{"id":8993,"date":"2013-02-11T14:33:14","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T14:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/02\/11\/benedict-xvi-a-conservative-not-in-favor-of-reforms\/"},"modified":"2013-02-11T14:33:14","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T14:33:14","slug":"benedict-xvi-a-conservative-not-in-favor-of-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/02\/11\/benedict-xvi-a-conservative-not-in-favor-of-reforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Benedict XVI: “A Conservative Not in Favor of Reforms”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Fox News anchor's reportage from earlier today betrays presumably inadvertent bias.  The anchor said that Pope Benedict XVI is "a conservative not in favor of many reforms."  A reform is not merely a change, but an improvement.  The Wikipedia article<\/a> gets it right: "Reform<\/strong> means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc."<\/span><\/p>\n

"A conservative not in favor of reforms" therefore implies that conservatives are not in favor of the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc.  And to describe the current pontiff using the phrase in question is to imply that he<\/em> is not in favor of improvement or amendment of what needs improving or amending.  <\/span><\/p>\n

The Fox News anchor could have avoided the biased formulation by reporting what is true in neutral language, e.g., "The Pope, being a conservative, is skeptical of changes." Or something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conservatives tend to resist change.  That is not to say that conservatives are opposed to what they take to be ameliorative changes.  For a conservative, there is a defeasible presumption in favor of traditional beliefs and practices.  Note the adjective 'defeasible.'  Liberals, being more open to change, lack this presumption in favor of the traditional.<\/span><\/p>\n

The paragraph I just wrote is an example of neutral writing.  It does not take sides; it merely reports a salient difference between conservatives and liberals.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I have said many times, language matters<\/em>.  It is particularly important that conservatives not adopt the slovenly speech habits of liberals.  Much of liberal-left phraseology is rigged to beg questions and shut down debate.  That is exactly the purpose  of such coinages as 'homophobe' and 'Islamophobe.'  To call a person who argues that radical Islam is a serious threat to the West and its values an 'Islamaphobe,' for example, is to deflect attention  from the objective content of his utterances so as to focus it on his mental state.  Since  a phobia is an irrational fear by definition, calling someone an Islamophobe is a way of refusing to engage the content of his utterances.  It is a form of the genetic fallacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are a conservative, don't talk like a liberal!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

For example, why do conservatives like O'Reilly and Hannity and Giuliani and a score more play the liberal game and speak of 'assault weapons'?  Can't they see that it is an emotive phrase used by the Left — the positions of which are mainly emotion-driven — to appeal to fear and make calm discussion impossible?<\/span><\/p>\n

Note the difference between 'semi-automatic long gun' and 'assault weapon.'  Suppose you did a poll and asked whether ordinary citizen should be permitted to own assault weapons.  I am quite sure that you would find that the number answering in the negative would be greater than if you framed the question correctly and non-emotively as "Do you think ordinary citizens should be permitted to own semi-automatic long guns?"<\/span><\/p>\n

And why does Bill O'Reilly say things like,"Obama is for social justice?  'Social justice' is lefty-talk.  it sounds good, but if the folks knew what it meant they would oppose it. See What is Social Justice?<\/a>  <\/span><\/p>\n

It is the foolish conservative who acquiesces in the slovenly and question-begging speech patterns of liberals.  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Fox News anchor's reportage from earlier today betrays presumably inadvertent bias.  The anchor said that Pope Benedict XVI is "a conservative not in favor of many reforms."  A reform is not merely a change, but an improvement.  The Wikipedia article gets it right: "Reform means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc." … Continue reading “Benedict XVI: “A Conservative Not in Favor of Reforms””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,32,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-current-affairs","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}