In many senses, perhaps one of the WORST places from which to garner information is Facebook. There are worse, you could choose to gather information from Twitter. High on the list as well, would be mainstream “news” outlets.
The reasons for Facebook and definitely for Twitter make them much worse even than the mainstream media though. Often, people will say things on Facebook and Twitter that are PATENTLY untrue. And since they tend to be “speaking to” people of like mind, the information is—at least by many—processed and stored as fact.
To be fair, the media IN GENERAL has a much stronger tendency towards bias than is generally realized. If in NO OTHER WAY, the tendency to not report things that are important, to misreport based on on a skewed perspective and the tendency to report things that NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED make media in general questionable in their “reporting.”
That being said, if a media outlet or individual is prone to tell you about their particular bias (and be HONEST about it), you can AT LEAST see what they’re saying through the lens of the afore-stated bias. In so doing, you will have an idea what they’re likely to do to bias a given report.
My problem with the mainstream media, is a tendency to NOT report a bias that—depending on the entity in question—is somewhere between mildly and extremely liberal in nature. The result is, I must constantly be trying to decide the direction, level and extent of a particular entity’s bias when dealing with the mainstream media (which often makes it rather difficult to determine what they’re not saying that the SHOULD be or are saying that they SHOULDN’T be).
This article though, is on the sanctity of human life, and I’d like to make it PERFECTLY clear that it is largely in response to something seen on Facebook, that was taken from some other, “thread-based micro-comment” tool… not sure which one, and DON’T REALLY CARE, I don’t use, and probably NEVER WILL, such “tools” as I find them to be too close to the “sound bite” concept that so many media types and politicians so greatly seem to love (hence my STRONG distaste for Twitter). Terseness is a wonderful thing, SO LONG AS one doesn’t sacrifice clarity on the altar of brevity (put another way, is TRULY terse, not brief in a way that loses context).
In essence, the “post” in question made the (at least largely errant) claim that, “Conservatives care about the lives of babies in the womb, but not about the lives of certain folks outside of it.” Allow me to dispel this “myth” by talking about a few of the things people use to justify it. If I miss anything from the post in question, either I can cover it later, or it’s not important enough to warrant the use of my probably over-valued time (keeping in mind that I’m NOT really in any way compensated for writing this, other than hopefully educating others so I won’t have to live in the world that otherwise results).
Firstly, I should talk about the idea that Conservatives don’t care about children because of their failure to support things like government welfare and health care.
I know it’s true that most Liberal folk, consider Conservatives “heartless” for their stances on welfare and health care. Let me make it clear that—based on the way Conservatives tend to view the World, government welfare and health care are FAR more heartless than the things most Conservatives would propose.
The closer most Conservatives come to Libertarianism, the more likely they are to propose solutions to these pressing issues that rely on the private sector, on charities and on faith based organizations.
This is because when GOVERNMENT does the job of managing welfare or health care, for them, it TRULY IS A JOB—and sadly as a result, a good many of them do it QUITE POORLY.
On the other hand, when private entities and individuals do so, if it’s a job at ALL, it’s typically a LABOR OF LOVE (and often one for which they DO NOT GET PAID).
That doesn’t mean private entities “always get it right,” but it DOES mean their motivation for so doing tends to be a great deal stronger than that of the average “low end government worker.” EVEN AT THE LOW END of non government volunteers etc.
Put simply, paying people to allot resources for welfare or health care with a litany of regulations hanging over their heads, telling them how they WILL do WHAT THEY CAN DO is NOT a way to be truly helpful to those TRULY IN NEED.
In fact what it IS “good for,” is creating a class of people (aside from those in real need) who learn how to navigate the regulations to their own benefit (and often to the DETRIMENT of those ACTUALLY in need). Put another way, “People who game the system.”
It is for this reason, that most Conservatives (and especially Libertarians) DO NOT support government welfare and health care. And this is ASIDE from the fact that Federal entities are NOT mandated to create such systems or administer them (in fact, they are given a list of “enumerated powers” with the idea that they are LIMITED TO those powers, and welfare and health coverage and health care are INTENTIONALLY NOT AMONG THEM).
And just as a matter of interest, if you want to see the mindset of Conservatives and Liberals regarding children and how they should be dealt with, I urge you to look into what happened to Charlie Gard in the UK, and who, in the UK AND the U.S. wanted what as a result.
The next thing used to discredit Conservatives’ care for the sanctity of humans already born, is the argument concerning folks in prison—and most particularly, those on “death row” one place or another.
About this, I will say that I am NOT a “fan of” either prisons or the death penalty. If EVEN ONE person is put to death in punishment for a crime they DIDN’T COMMIT, that act has happened one too many times for my liking.
That having been said, I have yet to hear ANY of the complainants suggest a better solution where dealing with the problems in question are concerned. Further, the things being done are “enshrined” in the law (and the United States being a REPUBLIC makes it so that can scarcely BE more important). As such, instead of castigating folks for enforcing the law, if folks have a PROBLEM with said laws, they should seek to CHANGE them (not IGNORE them).
One more important point on this issue. When a person is put in prison, and MOST PARTICULARLY when the person in question is on “death row” it is intended that this individual’s RESULTS are a CONSEQUENCE of their ACTIONS. Put another way, actions have resultant consequences, failing to accept or expect those consequences is not the fault of others. Even the Bible says clearly:
“For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.”
The obvious point of this statement is that, if one is punished for what is considered wrongdoing, there’s really no “credit” to be taken for that.
The last point I want to discuss, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on, that would be war.
Again, as a rule, I don’t really support war personally (nor honestly, do I believe Christianity does so). That having been said, I believe it to be the province of the state to conduct wars. The hope is ALWAYS that those who cause the deaths of others through war, are concerned with being sure those who perish as a result have acted in ways that justify their deaths.
Does this always happen? Certainly not! That having been said, I believe IN GENERAL, most Conservatives would hold with the idea that unwarranted deaths that are not accidental or incidental (to the deaths of those whose deaths would be considered warranted), should be dealt with as though the people in question deserved to have the incidents that resulted in their deaths properly investigated and cause appropriate action to be taken—and to some degree, that should be true for accidental and incidental deaths as well.
I’m more than willing to hear what I’m missing, or in what way I am incorrect, but be assured, until I do, I am not likely to take the argument that Conservatives “don’t care about” human life after a child is born as being a reasonable one.
I promise that there is a great deal more I could say here, but I know I haven’t the time and most haven’t the patience for me to do so in this article (in fact, I’ve already “exceeded my standard word limit” by half again). That being said, if I talk about this again, it will be in another article.
As always, thanks for reading and have a wonderful day.