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What Political Filter Are You Looking Through?
I hope we can all agree we each have one — a filter, that is. By its nature, though, a filter isn’t something you’re conscious of unless you step back and look at it, instead of through it. This has come up because a longtime friend believes he’s “conservative” (whatever that means), as do Mr. C and I, and yet we differ strongly on many important issues. I think I’m seeing his filter (a very progressive Trump-hating wife and adult daughter), but it’s made me ponder my own.
I’d like to think I’m looking at politics through a Catholic lens, but I know I already struggle to intellectually submit to at least two positions the Church takes: 1) use of the atomic bomb in Japan was utterly, inexcusably immoral and 2) the death penalty is “inadmissible” (Pope Francis’s addendum to the Catechism). The host of the Catholic Answers podcast has decried the use of the atomic bomb because it’s immoral to target children and whole cities. To which I would normally answer, “obviously.” But, is that really what happened at the end of World War II in Japan?
I don’t believe American forces specifically targeted children and, given that the atomic bomb had never been used over actual cities and the people living there, I’m not sure we knew just how devastating it would be. In addition, the firebombing of Tokyo killed approximately 100,000 Japanese and displaced roughly 1 million people — the most devastating air raid of the war. By comparison, the casualty estimates for Hiroshima and Nagasaki are, respectively, 70,000 and 40,000. I’m pretty sure the Catholic Answers guys would say the firebombing was immoral, too, but for some reason the focus is always on the atomic bomb, about which multiple warnings were given and the second one deployed only after the failure of the Japanese to surrender after the first.
But, but. . . I have to humbly consider that I’m wrong in my inclination to defend its use. I haven’t read Father Miscamble’s book on the subject, Counting the Dead at Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan, but I understand it is a thorough academic accounting and a moral defense given the likelihood of devastating casualties on both sides if the Allies had made an island-to-island invasion in the attempt to defeat Japan. Given the inhumane treatment of POWs by the Japanese and the propagandizing of their people that allied forces would cannibalize them (I’ve seen the film of a Japanese woman throwing her child off a cliff and jumping to her death to avoid such an outcome), I’m inclined to see the issue Fr. Miscamble’s way, although he and I may both be wrong.
I will grant that the whole of both world wars is a moral stain on humanity, beginning (typically) with the Germans. [Why is it always the Germans??] I’m just not sure there was a better way to resolve the conflict, given the intransigence of the enemies involved. And I don’t think anyone else knows either. Hindsight and second-guessing are sort of cheap and easy.
Although, I also have to consider that the issue is somewhat personal for me. If my father had been deployed to the Pacific after his service in Europe, chances are very good I and five of my six siblings wouldn’t be here to contemplate the morality of the atomic attack on Japan. That might be contributing to my bias.
On the death penalty, my conscience rests a little easier. I don’t believe in the “evolution” of doctrine (Pope Francis’s famously ambiguous airplane interview term). The development of a better understanding of revelation, sure, but not a change from one thing to something entirely opposite. The Church has long held that the death penalty is acceptable in cases of heinous murder. Pope Francis seems to think that because modern prisons are more secure, a lifetime spent in one is more humane treatment of the murderer and still protects society from him. I demur in two ways.
The prison staff are still threatened by criminally violent inmates and suffer injury and sometimes death. And facing execution and one’s Creator and Judge has a way of focusing the mind and is more likely to lead to a soul-saving conversion and repentance of the murderer than keeping him comfortably incarcerated for the last 30 years of his life until he has no mind left to focus. Also, with the advancement of DNA forensics, we’re much more secure in our knowledge of who the heinous murderer really is and have much less concern about executing an innocent man. It helps my position that God calls for the execution of murderers in all five books of the Torah, too. I don’t recall reading in the Bible where He changed His mind, so capital punishment is not only supported by Scripture, but also Catholic Tradition, and Magisterial teaching. It checks all the boxes.
I’ve come around 180 degrees on other Church teachings since my braindead atheist lefty days — specifically abortion and ideas about labor and laborers. I can say I absolutely believe in a woman’s right to control her own body in agreement with my progressive-influenced conservative friend. But, the abortion issue is about whether a woman has a right to make a life or death decision about someone else’s body. Hint: she doesn’t, no matter the circumstances of a child’s conception.
I also have a more nuanced view of work and labor unions than before. I’m no longer a fan of the Protestant work ethic. Sure America is prosperous because at least some of her people work hard, but at what price to their humanity? I say “yes” to collective bargaining in the private sector and a hard “no” to public employee unions. The only people not represented at the public union employee bargaining table are the “public” the government and its employees are supposed to be serving.
When it comes to our Trump-hating “conservative” friends, we’re likely to agree on some/many policy issues, but not on the man himself or the 2020 election. I’m inclined to believe the 2020 election was dirty, no matter how hated Trump is and was by voters for the following reasons:
1) the corporate media are inveterate, shameless liars — especially about Trump, but really about pretty much everything. Trump did not say Nazis are “very fine people” about Charlottesville. He isn’t a chronic liar, he’s an exaggerator for entertainment/effect. Joe Biden is a pathological liar about his record, his family tragedies, his faith, his accomplishments, about others . . . you name it. Donald Trump is hated because he tells people outrageous truths they’d rather not hear and he shares exactly what he’s thinking (speaking the same language many of us use), sometimes in a New York mean tweet way. He’s broken the presidential mold. Trump did not take nuclear secrets to Mar a Lago to sell them to our enemies. . . change my mind. He did not try to damage his political opponent by his Ukraine call — he tried to uncover the truth the media won’t tell us. The media is the enemy of the people and totally in the tank for Democrats and the status quo Leviathan governing our lives.
2) Zuckerbucks, ballot harvesting, 10,000 mules. Dismissal of Republican observers for post-midnight ballot counting. Blue districts famously “finding” votes, and not just in 2020.
3) COVID electoral shenanigans and the incurious state prosecutors and the DoJ refusing to investigate clear violations of states’ constitutions (and, therefore, the US Constitution) regarding the conduct of elections (mass mailing of ballots). The courts refusing to consider the cases because the states who brought them “lacked standing.” It was a freaking national election! Every state and every voter in it should have “standing.”
So, that’s a brief assessment of my filter, even though this is a lengthy post. I still have a lot more self-reflection to do and I might be wrong on any or most of these issues (not abortion, though). But, I know that to engage our friend, I’m going to have to have clarity about my biases and to seek areas of agreement first. None of this is easy, but no one is going to be convinced either way without a good-faith attempt to try to see more clearly the lens we’re looking through.
Published in General
I am informed by my gut, largely (and a little large).
Catholic upbringing to be sure.
The idea that rules, ethics, and fair play are vital to America’s, and Americans’ success – while the weakening of these un-unums the plurbius.
A healthy/unhealthy dose of Arizona leave-me-the-[redact]-alone which is a sort of governance claustrophobia.
Also, my enormous ego which has a way of warping my vision here and there.
The worst filter is the accidental one, which means that only the intent of others are in control of one’s point of view.
Each movement away from a previous position brings new non-held positions into view, into range, into consideration, into the mix, and finally into the center of one’s view. Every person interprets every movement as an improvement and shouts the news as if produced on stone tablets. Movement in the same direction is rewarded as “consistency,” and feels good. Sounds good. Yet people move their “position” in all directions, and each of them feels they are on the true path.
I now have an offense-defense approach to filters. “What you allow in your ears will eventually come out of your mouth.” Unless I have decided to mount a rebuttal to a particularly weak or egregious bunch of opposition, I usually ignore it.
I feel for your friend having been colonized and conquered by Marxism via his wife and children. This is a huge issue for the right.
This is an aside, but it’s not always the Germans. A good question to ask is why do Americans always think that it’s always the Germans?
WWI certainly wasn’t started by the Germans. The Franco-Prussian War wasn’t started by the Germans. The Crimean War wasn’t started by the Germans, and didn’t even involve the Germans. The Napoleonic Wars were not started by the Germans.
The British and French bear substantial fault for the start of WWII, as an immediate cause, due to the guaranty given to Poland. America, especially Wilson, bear substantial fault for the foolish, unrealistic settlement at the end of WWI that created grievances and problems that made the next war almost inevitable.
I do not absolve the Germans of all guilt for WWII, but I find that there is plenty of blame to go around. Even the Poles, who were mistreating their ethnically German citizens in the Danzig area, and who were intransigent about negotiating, in part because of the Anglo-French guaranty.
This is a good point, as we can never know for sure.
I think that we can know for certain that we were the initially intransigent ones. It was FDR who declared the doctrine of “unconditional surrender,” very early on, at the Casablanca conference in early 1943. This was a brutal doctrine.
I think that there is very strong evidence undermining the suggestion that the Japanese would never negotiate an armistice. Frankly, I think that it is ludicrous to believe this, because we know that the Japanese did negotiate a non-aggression pact with the Soviets, which both sides honored until the final month of the war, and which was broken by the Soviets, not the Japanese.
Consider the possibility that we wanted to launch a vicious campaign of air bombardment against German and Japanese civilians, and required propaganda that would justify such a policy.
Consider the possibility that the Japanese didn’t always fight to the last man, but were ruthlessly slaughtered by our troops in the Pacific even if they attempted to surrender. I have not looked for documentary evidence of this. My basis for this suspicion is the personal report of a family member, now deceased, who fought in the Pacific campaign. He was not, however, an infantryman or marine himself.
Consider the possibility that we’ve been taught a substantially false history of the major wars of the 20th Century. This is disturbing, but I have come to believe that it is true.
Interesting. You agree with your progressive-influenced friends.
Do you think that your view of “a woman’s right to control her own body” is consistent with Scripture? What about her husband? 1 Corinthians 7:4.
I’ve never gotten over Radio Replies. Or Macho Grande.
Vatican condemnation of the atomic bomb is not new. In fact, they condemned it within 24 hours of the Hiroshima bombing. Catholic “Just War” thinking differs somewhat from mainline Protestantism, but AFAIK they both regard some things as inhuman even within “war is war”. Poison gas, blinding weapons, stuff like that.
Yeah, I didn’t say it was new. It’s Pope Francis’s death penalty “inadmissibility” that’s a change from the past. Whatever that means. He’s known for his ambiguity.
I respect the Pope’s unwillingness to use atomic weapons and hope he continues to be so circumspect.
Papal pronunciations on how efficiently an army can go about killing strike me as toothless, gumless, and boneless. And, considering that the Pope doesn’t show up until it’s all over, bloodless to boot.
Oh, Jerry. You’re obscuring my point. I obviously wasn’t referring to the marital situation, but the radical individualism and autonomy that leads people to believe a woman has a right to kill her own child in the womb. An individualism, I might add, that makes people unwilling to submit to any moral (or interpretive) authority but their own. ABC — anything but Catholic.
Innoway, we are all innocent, but in another way we’re all guilty.
Regarding Japan, they needed to be stopped. They were insane imperialists. What they did in China to civilians, was absolutely indefensible, how they treated prisoners of war also indefensible.
The people in Japan were living in the cult of unadulterated racism.
So they were victims of their own isolation- just as they ( their culture) victimized women in Nanking and POWs in Burma.
The people who are most against trebuchet’s lived in castles. The people most against atomic bombs live in virtual castles. In other words, they are vulnerable to atomic bombs. and less vulnerable to fire bombing, retail rape and general subjugation.
but radiation hits everyone including elites.
In a way, it’s good that radiation fallout affects everyone. It affects elites too Thus, they are reluctant to use it.
Life and civilization is always a fight to the death. The strange thing about Catholic morality is they acknowledge and celebrate an afterlife, but fixate on making utopian moral judgements that cannot be applied in this life.
of course, alternative realities are never considered. If the Japanese had gotten nukes or if the Germans have gotten them, they would’ve dropped them on us and we would’ve surrendered and then the Japanese would come with their samurai swords and lined people up and have beheading reality shows they would take our females in rape them. And actually none of this is new.
The lens, perspective and filter is probably the biggest revelation we’ve gotten in the last 10 years. Partly this is due to the Internet and different perspectives presented. We’re all getting educated the first realization. The most important realization is, as you say, we all have a filter and we are looking at things from a very narrow perspective, if we don’t understand that we have a perspective then we are at affect of our own confirmation bias.
We are totally at effect of our information sources. The idea that we make up our own minds is a complete fraud. If we don’t consider that we are being manipulated continually, we have no chance of “making up our own minds“.
I don’t think that’s true. The Church’s Just War doctrine would actually support your and my position on Ukraine, for example. The tenets include that a defensive war is morally justifiable, up to a point. And that serious consideration has to be given to even the defensive war’s winnability. It’s not utopian, I think you would agree. It’s Sowellian — there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. If you can’t win this thing (and I believe Ukraine can’t), it is morally righteous to seek peace.
But, there are places where the Church draws strict moral lines and I’m unwilling to say She’s wrong about them without some serious self-reflection about my own biases.
Firebombing Japanese cities didn’t lead to a surrender. Those firebomb attacks killed more people than did the atomic bombs. Dropping one atomic didn’t lead to a surrender, either. The second one did. No more needs to be said. Today, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are better off than most of our cities and I drive two Hondas. Japan is an ally.
Exactly. Every day the war went on at that point 20,000 people died.
There is some inside-Catholic-baseball stuff here re the Germans. They cause a big hullabaloo in the Church and I’m pretty sure WC had this in mind with her question. Part of her Catholic lens.
Yes, that and several other, um, divisive historical figures. . . I better stop now or I might break Ricochet.
Blucher!
Does this make you uneasy?
This was the essence of war until some time before the 20th century, and it has assuredly not vanished even now.
Losing a war means you can lose everything. And everyone.
Nope. My last 4 cars: 2008 CRV, 2010 CRV, 2018 CRV, 2021 Passport. Last two are current ones.
Only when they call the mothership and upload collected data.
Guess it only works for horses then.
My filters nowadays are skepticism, fundamental truths, and captured/corrupted institutions embracing and enforcing unreality.
Hopefully he’ll vote for Trump and just lie to her about it.
I am in the “better to die on your feet than live on your knees” camp.
I think the firebombing prepared the message that the Little Boy and Fat Man delivered. In the Emperor’s own words, those new weapons heralded the end of the Japanese people, hence the surrender.
By the way, I just finished The Bomber Mafia, by Malcolm Gladwell. Although I disagree with his conclusions, particularly with regard to Curtis LeMay, the story was well told.
Operation Detachment (Iwo Jima) was one of the deadliest conflicts in U.S. Marine Corps history. The Japanese death toll approached 18,500 soldiers, and some 6,800 U.S. Marines were killed and 19,200 were wounded.
All on an island that covered 8 square miles. In my opinion that may have been the tipping point for the use of two atomic bombs as the war was ending in Europe. The aftermath of the battle to take Iwo Jima was criticized in the States for the heavy losses of Marines.
One can understand the use of two atomic bombs to save both American and even Japanese lives in a protracted battle to take Japan, and one can understand the grief of the heavy loss of life in the two bombings.
Remember that show I mentioned the other day, “Space: Above And Beyond?” Just wait until you get to the episode “Sugar Dirt.”
One must keep in mind that the US manufactured 500,000 Purple Hearts in anticipation of the expected casualties in an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. We are still using that stockpile today.