Category: Politics

 

When it is claimed that the “real victims” are white, male, straight or Christian, there is the obvious problem of explaining how this occurs. It cannot be that white, male, straight and Christian people are systematically excluded from power in the United States. These are the people who currently dominate the White House, the Senate, the House, corporations, academia, and so on. But there is a feeling among some white, straight, male, and Christian people that they are suffering. But what is the explanation?

A “left wing” explanation would be that while being white, male, straight or Christian yields relative advantages, the greatest advantages are held by those who have the greatest wealth and power. That is, class is a dominant factor in the United States. Take, for example, the claim that migrants are stealing jobs. Put this way, white workers are claimed to be victims of minorities. While there are cases in which jobs are lost to migrants, the job woes of Americans are not caused by migrants stealing jobs. While the causes of job losses and underemployment are complicated, a major factor is that those with the power to make decisions choose to do things that hurt American workers. As a specific example, my hometown of Old Town used to have the paper mill as its primary employer. Migrants did not come to Old Town to steal the jobs, ownership of the mill changed and eventually those in charge decided to shut the mill down. This hurt my hometown in ways that it will probably never recover from. One could spend endless hours going through similar explanations of the real woes faced by white, male, straight, and Christian Americans. But this sort of explanation is obviously not going to be presented by those who hold power. But they still need to explain the suffering.

One “non-left” explanation is that the “real victims” are “losing” to the other groups because they are inferior. To use an analogy, back in the day my friends and I did well in the local road races; we were the ruling class of local running. This is no longer the case. The explanation is easy: we are now decades older and are inferior to the young athletes who now rule. One could argue that the same sort of thing is happening to the groups in question: they once ruled America but are now losing to superior groups because they are inferior. But this explanation would clearly be unacceptable to the conservatives who claim that white, straight, male, Christians are the real victims.

One reason for this is the conservative notion of merit and their claims about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. If these groups are “losing” because they are inferior, then this would be acceptable under a professed principle of merit in conservative ideology. But conservatives do not say that it is morally fine that white, straight, Christian men are losing because they are inferior to their competition.

A second reason conservatives will not accept the inferiority explanation is that it would not be good propaganda or rhetoric. Telling these groups that they are losing because they are inferior will hardly yield the desired results. As such, an explanation is still wanting.

But conservatives do tend to present the “opponents” of these groups as being strong in some manner. This allows the “defeat” to be blamed on the strength of the opposing groups rather than on the weakness of the “real victims.” An obvious problem is that if these opposing groups are presented as strong, this entails their white, straight, male, Christian “victims” are weaker and thus, by conservative ideology, inferior. This creates a challenge for conservatives: the “real victims” must be victims, but they must also be mighty. That is, they must be mighty victims. The reasons given that the groups are mighty(yet victims) vary considerably and fall along a vast spectrum.

In the case of being white, the notion of whites being mighty can range from pride in being white to white supremacy. Moderate examples of this would be people to argue for the superiority of Western (white) culture and point to the accomplishments of white people. Approaching the extreme end would be assertions of fundamental white supremacy and the inferiority of all others. Nazis would be in this area. I must, of course, state the obvious to pre-empt a likely attack: being fine with being white is fine. I’m fine with looking white; but I do not think I am thus superior to others.

In the case of being male, the notion that men are superior to women can range from pride in being a male to complete misogyny. Moderate examples would be those who argue that men and women have different qualities, but men are generally better. Near the extreme end would be full misogyny, the idea that men are vastly superior to women and women are horrible and out to destroy men. One can be fine with being a man; that can be healthy. I am fine with being a man; but I do not think this makes me superior.

In the case of being straight, the notion that being straight is superior to having another sexuality can range from the idea that being straight is more natural to the notion that non-straight people are abominations that should be destroyed. Moderate examples would be those who say that being straight is generally better than not being straight and non-straight people probably have some minor mental illness. The extreme end would involve regarding those other than straight people as perverted abominations that should be cured, locked away or even killed. One can be fine with being straight. I am. But I do not think that other orientations must be perverted or inferior. I do, of course, recognize that there can be evil connected to one’s sexuality. After all, pedophiles and rapists are morally wicked.

In the case of Christianity, the idea that it is better than other religions can range from the notion that it is somewhat better to the view that other faiths are not only inferior but wicked. Moderate examples would be people who think their faith is better because of Christ, but who think that other monotheistic faiths are close to being right (if only they would accept Jesus). Extreme examples would include fanatical loathing and hatred of other faiths, regarding those people as not only wrong but monstrous in their beliefs. This is not to deny that some people are monstrous in their beliefs. Christians should obviously be fine with being Christian—I am fine with my Episcopalian background. But I do not think I am thus superior to others. Once it has been “argued” that these groups are superior, then an explanation must be given as to why they are the “real victims.”

As noted above, the opposing groups that make whites, men, straight people, and Christians into the “real victims” must be strong enough to “win” yet also somehow inferior. These requires that the opposing groups have the traits needed to “win” while also having traits that make them inferior. The “real victim” groups must have the traits needed to “lose” while also having the traits that make them superior. This seems to create the paradox of the mighty victims: the inferior victimizers must win consistently to explain why these superior groups are the “real victims”, but the “victory” must also be unearned.

One way to try to do this is by a sports analogy in which the allegedly best athletes are consistently bested by allegedly inferior athletes. Inferior athletes could win by cheating or through some conspiracy, thus the inferiors consistently and unfairly best their betters. This would, of course, require that the best athletes can never overcome cheating or do anything to prevent it. That is, they are powerless to be anything but mighty victims. But this would seem to require that although they are the best athletes, they are lacking in other ways that allow them to be so easily bested. For this analogy to work with the groups in question, it would need to be shown that these groups are cheating in some manner that cannot be addressed by the alleged superiority of the “real victims.” It is not clear how this would work: that the “real victims” would be superior yet still unable to overcome the cheating of their alleged inferiors.

A second way is to use the ally hypothesis. The allegedly inferior victimizing groups are aided and abetted by traitors in the victimized groups. On this narrative, the traitors can best their betrayed fellows because they are also among the superior groups and aid the allegedly inferior groups to best their own kind. For example, one might allege that there are white traitors helping to victimize their fellow whites. Ironically, this would require that the traitors be superior to the loyalists, otherwise the group loyalists should be able to “win.” So, if whites being the real victims is explained in terms of white traitors, the problem is that this would seem to entail that the “best” whites are the traitors since they are “beating” the “lesser” whites. So, the ally hypothesis falls apart under examination.

A third way is to use the numbers hypothesis; the allegedly inferior victimizing groups have superior numbers, so the mighty victims are “losing.” While it is true that numbers can offset ability, the “real victim” groups are generally not outnumbered. Men and women are roughly equal in numbers, straight people vastly outnumber other orientations, Christians dominate American religion, and white people still have a numerical advantage in America, though we might now be a majority minority (that is, not 50+% of the population but still more than any other group). As such, the numbers argument fails. But there is an explanation that does reconcile the fact that these groups are both “superior” and victims.

It is true that white people, men, straight people, and Christians are victims. But it is also true that people from these groups hold the overwhelming power in the United States. Thus, these groups both hold superior power and contain victims. The victims are, ironically, most often victims of their fellows who hold superior power. So how do the powerful few convince the many in these groups that they are the “real victims” of the out groups?

A main strategy seems to involve pointing to losses in relative advantages between groups and convincing people that these losses are both unfair and caused by the other group. For example, men have lost some of their relative advantages over women in both the law and social norms and nothing stings like losing an undeserved advantage. It seems natural to blame women for this, since they have gained from these changes.  As another example, whites have lost some relative advantages over the years. To use an extreme example, it is no longer legal to own a black person. It is natural to blame people who are not white for the changes. Straight people have also seen same-sex marriage legalized, which some people somehow see as a loss. It is natural to blame people with other orientations for this.  Christianity has had to share more space with other religions and this loss of advantage no doubt strikes some as being victimized. It is natural to blame people of other faiths for this, since they have gained something.

Another strategy involves getting people in these mighty victim groups to believe (or at least feel) that most of their woes are the fault of the other groups, even when there is no connection. For example, the poverty and underemployment that white, straight, Christian men face is blamed on minorities although the economic decisions in the United States are mostly made by a few white, straight, Christian men. Men who are concerned that men die disproportionately in dangerous jobs might blame the feminists but it is obviously not the feminist who exclude women from dangerous jobs, and it is certainly not the feminists who control working conditions or when we take military action. There are also cases in which the harms are entirely fictional, for example Fox’s eternal make-believe war on Christmas.

We thus have a working explanation of mighty victims. A tiny fraction of the members of the group are mighty in that they hold overwhelming power. The other members of these groups are victims, but they are mostly victimized by members of their own groups. Which makes sense: the idea that those with less power are somehow victimizing the powerful is as absurd as the idea that the poor are victimizing the rich.

When Democrats in congress propose benefits for Americans, such as a universal pre-K program, childcare benefits for working families, expansions of the child tax credit and the earned income credit, free college and so on many on the right (such as Fox News) engage in D&D. Not the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, but the Deficit argument and the Dependency argument.

The deficit argument, which can also be categorized as the “it costs too much” argument, is that such programs will cost too much money, thus increasing the deficit. Since increasing the deficit is claimed to be harmful, then these programs should not be implemented. Cost-benefit arguments are certainly sensible if they are made in good faith. While some on the right do make this argument in good faith, many do not.

While the philosophical problem of other minds shows that I cannot know the content of another’s mind (or even if they have one), a good general test for bad faith is the consistency test. If a person is making a good faith argument based on their professed concern about something, then they will have similar concerns in other similar situations. Naturally, there can be relevant differences that warrant not applying the same principle in other circumstances. In the case of the deficit argument, the test for bad faith is to see if those making the argument are consistently concerned about cost and the deficit. If so, then this can be reasonably taken as a good faith argument: they believe what they are arguing. If their concern is not consistent, then it is reasonable to suspect bad faith although people can be inconsistent for other reasons, such as being unaware of the inconsistency. Looking back on the previous Trump presidency (and other Republican administrations) and looking at the Big Beautiful Bill we can see that the right generally does not care about costs or deficits when it comes to spending money on or increasing the deficit for things they like, such as military expenditures, corporate subsidies, and tax cuts. As such, it is reasonable to conclude that they do not believe in their deficit argument and do not care about costs or deficits as such. This is not to say that their argument must thus be flawed or their claims untrue.

Bad faith argumentation is like (and can include) lying: it is a matter of intent and belief. To infer that someone’s argument must be fallacious or their claim’s false because they are arguing in bad faith would be to fall victim to the ad hominem fallacy. Just as person could be telling a “true lie” by making a true claim they believe is false to deceive, a person could make a good bad faith argument: the argument could have good logic and plausible premises, but the person making it does not believe in their own argument. So why not just assess the logic of the argument and truth of the claims?

While logical assessment should be done, determining whether an argument is made in bad faith is still important as a normative rather than logical matter. When someone makes a bad faith argument (or claim), they do not believe in their own argument (or claim). As such, other people are not under any moral obligation to take their bad faith argument or claim seriously. To use the example of lying, if I know someone is lying to me, my moral concern is not with whether their claim is true or not (that is a matter for critical thinking) but with their intention to deceive or manipulate me. As such, while I should not reject their claim out of hand (it could be a true lie) I should certainly not be influenced by their lie as they have forfeited the expectation that I will give them serious consideration.

As noted above, the right generally does not care about deficits and debt as such. To be fair, there are some who are consistent on this point and they have thus earned the normative right to be given due consideration. But those who have proven that they do not care about the deficit as such are just advancing a bad faith argument, they are engaging in deceit rather than good argumentation.

In closing, I want to stress that it does not follow that a bad faith argument must be a fallacy or that a bad faith claim must be false. Just as people can tell true lies, they can also advance good arguments in bad faith. As such, the argument that any proposal to help Americans who are not rich will cost too much should be given due consideration on its own merits and, of course, this should also apply when the right is running up the deficit with tax cuts, corporate subsidies, and military spending.

In addition to the deficit argument, many on the right also advance the Dependency argument. This will be considered in the next essay.

In my last essay I noted that those who have power in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. Given this fact, it might seem odd that some argue that these groups are the real victims in the United States.

Contrary to the evidence, it is now often claimed that white people are the real victims of racism. It is true that white Americans have lost certain advantages arising from being perceived as white. In 1865 slavery was abolished and in 1870 voting rights were no longer restricted by race. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also resulted in a relative loss of white advantage. As would be imagined, only racists point to these as examples of whites being the real victims of racism. But some whites believe they are now the real victims of racism.

When pressed for contemporary evidence of how whites are the real victims of racism, people typically point to things like affirmative action, Black Lives Matter, criticism of systematic racism, and the fact that Kamala Harris was the Democrat’s presidential candidate. I do not think that most of my fellow white folk are lying when they claim they believe they are the real victims of racism. But I think they are in error. The obvious reason is the overwhelming evidence of systematic racism in the United States is for racism whose targets are not white. I do get why white people can honestly believe they are the real victims. There are ongoing efforts to convince white people that criticism of systematic racism and efforts to offset the negative impact of centuries of racism are racist. There is also the “clever” tactic of accusing people of being racist when they acknowledge the role of the racist’s conception of race as a factor in addressing racism. To pre-empt a likely fallacious appeal to anecdotal evidence, I know individual white people can be victims of racial discrimination. In addition to condemning that as morally wrong I will also note that my concern here is at the group level rather than focusing on anecdotes. It is consistent with white folks like me generally having an advantage because we are perceived as white that some specific white people face real racial discrimination.  And discrimination of this sort is wrong.

Contrary to the evidence, it is also now claimed that men are the real victims of sexism. It is true that men have lost many advantages relative to women. In 1920 women got the right to vote in the United States. There have also been laws passed to protect women at work and at home. Divorce has changed over the years and men (have mostly) lost the “right” to rape their wives. As would be expected, few would point to these as examples of how men are the real victims of sexism. When pressed, common examples involve references to the Me Too movement, certain feminists bashing men, strong female characters in media, changing gender roles, the rights of fathers relative to those of mothers, the charge of toxic masculinity, and Kamala Harris.

It must be acknowledged that there are some real issues with sexism against men; a good example being concerns about fathers’ rights. Men can be victims because of their sex: men suffer the heaviest casualties in combat and far more men than women are killed or injured in workplace accidents. At this point, you might be thinking that I have refuted my own view because I just argued men can be more likely to be harmed because they are men.

I must acknowledge that men are victims of sexism, but they are not generally the victims of the sexism of women. that is, it is not women who are the main cause of the suffering and death of men because they are men. It is the sexism of other men. Men are more likely to die and be injured in certain jobs because there are more men working those traditional male jobs. As an example, more men die in commercial fishing accidents than women because more men work in that field. More men die in battle because other men tend to send them to die in battle.

Rather than engage in a debate over who is being harmed the most by sexism, I agree that men and women are brutalized by sexism and that these problems need to be addressed. As such, men and women are both the real victims here. But what about straight people? Are we the victims of oppression?

Contrary to evidence, it is often claimed that we straight people are the real victims of discrimination. It is true that same-sex couples gained the legal right to marry in 2015 and there are some protections in place against discrimination based on sexual orientation. There is still open opposition to these legal rights and protections and opposition is often cast in terms of how gay rights somehow hurt straight people. For example, one stock argument against same sex marriage was that allowing it would be harmful to different sex marriages; something that absolutely did not happen.

But there are cases in which people are discriminated against because they are straight, which raises real moral concerns about hiring ethics. I do acknowledge the obvious: individual straight people can suffer from discrimination. But this is consistent with the social and legal advantages that arise from being straight in the states. As such, while a straight person can be a victim of discrimination, we straight people as a class enjoy significant advantages. But what about we Christians? Are we being oppressed in America?

While Americans generally recognize that discrimination exists against religious minorities, about 50% of Americans believe that evangelical Christians face discrimination. While the United States freedom of religion and often practices the separation of church and state, Christianity is the dominant religion. As such, some effort is required to claim religious discrimination against Christians in general.

As evidence of discrimination against Christians, people often cite Fox News unrelenting absurd war on Christmas propaganda.  It is absurd that people even need to try to refute what is obviously untrue. After all, Christmas  effectively rules the United States from late October until early January. Most of the other “evidence” of discrimination involves cases in which the separation of church and state is enforced, cases in which religious employers are not allowed to discriminate against employees or customers, and similar cases in which Christians are not allowed an exception to the law. While these do show that the dominance of Christianity in government, society and business has declined, this is not evidence of discrimination.

As in the other cases, individual Christians can face religious discrimination. However, this is consistent with Christianity being the dominant religion in the United States. The same survey in which 50% of those surveyed claimed that evangelicals faced discrimination only 15% claimed that being an evangelical hurt a person’s chances of getting ahead, while 63% agreed that being a Muslim hurt a person’s chances of getting ahead (31% said it hurt chances a lot). I do agree that religious discrimination is real and oppose it but it is wrong to claim that as a group Christians are the victims here.

In closing, while a person from any group can be a victim, the groups discussed generally enjoy advantages and are not the “real” victims. But it is not a contest to be the real victim: we should be morally concerned with human suffering regardless of which group a person belongs to. But we should not be disingenuous when discussing which groups have advantages. You might be wondering why this series is entitled “Mighty Victims.” This will be answered in the next essay.

The people who have power in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. This can be confirmed by a cursory look at who holds top positions in government, business, and academics. Membership in these groups confers advantages that increase the odds of having power. Before getting on with the discussion, I need to pre-empty some likely straw person attacks on my view.

First, even belonging to all four groups is no guarantee a person will have power. After all, there are straight, white men who have faith in Jesus yet are struggling with poverty and are powerless. Second, people do have power despite not being members of these groups. For example, I am aware that Oprah and Beyonce exist.  My claim is moderate: membership in one or more of these groups confers relative advantages while being outside of one or more of these groups can confer relative disadvantages. This can be illustrated with an analogy from gaming.

Imagine a basic game rule: to succeed at something (such as getting a job or hitting a monster with a sword), you need to roll a set number or higher on a die. This represents the role of chance in real life. In most games, you can get pluses and minuses to your roll, based on various factors. For example, if your character is related to the king, you might get a plus when rolling to talk the city guard out of arresting you for the bar fight. If your character belongs to an unpopular band of rebels, you might suffer a minus when rolling to convince the city guard to not attack you when they catch you speaking out against the king.

Looking at real life like a game, membership in one or more of these groups would confer a plus on some rolls and not being in these groups might confer a negative on some rolls. To address some more likely strawman attacks, I am not claiming that being in one of these groups always gives an advantage in every possible situation. Nor am I claiming that being outside of these groups always confers a disadvantage in every possible situation. My claim is that a person gains more advantages from being a member of these groups relative to other groups and this is consistent with cases where membership in one of these groups might not yield an advantage or even be a disadvantage. For example, a white male would be at a disadvantage when trying to secure a literary prize for minority female authors. But that same white male would often enjoy many advantages relative to minority women, such as how seriously their views are taken at work.  Pointing out a few examples in which white, straight, Christian men do not have an advantage (or might be at a disadvantage) does not refute the general claim that membership in these groups confers general advantages in the United States.

It is important to note that I am taking these advantages and disadvantages to be, as I have said, like pluses and minuses on random rolls rather than factors that always decide the outcome of events. As a made-up example, imagine that getting a good job requires rolling a 15+ using a 20-sided die. Imagine that for various reasons, such as bias, race and sex are factors that impact your chance of being hired. Put in made-up game terms, imagine that because of bias, being a man would give you a +1 on the roll and being white would also give +1 on the roll to get hired. A white man would make the roll with a +2, a black man would make it with a +1, a white woman would roll with +1, and a brown woman would make the roll at +0. Any one of them could succeed (0r fail) on the roll. But imagine hundreds, thousands or millions of people trying to get good jobs: even small relative advantages will have a significant impact on the overall results. If the relative advantages are larger, the impact will be even more significant and will result in a noticeable difference when large numbers of people are involved. This is what the United States looks like. As such, it makes sense to believe that membership in certain groups confers meaningful advantages in life. Again, these advantages do not guarantee success, nor do they utterly exclude others from succeeding they just rig the rolls, to go with the gaming analogy.

Interestingly, there are those who claim that the members of the above groups (straight, white, male, Christian) are the real victims today not the groups who are underrepresented in having power. I will turn to this subject in the next essay in this series.

Back when Black Lives Mattered, there was talk about defunding the police. While nothing significant seems to have come of this, it did create controversy at the time.  Some took issue with the choice of the word “defund” since  it allowed the right to easily create a straw person to attack. A straw person is a fallacy in which a distorted or exaggerated version is put in place of the actual claim, argument, or position. The straw version is attacked, thus “refuting” the real version. The most common straw person was that “defunding the police” meant the complete abolition of law enforcement. This was not true. While there was disagreement, the general view is that the police should have their funding reduced to fund chronically underfunded community services, such as mental health care. Some people did (and do) think that the current system of policing should be abolished in favor of a better system.

The straw person often guided the right into a slippery slope fallacy. This is a fallacy in which it is claimed that something (usually terrible) will inevitably follow from something else. The fallacy occurs when the connection between the two is not adequately supported. Slippery slope fallacies often involve hyperbole in the form of an extravagant exaggeration of the alleged consequences. In the case of defunding the police, the straw person slippery slope used by some on the right is that defunding the police would lead to utter chaos.

This also involved the use of scare tactics, a fallacy in which the “support” offered for the claim is something intended to frighten the target. As would also be expected, there are often racist dog-whistles (or open racism) employed to craft these nightmare scenarios.

It can be argued that that there are radical anarchists who want to get rid of the state and there are people who want a world free of police so they can commit violence, assault and theft. But taking these people to define what it means to defund the police is like using the Westboro Baptist Church to define all Christians. Using the most extreme members of the group to define the entire group, be they on the left or the right, is the fallacy of nut picking.  While there are many excellent moral arguments for defunding the police, I will focus on a very practical moral argument involving effective use of community resources. As “defunding the police” seems forever tainted, I prefer the phrase “rethinking the police.”

For a variety of reasons, the United States saw a marked militarization of the police. Police training has also shifted, with a very lucrative industry arising that trains police to be warriors. This would make sense if there had been a significant rise in violent crime and criminals were regularly using military weapons. However, violent crime has been consistently decreasing over time. While criminals do use assault rifles and some have used body armor, most crimes are not committed with guns and the most common guns used in crimes are handguns. While there is value in having superior firepower, the militarization of the police vastly exceeds the threat to a degree that is almost ludicrous. Also, SWAT teams exist for a reason, which is to handle the rare cases in which they are needed. But it doesn’t make sense to have most police armed to SWAT levels.

One problem with the combination of militarization and warrior training is a bias towards the use of force. One aspect of rethinking the police involves demilitarizing to make them less threatening to the public and, some hope, reducing the bias towards violence. There is also an image problem: militarized police marching the streets of America, violently attacking protestors makes us look like a repressive authoritarian state. To be fair, and balanced, this might soon be an accurate image.  Another problem with a militarized warrior police is that they are equipped and trained for violence but dealing with violent crime is a small fraction of their job.

While cities vary in the time officers spend on activities, addressing violent crime takes up about 4% of a typical shift. Over 30% of an officer’s time is spent responding to non-criminal calls. The rest of the time is spent on traffic, other crimes, property crimes and proactive activity. Between 6 and 9% are medical calls. Even it is incorrectly assumed that violent crimes always call for a militarized warrior response, that means that only 4% of police activity is responsible for the cost of militarizing the police and maintaining a warrior force. As numerous incidents involving people with mental health issues, autism, and other medical issues have shown, warrior police are  poorly equipped and trained to address these situations, even if they have the best intentions.

From a utilitarian standpoint, the right thing to do is to use the community resources to produce the best results. From a practical standpoint, the right thing to do is to use  community resources in a way that matches the needs of the community and to use the most effective methods, equipment, and training to meet these needs. Since violent crime makes up such a tiny fraction of police work, it makes moral and practical sense to shift funding and change the way policing works in the United States to make it both more ethical and more rational in terms of resource use.

While this might seem like a crazy notion or a utopian dream, some American communities have implemented these changes. An excellent example is the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon.  The gist of this program is that medics and mental health counselors are sent to respond to appropriate 911 calls. Because the United States has an ever-growing problem with homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness there is a corresponding need for professional response. Starting with Reagan, the United States decided to dump many social and health issues onto the police, and this has worked out as expected. Programs like CAHOOTS aim at reversing this. This program has proven successful and other cities are adopting similar programs. Rethinking the police has been going on for 30 years in Oregon and was spreading. This was a good thing.

While having medical professionals respond to relevant calls would be a major improvement, this does not address the underlying problems. In many ways, it is rather like policing: controlling the symptoms of social ills while leaving the causes in place. Ethically and effectively rethinking the police would require using resources to fix the social ills that require policing in all its forms. It would also, obviously, require meaningful political and economic changes to address poverty, homelessness, and such ills as the opioid epidemic inflicted by the pharmaceutical companies.  Rethinking the police in an ethical and rational manner would make for a better America for most people and is the right thing to do.

Suppose you saw a headline saying, “President admits activity was criminal in nature.” If you loath the president, you might infer he did something criminal and rush to post the article on Facebook or tweet it. If you support the president, you will probably interpret it in a way favorable to the president. You might assume the activity was by some enemy of the president or perhaps someone in the administration who betrayed the president with their misdeeds. You might even conclude that it is fake news. But if you are a critical thinker, you would read the article and assess its credibility before drawing an inference about the activity. This headline is an example of a misleading headline, because very different articles could have the same headline.

Saying “the president admits” would tend to lead people to think the president is involved in the activity; either that he committed the act, or someone connected to him did. But the article could be different from what it seems to imply. For example, the article might state that the president is agreeing that an act of violence done by one of his supporters was a crime. As another example, the headline could be extremely misleading, and the president might have made a quick remark about something completely unrelated to him that he agreed is a crime.

For the sake of this essay, I will adopt the general term of “headlining” to cover three aspects of misleading headlines.  The first is the intentional creation of a misleading headline as a rhetorical technique. A misleading headline is not a complete fabrication as that would simply be lying. A misleading headline has some connection to the truth but it is such that it is aimed to deceive the audience. This can be done in a variety of ways, such as using hyperbole (extravagant exaggeration), downplaying (casting it as less serious or less important), using vague or ambiguous wording, or by other rhetorical techniques.

There are, many reasons to create misleading headlines and more than one can apply. One common reason is to create a clickbait headline to generate ad revenue; the idea is that an honest headline would not be as interesting. I am not saying that headlines should be written in a dull manner and a headline that might seem misleading could be defended if it was intended to be interesting rather than to mislead. While there will be unclear cases, we can sort out the intentionally misleading headlines from those with the honest intent to be interesting. It is also worth noting that writers can create misleading headlines unintentionally due to failure of skill rather than a failure of honesty.

Another reason for a misleading headline is as a tool to influence the audience without using outright falsehood. Many biased sites and organizations have two seemingly conflicting goals. The first is to push a narrative and shape beliefs. The second is to retain some credibility as source of information.  Misleading headlines sitting atop factually correct stories allow a site to achieve both goals: the headlines allow them to mislead while the stories allow them to claim they are doing truthful reporting. The writers and editors might even have moral qualms about lying outright but be willing to mislead without technically lying.

The second aspect of headlining is when a reader is influenced to believe what the misleading headline is intended to imply. That is, they have been tricked into believing an untrue interpretation. For example, a person seeing the headline “President admits activity was criminal in nature” used by a site hostile to the president might interpret it as “president admits he committed a crime” and rush to Facebook to post about it. In truth, the president might have just agreed when asked if some crime done by a foreign leader was a crime. In this case the person is a victim of deceit: they believed the news source but have been misled by the headline. This is different from believing an outright lie as a misleading headline is not a complete fabrication and it often sits atop content that is not entirely untrue.

In such a case, the person is making three mistakes. The first is interpreting the headline in a misleading way without considering other plausible interpretations. The second is not reading the article. The third is not being critical of the claim and assessing it. The defense against falling for misleading headlines involves avoiding these three errors.

The third aspect of headlining is intentional misuse of misleading headlines. This occurs when the person is aware that the headline is misleading, but they use of it for their own purposes, often by posting the article on social media with their preferred interpretation of the headline. For example, a person who loathes the president might know that the “President admits activity was criminal in nature” headline is about the president agreeing that a foreign leader committed a crime. But they might post a link to the article while making some claim about the president’s guilt in the hope that others will be misled.

A person might even go so far as to create an entire YouTube video based on intentionally misinterpreting headlines. Such people might be called out for this by someone else on YouTube. People can, of course, also just lie about the content of an article and use that to make their straw man argument.

A defense against this tactic has three parts. The first is questioning the interpretation and considering other plausible interpretations. The second is to read the actual article to see the content. The third is being critical of the claims made and applying the rational methods of claim assessment. So, always go beyond the headlines.

Back in my high school and college track and cross-country days I was accustomed to unflattering comparisons between runners and football players. Runners were mocked as weak and unmanly, while football is a sport for manly men. When Trump’s followers praise his strength, this reminds me of those days and leads me consider the concept of strength.

My conception of strength was influenced by one of my fellow college runners. After he was jokingly mocked by football players, he replied that anyone could hurt somebody else, but it took a real athlete to hurt themselves. To be fair to football players, they do endure being hurt by others and when doing serious training they hurt themselves. But this remark provides a good starting point for a discussion of strength in the context of Trump.

As a runner, I think of strength in terms of the ability to overcome pain, fear and vices to achieve excellence. As an example, getting up at 5:00 am to do a 12-mile training run in the freezing rain is an example of strength. Completing a marathon despite the pain and exhaustion is also an example of strength. While running provides a serious test of strength, there are far greater tests. A good example is the case of someone Trump loathed, Senator John McCain.

While I disagreed with McCain on many political issues, I respect the moral courage and strength he showed during the Viet Nam war. As is well known, McCain was shot down and captured. Severely injured, he endured torture and survived as a prisoner of war. When his captors offered to release him as a sign of preferential treatment, he refused in accord with the military Code of Conduct.  McCain showed incredible strength, endured pain and fear and resisted efforts to corrupt him. One can find other accounts of the strength of American soldiers who endured fear, pain and danger. Strength, obviously, is not limited to the military. The parent who endures the burden of working multiple jobs to provide for their children while also caring for their own parents shows great strength. Those who face adversity, pain and fear with courage show their strength, even if they are broken or killed in their acts of strength. Even the strongest have limits, and there is merit and honor even in defeat.

Trump has a different view of such people. I selected McCain as an example because Trump’s view of McCain is well known. Trump said of John McCain that “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” I also used the example of American soldiers because Trump has allegedly called Americans who have died in war “losers” and “suckers.” Trump’s followers see him as strong, but given his utter contempt for McCain and America’s war dead, one must wonder about their conception of strength.

While McCain endured great adversity, Trump has not. He was given millions and has enjoyed a life in which others do his work for him (such as writing “his” book) and clean up his messes. Aside from his repeated bankruptcies and failures, he has been able to escape the consequences of his actions.  But Trump does face some challenges, and these allow us to see his alleged strength.

A good place to look for Trump’s alleged strength is how he handles even mild criticism and challenges presented by people in the media. One can also look at the harsher criticisms advanced by journalists and authors such as Bob Woodward.

Trump’s response is to throw tantrums and lie when faced with even mild criticism. He , accoridng to Tom Nichols, “…is a vain, cowardly, lying, vulgar, jabbering blowhard.” He is also a blamer who refuses to accept responsibility and turns against his people, throwing them under the bus rather than showing strength of characters and accepting responsibility and exhibiting loyalty. He is weakness personified, unable to endure even the mildest criticism without cracking. So where is his strength?

Going back to the remarks by my running friend, Trump’s “strength” seems to lie in his willingness to hurt others; he is “strong” enough to act in ways counter to empathy, compassion and moral decency. This is the sort of strength praised by Himmler in his Posen speeches: “Most of you here know what it means when 100 corpses lie next to each other, when there are 500 or when there are 1,000. To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person — with exceptions due to human weaknesses — has made us tough, and is a glorious chapter that has not and will not be spoken of.” Himmler also expressed his view of strength when he said ,“Thus I have basically given the order to also kill the wives and children of these partisans, and commissars. I would be a weakling and a criminal to our descendants if I allowed the hate-filled sons of the sub-humans we have liquidated in this struggle of humanity against subhumanity to grow up.”

While people often roll their eyes at Nazi comparisons, this view that strength is a matter of overcoming kindness and moral principles in order to do “what must be done” is one explicitly endorsed by modern  thinkers of the right. Ben Shapiro, for example, has come out against empathy. Elon Musk has also come out against empathy, seeing it as a threat to Western civilization. It must be noted that there are critics of empathy who are not on the right; but these criticisms are not that empathy must be overcome by strength so that we might do the “hard things that must be done.” Rather, these tend to be criticisms of tribal empathy, which is only feeling empathy for your side. There have also been criticisms of how empathy can lead to bad policy, not because caring precludes good policy. The concern is that identifying with a very specific person in very specific circumstances can result in badly crafted laws. Those critical of this aspect of empathy do not advocate being uncaring, but advocate compassion over empathy. The right advocates cruelty.

It could be objected that strength is required to overcome empathy, compassion, and moral qualms to do the things that must be done. Going back to my example of McCain and the dead soldiers, they were in combat and usually willing to harm others in battle. Their strength was that they could do the hard things that must be done in war. While this sort of objection does have some appeal, there is an important moral distinction between the strength required to be a combatant and the strength required to be murderous and cruel. Himmler claims that those who engaged in the murders he described retained their decency and were acting from strength; but that is not true. They were engaged in genocide and thus they lost all claim to being decent people.

In the case of Trump, his “strength” is not the sort of strength that enables a person to do something difficult that must be done and can be morally justified, like fighting in a just war. Rather, his cruelty is mistaken for strength. That he readily does cruel and terrible things without any expression of regret, remorse or compassion shows the weakness of his character.  He cannot even be given some credit for contending against those as strong or stronger than him for he is the President and even before then he made a point of going after those with far less power. As such, his followers are making the classic error of confusing cruel emptiness with strength.

Some years ago The Atlantic published a piece claiming that Trump described Americans killed in war as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers.’ Trump has denied these claims and his supporters  rushed to defend him. As would be expected, people tend to believe or reject the claims based on their ideology rather than on considerations of the evidence. I will endeavor to assess the claims philosophically.

In support of the claims is the fact that the Atlantic is a credible source that engages in careful fact checking.  The story has also been corroborated by other news outlets. Trump and his supporters denied the claims. From a critical thinking standpoint, this dispute comes down to an assessment of relative credibility of the Atlantic and Trump. Looked at objectively, Trump lies regularly and the Atlantic carefully fact checks its claims. As such, this is a major plus in favor of the Atlantic. Trump’s supporters assert, without evidence, that the Atlantic is fake news but the burden of proof was  on them to respond to the evidence in favor of the Atlantic’s credibility. If the Atlantic is fake news, they should be able to present evidence establishing this. An obvious problem is that Trump’s supporters tend to reject any claims unfavorable to Trump as false while those who loath Trump tend to accept such claims because of their dislike of Trump. For those between these extremes, the Atlantic would presumably win the credibility battle.

Counting against the Atlantic is the fact that it has a known center-left bias. As such, the Atlantic does have a motivation to be critical of Trump and this lowers its credibility. Trump and his supporters are, obviously, biased in Trump’s favor which lowers their credibility. As such, it comes down to assessing the relative bias and its impact on the credibility of each source. Once again, Trump’s supporters will tend to see the Atlantic as utterly biased against Trump and those who loath Trump will take him as utterly biased. Those in the middle would seem likely to favor the Atlantic here.

Also counting against the Atlantic is the fact that the sources are anonymous. As such, we must rely on a double argument from authority: the claims are supported by the claimed expertise of the author in assessing the anonymous sources and the expertise (broadly speaking) of the anonymous sources. Since we do not know the identity of the sources, we cannot assess their credibility ourselves and must rely on the credibility of the author. While some might be tempted to reject anonymous sources out of hand, this would be an error since anonymous sources have a legitimate role in reporting in cases in which the sources could be harmed if they were identified. Trump would have taken action against anyone who revealed these negative facts. While the use of anonymous sources does not count against the credibility of the claims, their identification and confirmation would greatly increase credibility. And, of course, their identification and disconfirmation would reduce the credibility of the claims. Having a recording of what Trump said would also have a large impact on the credibility of the claims, although one should consider the possibility of technological trickery.

Counting in favor of the claims is Trump’s confirmed negative statements about veterans and, most especially prisoners of war. Trump famously attacked  former POW John McCain, asserting that he likes people that were not captured. Trump also has an established history of disrespecting veterans, soldiers and the military. Trump’s seemingly complete focus on defining all interactions as transactional  is consistent with the claims attributed to him, as is his well known cruelty and lack of empathy. The claims attributed to Trump are completely consistent with Trump’s character and his past claims, which increases the credibility of these claims about him. As such, it is reasonable to believe that the article is accurate.

While Trump and his supporters are very pro-military, Trump has made it clear that he is anti-veteran. The Musk-Trump regime’s cuts have caused significant and ongoing harm to veterans, and Trump expressed no concern for this harm. As such, his current actions lend credence to this past claim.

Back in 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse became famous for shooting three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This took place during protests of the killing of Jacob Blake by police. While he was charged, he was found not guilty and even got to meet with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2021.

My adopted city of Tallahassee also saw an armed response to protestors. Fortunately, the incident ended quickly without injury or death. The episode seems to have begun with a confrontation between the protestors and the armed person which escalated into shoving. The armed person then drew his weapon to deter the protestors and quickly surrendered to the police.  He was seen as acting in legitimate self-defense: he felt threatened and drew his weapon to deter possible attackers. He might even be credited with showing restraint as Florida has a controversial stand your ground law that might have allowed him to legally shoot the protestors.

These two examples raise the issue of whether it is ethical to go armed to confront protestors. Since my expertise is not law, I will leave it to the lawyers, legislators, and judges to sort out the legal aspects and will focus on the moral issue.

To pre-empt likely straw person attacks, I will begin with the obvious: if protestors unjustly attack someone, they have the right to self-defense. For example, if Sally is standing in front of her store and protestors start throwing bricks at her, she has the right of self-defense. She has done nothing to warrant their attack, and they are acting wrongly to harm her.

As another example, if Bill engages protestors in a debate and the protestors start punching him, then he would have the moral right of self-defense. He has the moral right to be in public spaces and to express his views. As such, he would have done nothing that would warrant the attack and can rightfully defend himself.

At the other extreme there are cases in which it would be absurd to claim the right of self-defense. For example, if a person watches too much Fox News and is terrified of protestors and opens fire on a group of peaceful protestors walking past his property, he cannot claim the moral right of self-defense. Merely being afraid does not suffice to warrant self-defense; there must be a level of threat that a reasonable person would recognize. As another example, if a protestor was spray-painting protest slogans on the wall of a business, this would not morally warrant the owner shooting them as the offense does not merit the punishment of death. As with most moral issues, it is the land between the extremes where the meaningful debate usually takes place.

While many would see the Rittenhouse case as open and shut, it does raise a general point worth considering. Rather than focus on the specific case, this incident raises the moral question of whether a person has the moral right to intentionally travel to a place to defend the property or lives of others knowing that confrontation is likely. This is, of course, a case of an intentional, traveling vigilante. Since I have written vigilantism before, I will take my usual approach of using John Locke’s theory of self-defense.

Locke argues that when we are in the state of civil society, we still retain the right of self-defense and the right to protect others. But it must be “activated” before it can justly be used. What must occur is that a person must be temporarily removed from the state of civil society by an action that wrongly threatens life, liberty, or property. For this to occur, there must be no viable civil authority able or willing to intervene on the person’s behalf. If there is a viable and willing civil authority that can act effectively, the person remains in the state of civil society and does not have the right to use violence. To use an obvious example, if I am in a confrontation and someone punches me and a police officer immediately pins them to the ground, I do not have the right to attack them because the civil authority was present and acted effectively. But if the officer is fifty feet away while the person is trying to hit me, I have the moral right to engage them. But if the officer subdues them, I do not have the right to keep hitting them as civil society has been restored.

On the face of it, a travelling vigilante would be hard-pressed to invoke the right of self-defense: they must travel to a place to intentionally put themselves in danger when they could just stay home and remain safe. This is like running across a room to get in front of a punch aimed at someone else just so one can claim self-defense. That would be absurd. So, a travelling vigilante cannot justly claim self-defense: they could have defended themselves by staying away from the danger. 

But Locke also allows, in the state of nature, people to rightfully defend others. So, if civil society has failed in a location, then people would have a moral right to go to that place to defend lives and property that are being wrongfully threatened. Specific cases would require sorting out whether the alleged threats were real and morally wrong. But if civil society has not failed in that location, then such an action would not be warranted: protecting life, liberty and property is the obligation of the state and vigilantes would not be warranted in using violence. As such, a travelling vigilante could be justified in cases in which civil authority has failed.

The other general sort of case involves a person going to a protest while armed, knowing that their planned actions or presence is likely to provoke a response. There are two main types of situations here. One is that the person is aware that their presence and actions might provoke a response, but they do not intend to instigate violence. If the person has a morally acceptable reason to go, even if it is just to exercise their right to be in a public space, then their going would seem to be acceptable. That said, a person should still consider the consequences of their actions: while they do have the right to be there, if they go knowing they will trigger a conflict, then they bear some responsibility if something happens. After all, they could avoid the conflict by not going. To use an analogy, if Sam’s ex is going to be at a party and Sam knows there will be an incident if he goes, while he still has the right to attend the party, he does have some responsibility for deciding to attend. But, of course, if he does not want an incident and his ex is the instigator, then the ex bears most of the responsibility.

The second is that the person intends to provoke a response so that they can engage in violence while claiming they are acting in self-defense. This is morally complicated. On the one hand, claiming self-defense after intentionally provoking the response would be morally problematic. To use an ex analogy, if Sam knows that his ex will create an incident and ruin the party if he shows up and provokes her and shows up intending to provoke her and ruin the party, then he bears some of the blame.

On the other hand, it can be argued that even if the person intends to provoke an incident, they can still claim self-defense if those provoked act wrongly. Using the ex-example, if Sam knows what his ex will do and goes with the intent of provoking her, if his provocation does not morally justify her response, he can still rightfully claim that she bears most of the responsibility. He can, rightfully, claim that she has no right to respond in that manner even though he knows what will happen when he goes and provokes her. So, if Joe attends a protest of Trump and Musk supporters and shouts “black lives matter” and “go home Elon” intending to provoke a violent response, then he would bear some responsibility if violence ensued. After all, but for his presence and actions, it would not have occurred.  But he can also claim self-defense: the violent response was not warranted by his provocation. This does, of course, raise complicated moral questions about what sort of provocation warrants a violent response.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/fugitive-modernities

Jessica Krug, a former history professor at George Washington University, admitted to misrepresenting her race and ethnicity. In her confession, she accepted responsibility for her deception while making note of her mental health issues.  This incident was a gift to the right: when it occurred, I learned about it from a Facebook post contending this was proof that there is no such thing as white privilege. While the post asserted this claim without any argument, it did raise an interesting issue.

One could argue that if there is an advantage to a white person masquerading as black, then white privilege must not be real. After all, if a rational person were seeking an advantage by masquerading as another ethnicity, they would take on the most advantageous role. Since the white Krug masqueraded as black and she is clearly intelligent, then it follows that being white is not more advantageous than being black. Therefore, one might conclude that white privilege is not real.

While Krug does refer to mental health issues, she does not claim she took on the black identity because of mental illness. So, it would be a mistake to try to counter the above argument by contending she was crazy and thus gave up her real white privilege. In fact, while her choice was morally wrong, it can be seen as a clever choice in her situation and a case can be made that her masquerade was advantageous while also arguing that this is consistent with white privilege.

The statistical evidence for white privilege is overwhelming. The idea of white privilege is not that white people have it easy or get everything for nothing. In the United States, life for everyone who is not in the upper classes is difficult and often precarious. But being white makes it a bit less bad.  An average white person will enjoy statistically significant advantages over a black person because they are white. Or, rather, other people give white people an advantage in many circumstances. But this does not entail that there are no circumstances in which appearing black can yield an advantage.

As an analogy, matching the current conception of physical beauty yields many advantages and beautiful people are perceived as being better in many non-beauty related ways. But there can be specific and limited circumstances in which not being seen as conventionally beautiful can be advantageous. For example, a company might be looking for models who do not match that conception of beauty for a an ad campaign. As another example, there are some professional contexts in which matching that conception of beauty could be a disadvantage. But these limited cases do not prove that there is no general beauty advantage.

While the academy still favors white people (and more so every day now), there can be specific jobs, awards, fellowships, scholarships, and other opportunities in which being (or appearing) black can be an advantage (or a necessity). For example, when I was at Ohio State a fellow grad student applied for an African-American scholarship. He had dual American and African citizenship and thus seemed to qualify. But he did not because he was a white African-American and not black. There are also certain academic fields where having a specific identity provides more perceived credibility. A humorous example of this is the Black Jeopardy skit on Saturday Night Live featuring Lewis C.K. as a professor of African American Studies at Brigham Young University. It was funny, obviously, because Lewis C.K. is white. In such cases, appearing black can provide a specific advantage that can outweigh the general advantages of being white. While Krug would probably have been successful if she had been honest, this was a very narrow and  unusual case in which appearing black was probably more advantageous. As such, her case does not disprove white privilege; at best it shows that there are very limited and rare circumstances in which appearing black can provide a very specific advantage.

Some on the right might be pleased I have agreed that there can be cases in which a black person can  gain an advantage because they are black. But they should not be that pleased: all I have argued for is that there are very limited cases in which being (or appearing) black can yield a limited and specific contextual advantage. This does not show that whites are at a general disadvantage in the academy. And it certainly does not disprove white privilege. Going back to the beauty analogy, it would be like claiming that one model who succeeded because she was not seen as beautiful proves that there is no advantage to being seen as beautiful.