartoons, blog links and articles.  Some of these offerings are broadly vulgar and offensive.  Many of them are obviously intended to start rumors.  Some are just nasty comments about Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama.  Many cite "facts" that are not facts at all.  It is, for the most part, low brow stuff.

It isn't just that we are nearing an election year.  This situation has been building for at least 6 years.  It has gotten worse and worse over time.

Jesus was not accepted by most Jews as the promised Messiah because he did not come as an earthly King.  Jews were expecting him to come and conquer their overlords.  They'd been under the tyrannical rule of so many despotic regimes in their history that they'd had just about enough of that, and their idea of a King was someone who would change the government.  He disappointed them by coming into our world as a poor person with no political clout whatsoever.  He didn't advocate the overthrow of the Roman government.  He mostly talked about love and taking care of the poor.

The Republican political platform, with the exception of their supposed "pro-life" plank, is in direct opposition to the Christian faith.  The Democratic platform is likewise in direct opposition to the Christian faith in the matters of morality and abortion.  This is the classic "no win" situation for the Christian.  We just have to do the best we can in that arena and then move on.

Political action is not going to save us and should not define us.  It didn't define Jesus, and we need to follow Him and be faithful to Him.  Jesus did not identify with any earthly power structure.  He was a man of the people...the poor...the sick...the needy.  He didn't stand on a box in the town square and advocate a change in government.

Before the steam starts coming out of your ears and you pounce on the keyboard to write me an hysterical note to the effect of "WHAT ABOUT ABORTION?" I will simply say that, had we done what Jesus told us to do, no one would be wanting an abortion.  Abortion is legal because a great number of people want it, and, although I favor making it illegal, I have the suspicion that it will never be illegal until the hearts of Americans are changed.  Jesus left us with instructions on how to do that.

When we have helped to transform the hearts of Americans into loving, generous, grace-filled Christian hearts, the government will naturally follow.  How this has escaped the notice of so many is a mystery to me, except that it is a heck of a lot easier to campaign against something with righteous indignation than it is to follow the commands of Jesus.

As for me, I will no longer have to endure civics and politics classes masquerading as homilies.  My physical condition has become so severe that I am no longer able to sit through mass and, unless something changes, I will not be able to attend.  Fortunately, no matter how far off the beam the priest becomes, his ability to confect the Eucharist is not affected.  A friend will bring me the body of Christ, and I am very grateful for that.  In the meantime, I pray for our priests and for all Christians who have become enamored of the political circus instead of their faith.  I pray they return to a Christian focus instead of a political one.

God bless us all.
Copyright (c) 2015, Silver Rose Parnell
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