Defense of Truth

  Heather Cox Richardson is a favorite among some of my leftist friends.  Her position as an academic offers imprimatur for her wanton partisanship and her acumen as a historical researcher helps her find the cherry-picked details she needs to cover a false narrative with a veneer of historicity.  I don't usually engage because her posts are long enough that it would take too much unpacking to deal with, but I wanted to take a crack at just a part of this one. Keep in mind that her schtick consist mostly of framing modern Republicans as morally corrupt and modern Democrats as knights in shining armor for all that is good and right, by peppering her argument with so much actual historical facts that you have the feeling of "context" so you don't notice the logical sleight of hand by which her narrative escapes reason and reality.  With that said, here's my summary, responding in snarky kind to her own partisan framing, but faithful to the content of her...

  I generally love Star Talk.  I don't have tiktok because I limit my social media, but Facebook's creepy spy algorithm knows I'm interested in the sciences, astrophysics especially, and enjoy deepening my understanding of the vastness and marvels of God's creation by watching educational documentaries every now and then.  It's a genuine interest, but it also partially stems from a barely conscious need I have for a counterbalance to the constant stream of subjective, often barely coherent arguments to which I am constantly exposed in the literary, political, moral, and ideological realms in which my ideas almost constantly swim in my professional environment. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is one of my favorites.  He offers keen insights in his field, often with pedagogical panache, attention to current events, and doesn't just know how to make a point, but how to ground it in the history of ideas so that its impact has context.  He delivers epic smackdowns on flat-earthe...

It's just not that hard, folks.  Unless we're dealing with the context of a justified war, there's simply no moral defense for killing innocent humans if there are any other options, let alone for the convenience of the living.  And while both sides may exaggerate to make a point, only one side of the argument does insane logical backflips to hide the true and morally repugnant nature of the acts, their numbers, their consequences, and the assumptions underlying their "justifications". Ever since the leaked Alito draft hinting that Roe v. Wade was about to be overturned, pro-abortion activists have had their day.  I suppose I can understand a certain need to defend against what they perceive as a threat on their liberties and rights.  So now that they've had their time to externalize their fears and put out ad campaigns, and fake being handcuffed at protests in unlawful locations, let's stand back from the emotions and just examine the core moral argument...

 A thoughtful leftist friend of mine posted a series of "rebuttals" from a Progressive website called "So Informed" to their own caricature of Conservative talking points on recent current events.  It's worth thinking through each of them in turn, especially since I haven't posted in a long stretch, as a way to engage with the current state of our national culture's slide into centralized authoritarianism.  This friend gets full points for speaking her mind, engaging with compassion, and standing up for what she believes.  My concern here is to correct improper frames for debates, inaccurate and/or beside-the-point facts, and logical fallacies.  All of this is centered on the ideas in question, not impugning the motives of the holders of such ideas.  It's done in the spirit of believing in the other's freedom and intelligence strongly enough to offer sincere chances for them to change their mind.  The ideas themselves, however, come from somewher...

Adult topic coming up below... The first principle of morality is liberty (moral agency). The first principle of liberty is morality. Said another way, there are two fundamental truths connecting morality with liberty: 1. The degree to which people aren't free to determine right from wrong for themselves is the degree to which they are not free to choose the right, therefore all moral choices are premised on the free risk that they might choose wrong if left to; 2. While individuals must have the freedom to choose in order for any right option to be chosen, one of the consequences of choosing wrong is always a limiting of freedoms. Part of the extremely confusing problem of these principles intertwined in this way is that it's super easy to believe illusions about what's right and what's wrong, to be in denial about whether something's wrong, or about the consequences of choosing wrong.  And to further complicate things, we're living in a state of: 1. sus...

1. The "this" when they say "this could ruin his life" is an accusation.  This "it" when you say "without acknowledging it already ruined hers" is an attempted rape.  The two are not equivalent, therefore we have to temper the assumptions of both sides by examining a hypothetical under both conditions of possible truth values: If the accusation is true, most would say his life deserved to be ruined.  If the accusation is false hers was not already ruined, but deserves to be now. 2. The age of the perpetrator and victim rightly speak to both maturity level (which provides some context for why both were drinking, why both might not have the awareness to avoid a compromising situation, and why one might have impulse control issues compounded by alcohol) and level of accountability (we have special courts to determine guilt and sentencing for minors for this very purpose) but not to severity of crime or emotional impact of the events.  No one sho...

American university students are getting more rigidly dogmatic when it comes to a progressive worldview.  Activism, and a leftist bent has been a feature of college life since prior to the Soviet Union, of course, but there has never been a time like today when only students who seek it out by getting an education where conservatism is explicitly part of their university's institutional identity have access to conservative ideas in their classrooms. While the left has a stranglehold on academics, and a near total lock on theory in the humanities and social sciences, there have been at least a critical mass, up until this decade at least, of balancing academics who don't feel threatened by the existence of ideas they don't agree with, even if their goal is to indoctrinate their students into believing that their political opposition is not only wrong, but anathema.  And there still exists a faction within today's liberal arts faculty bodies who believe that exposure...