Solving Real Problems Means Distinguishing Reality from Ideology

Does ideology prevent one from seeing the most obvious distinctions of fact, let alone the more refined?  Or is it simply that we have dumbed down so much that many are no longer capable of doing so?

We seem to have lost our ability to think – to examine a situation for what it is rather than for what we might like it to be.  This does not allow us to find realistic solutions for real problems.  Some examples:

There is a difference between legal and illegal, yet when it comes to those entering our country, many are incapable of making this distinction.  The result is that we can’t get past that to address the real issues and rework our immigration laws.

There is a difference between solid waste pollution and global warming.  Reducing plastic bags (the current go-to feel good act for environmental activists), while reducing land fill solid waste, does nothing for climate change; it does not reduce CO2 or other emissions.  It may even aggravate climate change since it takes more energy to manufacture and transport the likely alternative paper bags.  But, apparently it has become too hard to think past the feel good act and consider even this obvious distinction.  And, the failure to do so likely means less focus on climate change solutions.

Those who would welcome all border crossers, legal or illegal, try to shame those who do not help them by quoting religious references such as “love thy neighbor.”  Yet they ignore the fact that we have citizen neighbors who are suffering from hunger, violence, and other conditions similar to those the migrants claim.   And, the demand to open the border as the only way to satisfy  helping one’s neighbor ignores that there are other reasonable and responsible ways to do so; indeed, one can question how it is “loving one’s neighbor” to place children in dangerous caravans, to promise families a “better life” here when they may not be able to find work and may end up in situations worse than what they left.   When the demand to help is limited to that which supports a political agenda, the motive is suspect, the actions tainted, and the “help” perhaps not so wise.

There also seems to be a basic inability or disinclination to read or listen.  "Narratives" overcome facts.   The instances of this increase daily.  But here are just 2 examples: 

Joe Biden is using a false narrative to support his campaign to “make America moral again.”  While Trump did utter the phrase that there “were very fine people on both sides” in regard to Charlottesville, that was in the context of referring to the fact that some people were there only to protest for or against the taking down of a statue.  He further clarified “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”  Yet, because it is more politically convenient to perpetuate the dishonest mischaracterization of the statement, many will overlook the dishonesty as well as the irony that this dishonesty is the underpinning of a campaign for morality.

Just one of many mischaracterizations from the Barr Senate testimony:  The Mueller report provides some evidence that Trump questioned Mueller’s objectivity and considered REPLACING based on conflicts of interest.  REPLACING.  Not firing and ending the investigation.  Yet, those (firing, ending investigation) are the words repeated over and over by Democrats in referring to this evidence.  When someone is replaced, the implication is that the job of that person continues (in this case, the investigation would then continue, not end).  Yet, driven by political desire to claim obstruction by Trump, the Democrats seem to have lost not only their ability to think, but to just plain read.

Finally, while politicians throw money at problems such as poor schools, violent cities, and poverty, the same politicians refuse to consider such things as different cultural values that may contribute to the problem and call those who would look at such differences “racist.”  That is, the bias or fear of political correctness often keeps us from even acknowledging that a problem exists.  The belief that all people are equal does not mean that everyone is the same.  Nor is it synonymous with equality of opportunity.   And, none of these concepts fully comport with reality.  Indeed, identifying particular behaviors or needs of certain communities that would enhance their equality of one or another opportunity may require identifying ethnic, cultural, economic, or other distinguishing characteristics of those communities.  Yet, such identifications are often seen as politically incorrect at best and racist at worst, so we avoid them with the result that the people within those communities suffer.

The above are only a few of the numerous examples available of over-broad thinking and characterizations that cloud our perceptions of and ability to deal with reality.  Reality is more than a wishful narrative and there are many shades and distinctions between even the most similar facts and situations.  To fully deal with and solve the problems of the real world we must first be able to identify these distinctions.

When we start letting our biases color, alter, and even eliminate actual facts we lose our ability to realistically and candidly assess a situation.  We lose our ability to solve or resolve a problem.  As a society we used to have a seemingly better ability to assess situations realistically and intelligently consider actual facts and make distinctions between facts and their circumstances.  

While intelligence demands the ability to make distinctions, biased rhetoric requires only emotion.  Emotions may give one the will to solve a problem, but it takes intellect to figure out how to do so.

Yet, today we find politicians grasping at straws and mischaracterizing evidence just to make a political point.   We hear people talking in bumper sticker rhetoric.  This riles the emotions but does little else.  Complex problems do not respond to sound bite solutions.  Instead they require clear and objective thought - thought that is based in reality not ideology.

No, A Distasteful Personality Is Not an Impeachable Offense!

Christina Cauterucci writes today in Slate a piece entitled “Donald Trump’s Personality Is an Impeachable Offense.”  The honesty of this is not so much in her judgment about the President’s personality as it is in the fact that it reveals the truth about the unremitting attacks on this President.  That truth is that the Democrats and other Washington insiders and politicians do not like the personality of the President and, for them, that justifies any and all attempts to remove him from office, declare his presidency illegitimate, attack his family and friends, attack his supporters, and do any and all other acts that we see daily intended to in some way hurt this President and his presidency.

What Ms. Cauterucci and others do not seem to understand is that the presidency is not a popularity contest. The election is not for a prom queen or king.  It is for someone whom the people see best suited to protect America and carry out the duties of the president.  It is not about someone whom you would want for your pastor or someone you’d like to have a beer with.  It is not about whether someone has a personality that, in your opinion, is or is not distasteful .

The office of president is for one who will “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” (presidential oath of office, U.S. Const. Art. II, Sec. 1). The President’s duties include serving as commander in chief of the military, making treaties, appointing ambassadors and judges and other officers of the United States (U.S. Const. Art. II, Sec. 2).  He “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed (U.S. Const. Art. II Sec. 3).  The Constitution says nothing about one’s personality; there is no requirement of likability or lack of distasteful (to some) characteristics.

Yet, the Democrats and other anti-Trumpers live in a world in which presidential personality seems to be the only thing that matters.  Ms. Cauterucci, based on her reading of the Mueller prosecutorial report, judges Trump as socially inept, selfish, manipulative, sometimes cruel, and pathetic.  That is her opinion based on her reading; it appears she has never actually met the President.  I suspect others may have other opinions – perhaps a tough leader, perhaps angry about false accusations, perhaps other views.  (And, one ought to recall the old adage that "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.")  

But none of that matters because the presidency is not a cult of personality; it is that which the Democrats fail to understand.  For Ms. Cauterucci and others, a personality that they find distasteful is more than enough for impeachment. 

Do they not understand how ridiculous and irrational this is?  Yet, Ms. Cauterucci’s piece, by its very focus, reveals why the Democrats and other anti-Trumpers don’t care about the many positive accomplishments of Trump’s presidency (better economy, lower unemployment, improving trade, improving international strength to name a few).  While these things would seem to be those on which we should be judging a president, not whether we like the personality he uses in getting them done, the Democrats and their supporters (often including the media) have lost all understanding of the office of president.  Their judgments are not just clouded but are completely obscured by their dislike of the President’s personality.  For them, personality alone is everything and the only thing that qualifies or disqualifies someone for office. 

They have not liked Donald Trump’s personality since the beginning – he is a successful business man, not a political insider; he is brash and speaks directly rather than using their refined and often senseless political-speak; he wants action and would rather get things done than have endless meetings and studies; he has a vision of America that resonates with the American people and he is working hard to do what he said he would do if elected; he is accomplishing things that political insiders have only talked about for years, and he tweets and brags about all this.  

All of this seems to have irritated the anti-Trumpers to the point that they are now living in a world far removed from the people of this country, a world where someone with a personality they find distasteful not only should not be president, but must be completely destroyed.  And destruction of our country along with that is something they see as merely some sort of necessary collateral damage.

This irrationality might be humorous if it were not so dangerous.  But this monomaniacal focus on destruction of the President to the exclusion of everything else is eating away at not just the President himself, but at the presidency, the government, and our country. 

If a likable personality is a qualification for a president, then not only would many of our past and some great presidents have been excluded from holding office, it also means that in the future one’s ability to lead or to get anything done, to protect our country from both foreign and domestic threats, the ability to actually carry out the duties of the office, become unimportant and secondary.  Qualification and ability will mean nothing while likability will be the gold standard.  Yet likability does not mean that one can actually do the job.

Likability is subjective.  Of course it plays into one’s opinions about whom they support, but it is not a qualification for office.  And lack of likability is not an impeachable offense. 

It is well past time that the Democrats acknowledge this and return to the real world where they perform their duties to the American people rather than act out their hatred against a personality they do not like.

In a well-written piece in The Hill titled “The Mueller report concludes it was not needed” (LINK ), Kevin Brock writes: “A cabal of politicians and bureaucrats frivolously and cynically manipulated the levers of government to further their own political greed and lust for power by trying to exploit a falsehood. It cost us over $30 million and needlessly pitted Americans against one another.” 

Those of us left in the reality where there are far better things to do with our tax dollars than spend it to gratify an obsession against a disliked personality need to say “Enough!”  And if that call is not heard, then let us say it a different way – at the polls.  For if we do not end this insanity,  it will likely end our country as we know it.

Can We At Least Try to Approach the Mueller Report With Some Common Sense?

Just drop all the political posturing for a moment and use basic common sense:

               Imagine you are hired for a job, a job for which both you and the people who hired you believe  that you are someone who can accomplish great things and turn around what you and those who hired you saw as a movement in a wrong direction.  The day you begin you are told that you are being accused of a terrible crime that will not only affect your reputation but also interfere with your ability to perform your job duties. You know you did not commit this crime, yet you are under daily attack by those who wanted someone else to get your job.  Your friends and family are slandered.  The investigation of you for something you know you are not guilty of heats up more and more every day.  

               Wouldn’t you be both frustrated and angry with this daily barrage of interference with your ability to perform the job you were hired to do?  Wouldn’t you wish and then verbalize your desires that the investigation stop so you could just do your job?  Wouldn’t you even perhaps think about actually stopping it? 

So, in the above scenario, are you nonetheless guilty of obstructing the investigation when, while you wished and verbalized desires to do so, in the end you did not actually obstruct the investigation?  The Democrats think so.  Not because it makes sense, common or otherwise, but because they must condemn the President.  That seems to be the only thing for which they live – not to do their jobs as elected officials, not to work for the good of the country, not to support our system of government, not for any other reason than to destroy Donald Trump and hopes and dreams of all those who believe in him, in our country, and in a strong and proud America.

I have now read the Mueller report, though in reality it will take more than one reading to fully understand all of it.  But here are some comments on the obstruction issues (Volume 2 of the report).

First, one must understand that Mueller is a Prosecutor who was charged with developing a case against Donald Trump.  His job is to look at evidence and develop the strongest case that he can against the subject of his investigation.  So, here is what he does:  He looks at the law and what he must prove to make a case against Trump under that law.   If the law is ambiguous, he develops the best argument he can for an interpretation of the law that is favorable to his position.  That argument/interpretation might or might not prevail in court.   Then he looks at the evidence in the light most favorable to him (and most unfavorable to Trump) and develops the best possible argument against Trump that the evidence can support. Again, that might or might not be an argument that would be successful in court.   He then determines whether this best prosecutorial case is actually strong enough to indict.

So, what we see in Volume 2 are a lawyer’s presentation of the argument that could be made against Trump on 10 specific allegations of obstruction.  This is a one-sided presentation – the strongest view that the prosecution can come up with.  One must remember that there is also a view and arguments that can be made in favor of the other side.  Law is an adversarial profession; lawyers represent one side or the other and make the best argument they can for their client.  Lawyers are not the judge or the jury.

Mueller and his team are good lawyers and they write arguments that sound convincing.  But, remember, there can be even more convincing arguments written for the other side.  And that is likely why Mueller was unwilling to make an up or down call on obstruction.  He did the investigation and left it to his superior to take a more objective look and make the final call.  As was appropriate under the law, his superior, the Attorney General, did so.  (And, as the Attorney General noted, it was for him and not for Congress – we don’t use our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to go on investigatory (and sometimes witch) hunts to gather information that Congress can use for political purposes).

Everyone will have their own reaction (largely based on their political leanings) to the evidence set forth in the Mueller report.  The main thing I see in Volume 2 (the obstruction portion of the investigation) is that Donald Trump was very human in his anger and frustration of being wrongfully accused of collusion.  He was angry and frustrated that the political climate allowed the investigation to become so overtly hateful of him, his policies, and his supporters.  He was angry and frustrated that this was all interfering with his ability to focus fully on his job as President of the United States.  And, he was not a political operative and was less savvy in handling this political witch hunt than would be a seasoned politician.

I think it is time for everyone to let this go.  As did the Attorney General, look at the evidence objectively and in context.  Put the evidence into the larger context of the collusion investigation which it is clear that Trump felt, and rightfully so, was a witch hunt.  So, the President did some things, made some statements, that may be interpreted negatively; he was not perfect in the face of the false allegations against him.  But, that does not amount to obstruction.  And, the greatest argument that there was no obstruction is that the investigation went forward to its end, Trump gave unprecedented access to the investigators, and at no time claimed executive privilege.

While I, and most others who care about this country, may think that it is time to let this go, sadly, the Democrats and the Left-biased media do not.  Instead, they double down on their attacks against the President and now, also, the Attorney General, and even Mueller (their yesterday hero when they thought he was the one who would “get Trump”).  Some now see the Mueller report as presenting a plan for their impeachment of the president.  They want to unveil grand jury testimony, something protected by law (protected so that people will not fear testifying in the future).  They are issuing subpoenas against any and all who might give them some scrap that they can chew into some sort of allegation.  Meanwhile, the rest of the country’s business that they should be attending to goes unattended.

Above I explained my overall reaction to the Mueller report.  My overall reaction to the Democrats' responses is that they do not have any understanding whatsoever of the law, of our country and its government, of their role as elected representatives of the people, or of human nature in general.  They would rather continue their campaign of hate and anger against the President who, even despite their daily attacks against him, is accomplishing more for this country than they have been able to do in many years.  Perhaps they might look, instead of at how next to attack the president, at how they can applaud the low unemployment and growing economy, the improved international respect that we see.  Perhaps they could try to support instead of interfering with Trump’s efforts around the world and within America.  Hey, maybe they could even try to solve the immigration crisis instead of denying its existence.  (But, sadly, for many Democrats the only crisis is that Donald Trump and not they are in power; that Donald Trump and not they are getting things done.)

As I watch the Democrats react to the Mueller report my (diminishing) hope is that they might at some point come to their senses.  They are destroying themselves with their overwhelming and irrational hatred.  The danger is that they will take this country with them in their destruction.  I pray that, even if their leaders do not, the rank and file Democrats will come to their senses and demand more than hatred from their party.