Bias

What is it to be "open-minded?" I have yet to hear it actually defined, and I believe in a room of at least 10 people you would find at least 10 different definitions. For some, it would seem that being open minded would mean to be tolerant to the opinions of others, whether well formed or ignorant. Of course, the word tolerant begs a further defining, as well, but not here, not now.

For others, to be open minded seems to mean at least appearing to hear others out in a caring fashion, no matter how much you despise them in your heart or mind. For some of those, it is okay to close the mind once the hearing is made - in fact, in order to keep the air of open-mindedness, it sometimes becomes necessary to completely shut someone of an opposing opinion out! For goodness sakes, some of those idiots out there just can't see how wrong they are!

So just where does honesty enter in for the open minded? I don't believe it does - at least not fully. If you are pro-life or for marriage as it has traditionally been defined (one man, one woman), you are more likely than not open to hearing all possible arguments from both sides - indeed, I have. However, when you start to share some of the more salient, and sometimes gorey, facts about abortion or homosexual "union," there is a revulsion that emanates from the tolerant, truth-seeking progressive. The facts as they have defined them should suffice. No further investigation is necessary. Honesty has its limits, after all. There is no need to divulge ALL of the facts. We have enough to make an "informed" decision (or "choice").

For the liberal-minded, amassing your facts from your sources means that you have done so with great care and from the most intellectual and unbiased of individuals. There is never an agenda among a liberal group. It is always straight-up fact. Of course, the conservative - or God forbid, the religious - source is de facto rubbish. Everyone knows that those people are biggoted, low-brow, uneducated dolts who have major life issues stemming from deep dysfunction in their childhood.  Besides, they most often ADMIT to their biases! Enough said!

Accused of bias myself in the past (say it isn't so), I have always admitted it freely. I fully disclose both my bias and the source of my bias. That, of course, closes the deal. I must be "closed-minded." This, to a liberal, means that you are unwilling to take on their belief system, usually within a few short conversations. After all, you must be irrational if you don't agree, once the obvious truth of progressive logic is disclosed. In any event, I do fully disclose my bias. I also admit that I am unlikely to change this bias or soften my view toward those things that stand opposed to it. However, I am willing to have a discussion - even a debate - about the merits of the issue. Of course, I must leave out my sources, because they are biased. Also, don't talk from the level of philosophy, or as Plato called the base issues - "First Things." Talk only of facts. Facts cannot lie, as we know. But facts have a funny way of being either incomplete or transient. So, given that I cannot use my "biased" sources for facts, I must use those incomplete and transient facts spoon-fed to me by liberal sources, who of course have no axe to grind, no dog in the race, no metaphor to butcher. This, to a progressive, is a fair and balanced conversation. Just ask Rachel Maddow.

Why is it that it is only the conservative Christian who will admit that they are biased? Liberal Christians, like their secular liberal counterparts, completely divest themselves of any semblance of absolute truth (save the paradoxical idea that the only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths, a logical fallacy if you're to believe a conservative source). Thus, bias is whatever they decide it is at the moment. Open mindedness is also whatever they make it to be. And because Descartes told them so, "it is because they thunk it."

The Christian conservative ascribes only to the truth that God defines Truth - and has done so in a neatly packaged volume of books that we call, quite simply and eloquently, "The Bible" (translated, The Book). Since we have already been defined by a completely available text, it is easy enough to start the attack. But what, pray tell, is the Christian to attack? Liberals ultimately define themselves by the ideas and causes they support, so it is easy to tell one when you see one - but just watch the hackles go up when you call them a liberal and get the inevitable challenge: "Why do you label me? What is a liberal, anyhow?" Yes, there are a myriad of shades of liberal, but they fall under one broad but well-defined hue. It's funny how the word "liberal" is such a point of derision for them. I, after all, don't at all shudder at the term "conservative," even though it doesn't completely describe me. It's close enough to help start the conversation.

So it is easy to see that liberals are given all of the ammo they need, up front, to assail the virtues of the Christian. The Christian, on the other hand, is usually left fighting someone who continuously redefines themselves, on the one hand an open minded and loving human being, on the other hand one who shuts the door in the face of reason and any definition of love that demands something more than a distant, ubiquitous and unaffected manner offered in obsequious fashion to anyone who will claim this same love is their motivation for whatever they do. As long as it is touchy-feely and doesn't demand anything of anyone, and it doesn't "harm anyone," it must be love. A discussion of what love ACTUALLY is should make up another blog entry.

Christians are an easy target - but once you've heard the same arguments over and over again, and they are all as old as the temptation in the Garden, it gets a bit boring. Liberals are an ever-moving target. They have no virtue except the virtue that they approve anyone's virtues (except Christians'). They'll even approve of Islamic virtues that are diametrically opposed to their own in order to be "open minded" and to uphold their other dysmorphic virtue of absolute cultural equality - also a topic for another blog.

But the last thing a liberal will do is admit one thing: Bias. They are not biased, no matter what you may say, and neither are their sources. They and their sources are the height of human evolution, the pinnacle of intellectual and compassionate purity. It does not need to make sense. It is their closed system - even if it is a little leaky. It works for them and it should also work for you. If only you would drop your bias and see the light of their, well, for lack of a better word, "truth." (Liberal proselytization and pathological projection are topics also for another blog.)