Month: September 2015

Tough Love from Jonah Goldberg re: Donald Trump

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I’ve been a big fan of Jonah Goldberg since reading his eye-opening and highly readable Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change. He writes regularly for the National Review these days, but Saturday’s post about the rise of Donald Trump is particularly important. Goldberg is not mincing his words from the headline (No Movement That Embraces Trump Can Call Itself Conservative) on down:

The late Bill Rusher, longtime publisher of National Review, often counseled young writers to remember, “Politicians will always disappoint you.” . . . But if it’s true that politicians can disappoint, I think one has to say that the people can, too. And when I say “the people” I don’t mean “those people.” I mean my people. I mean many of you, Dear Readers.

From there, Goldberg goes on to cite–correctly–Lord Acton (“Lord Acton’s original point wasn’t that power corrupts those who wield power, it was that it corrupts those who admire it.”), skewer decent conservatives who support Trump (“But this is not an argument for Trump as a serious presidential candidate. . . It is catharsis masquerading as principle, venting and resentment pretending to be some kind of higher argument.”), and finally just goes through a litany of reasons why Trump should not be leading in the polls. Why Trump should be a serious candidate at all. Why Trump should not be any kind of candidate whatsoever.

Read the article. It’s worth it. Especially if, like me, these words resonate with depressing force right now:

If I sound dismayed, it’s only because I am. Conservatives have spent more than 60 years arguing that ideas and character matter. That is the conservative movement I joined and dedicated my professional life to. And now, in a moment of passion, many of my comrades-in-arms are throwing it all away in a fit of pique. Because “Trump fights!”

 

At T&S: Do Mormons Have a Duty to Vote?

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After a long break, I’m officially restarting my regular posting at Times and Seasons. My first post is now up: Do Mormons Have a Duty to Vote? It’s an analysis / rebuttal of Jason Brennan’s argument that there is no civic duty to vote from a specifically Mormon perspective. Also: Donald Trump. I will follow that up with a more general response to Brennan’s argument here at Difficult Run in the next few weeks.

Now that I’m posting again, expect to see me posting at T&S every other Monday–usually in the morning.

ALSO!

We neglected to announce this, but Walker Wright has started a guest blogger series at Times and Seasons as well. I announced the series last week, and then he posted his first piece: Data, Doctrines, & Doubts: Improving Gospel Instruction.[ref]The gif for this post comes from that post, because Walker is the master of gifs.[/ref] It’s a great piece–based on a talk he gave at a recent Stake General Priesthood meeting–and you should read it. Seriously, if you only read one of these two T&S pieces today, read Walker’s. Then, if you have time, read mine too.

Why Plenty of Psychology Studies Are Crap

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“Crap” may be a bit strong, but The New York Times nonetheless has an important–if not disturbing–article on a new analysis called the Reproducibility Project, which attempts to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals. The conclusions were recently published in Science. Tillburg University’s Jelte Wicherts said, “I think we knew or suspected that the literature had problems, but to see it so clearly, on such a large scale — it’s unprecedented.”

The project began in 2011, when a University of Virginia psychologist decided to find out whether suspect science was a widespread problem. He and his team recruited more than 250 researchers, identified the 100 studies published in 2008, and rigorously redid the experiments in close collaboration with the original authors.

…Dr. John Ioannidis, a director of Stanford University’s Meta-Research Innovation Center, who once estimated that about half of published results across medicine were inflated or wrong, noted the proportion in psychology was even larger than he had thought. He said the problem could be even worse in other fields, including cell biology, economics, neuroscience, clinical medicine, and animal research.

The report appears at a time when the number of retractions of published papers is rising sharply in a wide variety of disciplines. Scientists have pointed to a hypercompetitive culture across science that favors novel, sexy results and provides little incentive for researchers to replicate the findings of others, or for journals to publish studies that fail to find a splashy result.

This is a much-needed study.

I Can’t Give Up Hope for Romney 2016

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836 - Romney Holyfield

New York Magazine says Romney Is Horrified by Trump — and That’s Restarting ‘Mitt 2016’ Talk, and the story is getting echoed at places like Breitbart. CNN is in on the rumors as well:

But while Mitt Romney doesn’t back the Trump agenda, Robert Costa of The Washington Post reports that his check-in with close Romney advisers produced no evidence the former Massachusetts governor is heeding any of the calls for him to reconsider the race. Not yet, anyway.

“He’s very surprised that Jeb Bush hasn’t got a lot of traction,” said Costa. “He thought Jeb would be better at this point. He also thinks the race doesn’t really start until January and February.”

“In terms of ruling out a run, he’s not running. But he thinks the race begins in January and February, and he’s watching it very closely, and people just kept telling me the same thing — he’s keeping an eye on it.”

Look, I’m not a political expert or a pollster. I got pretty suckered during 2012 by the folks who thought the polls were systematically skewed and Romney had a better chance than he actually did. That experience left me pretty humble, and I’m out of the political prognostication business. I am not making any predictions or even guesses. Here, instead, are some thoughts.

I’ve liked Romney going back to 2008 when, in the presidential primaries, he wanted to talk about serious social security reform. It’s boring, but it’s important. That’s the kind of person I want to run the executive office: someone who has integrity, competence, and a willingness to focus on things that are boring but important. Candidates like Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders are fun, but are they actually good matches for the job description? Ideology has a very important role, but ideologues may do better work outside the Oval Office than from within it.

Romney is a lot more popular now than he was in 2008 or 2012. The question is: how much of that evaporates the moment he becomes a candidate again? As long as he’s on the outside he’s no threat to Democrats or competing Republicans. As soon as he’s a contender again, all his enemies come back to remind us why he’s terrible. I think at least some of the new popularity is permanent. Folks have seen another side of Romney[ref]Examples: the documentary Mitt and his charity boxing match with Evander Holyfield[/ref] and they won’t forget that. As NY Mag notes:

“When people were polling this stuff back in January, what was striking was not his popularity but the breadth of it,” says Stuart Stevens, Romney’s chief 2012 strategist. “Unlike a lot of candidates, his support wasn’t siloed. The non-tea-party folks liked him, and the tea-party folks liked him. It’s unique.”

But how much? I have no idea.

Then there’s the tactical question: you don’t just decide at the last minute to run a serious national campaign. You need a whole apparatus for that. Romney can’t summon one up out of thin air. But then, does he have to? The Romney apparatus is somewhat dismantled and distributed among other campaigns, but not entirely. NY Mag again:

Romney’s vast donor network is a coveted asset, and Romney’s finance wizard, Spencer Zwick, who raised $1 billion for him in 2012, remains unaffiliated with any campaign (Zwick now chairs the super-pac America Rising). “Mitt actually attracted new donor groups,” says the Romney veteran. “They’re in the Mormon community, the Bain Capital community, and the private-equity community. Most of them are not going to jump in for anyone else until they get guidance. Romney delivers them.” This is why six GOP presidential contenders went west to prospect for millions at Romney’s three-day Utah summit in June. “With Romney, it’s just so bizarre,” the veteran said, marveling at Romney’s power to organize a cattle call. “Imagine Bob Dole. He’s out of office and he says, ‘I want all my donors to come to some hard-to-reach place.’ That’s just never going to happen.”

Anybody else talking about getting into the race now would be a very, very long shot at best. But Romney? He might be an exception to that rule.

My dream scenario is that Romney gets more or less drafted to come in and take out Trump. Right now everyone else is either failing to make any headway (like Jeb Bush) or starting to pander to Trump supporters in the hopes of picking them up after someone else takes Trump out[ref]It may always be Trump that takes out Trump, of course, depending on just how high the tolerance of the GOP voter base is for his antics[/ref] (like Ted Cruze). Maybe it takes an outsider to come in an be the grown up. That’s a good role for Mitt. That’s a narrative he can sell. I hope he gets that chance.

About that Oft-Married Clerk in Kentucky

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838 - Kim Davis

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve heard of Kim Davis. She’s the county clerk in Kentucky who is still refusing to give out marriage licenses to same sex couples, despite losing various court battles and having her case rejected by the Supreme Court. She is currently facing contempt charges, but what you really know about Kim Davis from the news media is that she’s been married four times. The hypocrisy is delicious, and reporters cannot get enough of it. Here are a variety of tweets from professional journalists about the story:

840 - Steven Nelson tweets

839 - More Tweets

Here’s the thing: it’s not unusual to have Christians guilty of hypocrisy. Christians are guilty of lots of things. They are, as a general rule, no better or worse than anybody else from any other faith tradition or none at all. And I don’t think it’s even necessarily out of bounds to comment on it. The glee with which the journalists are relishing in it is a little unseemly, but the fact itself is fair game, in my mind.[ref]And, while I’m at it, I don’t support Kim Davis’s position. I’ve seen someone make the analogy that you can cite religious pacifism as a reason to be exempt from the draft, but you can’t expect to join the military, become an officer, and then refuse to fight based on your religious beliefs. I’m not sure it’s quite as clear-cut in this case–giving out licenses to same-sex marriages wasn’t in the job description when Davis took her job–but all things considered I think the logic is that she isn’t actually marrying anyone, she is merely certifying that these people meet the legal requirements. Which, they do. So she should give out the licenses, even though I am also opposed to same-sex marriage.[/ref]

However, this is the one thing that these journalists aren’t telling you: Davis converted to Christianity about 4 years ago and all of the behavior they are ridiculing her for–all of the divorces and affairs–happened before that point. Since becoming a Christian, Davis has been married to one and only one person. Isn’t that fact also relevant? And yet it tends to get buried in these stories about her, if it is mentioned at all.

These screenshots and the information all from an article at The Federalist, by the way: Kentucky Clerk Didn’t Follow Christianity Before Converting To It.

The article also makes the point that, in general, journalists don’t really have a clue about religion. And they don’t. It’s just another aspect of life in 21st century America. All the folks making the movies, deciding what news to cover (and how), and writing the books we read tend to come from a small class of people who don’t know the first thing about religion and yet–at the same time–have a visceral antipathy towards it and especially towards any forms of religion that bear even a passing resemblance to historical traditions. Perspectives like this one, therefore, are all too rare:

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There is plenty of Christian hypocrisy out there, folks. And I don’t have a problem with fouls being called when they occur, even if I know the refs like one team more than the other. All I ask–and I don’t think it’s too much to ask–is to actually wait for a foul to occur before dishing out the penalties.

Prayers and Cathedrals

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841 - Prayers and Cathedrals

The Friend is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints monthly magazine for children. Since I have kids, I should probably subscribe, but I’m a bad Mormon so I don’t. Which means I didn’t see this wonderful story until I came across it online: Prayers and Cathedrals. It’s a beautiful little story about a Mormon family visiting an Anglican cathedral to participate in Evensong. Told from the perspective of a child, it points out differences between Mormon and Anglican worship styles, but strongly emphasizes commonality, love, and unity.

The Church has long emphasized it’s distinctiveness for a variety of reasons, including our missionary emphasis and–I think–a little bit of having a chip on our shoulder as a young faith with a relatively recent history of persecution that is still not taken very seriously by many older and more established denominations. I’m a big believer in distinctiveness. You can’t have real diversity or tolerance without distinctiveness. But I’m also a big believer in making friends and finding common ground with those who come from different perspectives. And so, for me, an article like this was both exciting and heartwarming. You should definitely give it a read.

Renowned Neurologist Oliver Sacks Dies

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Earlier this year, I shared famed neurologist Oliver Sacks’ farewell piece he wrote in The New York Times. Unfortunately on Sunday night, he passed away at the age of 82. The NYT has a wonderful obituary that reviews his life and work. I highly recommend reading it. However, I also recommend reading a piece written by Sacks just this last month simply titled “Sabbath.” After describing his Orthodox Jewish upbringing and relaying a rather heartbreaking incident between him and his mother over his homosexuality (Sacks was celibate later in life), he begins to dwell on the concept of the Sabbath. Quoting Nobel economist Robert John Aumann, he states, “The observance of the Sabbath is extremely beautiful and is impossible without being religious. It is not even a question of improving society — it is about improving one’s own quality of life.” Now Sacks has described himself as an “old Jewish atheist,” but he ends the piece with the following:

And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.

Some of the final lines from the film Awakenings–adapted from Sacks’ book of the same title and with Robin Williams’ character based on Sacks himself–go hand-in-hand with this reflection.

May you rest in peace, Dr. Sacks.

Cited at Real Clear Politics

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842 - Pixabay Sci FI

I came across a Real Clear Politics post the other day by Cathy Young: Mutiny at the Hugo Awards. It’s surprisingly fair coverage from a mainstream outlet, but I guess that makes sense since Young also writes for Reason.com. In any case, I was particularly interested when I got to these paragraphs:

Perhaps the real issue isn’t the quality of any specific work, or even the prevalence of “message fiction” in the genre; it’s that, as cautiously Puppy-sympathetic nonfiction writer and data scientist Nathaniel Givens has argued on his blog, “the message has never been so dogmatically uniform.” What’s more, Givens argues, the current crop of pro-“social justice” authors who dominate the field not only use their fiction as a vehicle for ideology but seek to enforce conformity throughout the fandom, posing a genuine threat to intellectual diversity. He points out that, by contrast, the Sad Puppies “went out of their way to put some authors on the slate who are liberal rather than conservative.”

Givens’s observations are echoed by Hoyt, who has written on her blog about the “state of fear” that has existed for a while in the speculative fiction community—the fear of being blacklisted for having the wrong politics. While Hoyt says that this fear has lost much of its grip now that independent publishing has allowed writers to make a living outside the “establishment” sci-fi presses, the elites still control recognition and legitimacy within the fandom. Hence, the Hugos rebellion.

So, that’s a cite in Real Clear Politics to go with the one in The New Republic on this issue. Pretty neat.[ref]The TNR reference was not quite as neat, since the article cherry picked from my analysis while rejecting most of my conclusions. Oh well. Still pretty neat.[/ref]

The whole post is definitely worth reading. It’s a good perspective, and she has some original–and very interesting–quotes from some of the main participants.