Defense of Truth

Wow, has it really been this long since I've posted anything?  I have GOT to make this more regular... So the whole Romney leading the Republican pack thing has generated questions about Mormonism, some from genuinely curious people, others from gotcha artists trying to get attention by making the candidate stumble or handle something gauchely.  For the most part, Romney's been equally artful at closing down the situation, usually with a terse "I'm not answering questions about my faith right now?" On the right, however, whenever situations make the news, the inevitable anti-Mormon attack squad comes out, followed by the defenders (some equally combative, and others simply standing up for their beliefs in a peaceful non-contentious manner).  Myself, I probably fall in between.  In a face-to-face situation, I generally judge if the person with tough questions is genuinely curious or not, and if they are, I'll take all the time necessary to help them understan...

Romney's going to take a hit on this one, but I think he's right to stand where he is.   According to Fox , he's decided NOT to sign a Susan B. Anthony list pledge.  You'd think that would be odd for him, since he's already got a reputation as a waffler on the abortion issue.  Conservatives are having a hard time believing his late conversion to purity on the issue (he maintains he's always been privately pro-life, but because of a family situation decided not to oppose the pro-choice camp), and make no mistake, the Conservatives which require strict purity on this matter are numerous enough to decide his nomination.  But this organization, named after the famously pro-life suffragette, is pushing more than purity, it's pushing pro-activity on a scale a president should never tie himself down to. Now to a pro-life supporter like me, the pledge sounds reasonable enough when it comes to appointing Originalist judges with a philosophy of judicial restraint, an...

Sometimes it's hard for me to decide whether liberals/progressives are well-meaning but misguided, or intentionally insidious.  In any case, I was recently exposed to another chart-dense article attempting to demonstrate that the American dream is in fact an illusion.  The argumentation style is overtly negative, but thoughtful in the sense that it at least attempts to set up straw men for conservative thought before blowing them away with fallacies.  So should I adopt a charitable tone in exposing the illogic?  I suspect it will change as the level of insidiousness becomes more and more annoying. So David Morris, longtime community organizer and anti-conservative agitator, as well as founder of a wannabe think-tank activism foundation, writes a column on AlterNet entitled: We're #1--Ten Depressing Ways America Is Exceptional .  A liberal Facebook friend linked to it and sadly, I took the bait.  I swear, I'm going to swear off these liberal blog sites e...

I had a great deal of respect for Dr. Keith Ablow, whose book The 7: Seven Wonders that Will Change Your Life , co-authored with Glenn Beck, has positive transformative power, until I read his opinion column revealing his views on marriage. For all the good he's written in defense of morality and honesty, this attack on the very idea of marriage from a psychiatrist makes me wonder how in the world, with a brain capable of such blatantly fallacious logic, such a man could make it through medical school (psych classes I CAN understand, by contrast--illogic reigns there in many cases). The column in question, DR. KEITH ABLOW: Cameron Diaz Is Right -- 4 Reasons Why Marriage IS a Dying Institution - FoxNews.com , begins by citing a Hollywood starlet as representative of his own opinion on a moral issue, and devolves from there. The very next paragraph, containing his thesis, deserves full citation and decortication. " Well, I’m not certain marriage ever did suit most people who tr...

It's well known that Ben Franklin was not the straightest moral shooter among the Founding Fathers, but there's a sort of cult of personality around some of the others who are respected not just for the founding philosophies and love of freedom, but also for virtue.   So a cockamamie history professor, named  Thaddeus Russell, gets almost 10 minutes of prime John Stossel show coverage on Fox this week, talking about his new book a Renegade’s History of the United States .  His basic idea is to go through the facts and show examples of debauchery, even among the Founders who most put on a morality pedestal.  While I don’t dispute many of his facts, his interpretations are almost all undergirded by the fallacious logic that the existence of immorality among influential people proves that immorality causes liberty.  The following is my comments debate with a number of passionate believers in freedom over responsibility. Me: Talk about a professor who know...

Mother Jones, ultra-liberal blog/mag was cited in a link by a Facebook friend today, who found it simply "scary". The article, entitled " It's the inequality, stupid " parroted the famous Clinton electioneering slogan, and claimed, in a series of charts with very little explanatory text, to nevertheless somehow explain "everything that's wrong with America". Of course the entire premise of the article is complete and rather childish nonsense, but I DO give full credit to the co-authors, Dave Gilson and Carolyn Perot for posting source links to their distorted leftist eye-candy tripe.To the poster, I kept it civil and succinct: I honestly don't understand what's scary about somebody making more money than me. Seriously, that doesn't hurt me personally, and it's generally a good thing for the public too, because they have more to donate, more to invest, more reasons to hire people, and more to tax. If anyone would like to discuss it...

My liberal Facebook friend's post referencing NYT article here : Don't get why deficit reduction means cutting Americorps and the CPB (Mr. Rogers anyone?), and taking money from programs to hire police, to create efficient and clean energy, and build high-speed trains is preferable to eliminating tax cuts for people who make over $250,000. Can anyone explain it to simple little me? My response: I can try! Americorps is great, but could be better if funded and run privately, Public broadcasting should be able to compete in the non-govt funded market. The feds are constitutionally bound to leave certain policing programs to the state and local level Clean efficient energy would pay off big-time to anyone who can pull it off, why fund it if the profits would be their own reward High-speed trains are a known boondoggle everywhere they've been tried in the US People who make piles of cash don't horde it, they use it, usually in a way that makes the money circulate to someone...