McClellan's book: a lesson for apologists and critics?

[_Trevor]

How much of this applies to the back and forth over Mormonism on these boards?

Perhaps more than we would like to admit.

Most of our elected leaders in Washington, Republicans and Democrats alike, are good and decent people. Yet too many of them today have made a practice of shunning truth and the high level of openness and forthrightness required to discover it. Most of it is not willful or conscious. Rather it is part of the modern Washington game that has become the accepted norm.

As I explain in this book, Washington has become the home of the permanent campaign, a game of endless politicking based on the manipulation of shades of truth, partial truths, twisting of the truth, and spin. Governing has become an appendage of politics rather than the other way around, with electoral victory and the control of power as the sole measures of success. That means shaping the narrative before it shapes you. Candor and honesty are pushed to the side in the battle to win the latest news cycle.

Of course, deception in politics is nothing new. What’s new is the degree to which it now permeates our national political discourse.

Much of it is barely noticeable and seemingly harmless, accepted as par for the course. Most of it is done unconsciously or subconsciously with no malicious intent other than to prevail in the increasingly destructive game of power and influence.

Some of it is self-deceit. Those engaging in it convince themselves to believe what they are saying, though deep down they know candor and honesty are lacking. Instead of checking their political maneuvering at the door when the campaign ends, they retain it as part of the way Washington works. The deception it spawns becomes the cancer on our political discourse, greatly damaging the ability of our elected leaders to govern effectively and do what is best for America.

Too many politicians and their followers have become passionately committed to a preconceived, partisan view of reality that allows little room for compromise or cooperation with the other side. The gray nuances of truth are lost in the black-and-white ideologies both parties embrace.

[_Thama]

Of course, deception in politics is nothing new. What’s new is the degree to which it now permeates our national political discourse.

Much of it is barely noticeable and seemingly harmless, accepted as par for the course. Most of it is done unconsciously or subconsciously with no malicious intent other than to prevail in the increasingly destructive game of power and influence.

Some of it is self-deceit. Those engaging in it convince themselves to believe what they are saying, though deep down they know candor and honesty are lacking.

That's the most important bit in this whole article, in my opinion.

Deep down, a careful investigator of the Church will run into matters of doctrine and history which present problems. For one who is invested in the religion, however, these problems may be shoved aside or explained weakly (in terms of plausibility rather than of probability) for a time. The dishonesty is rarely external, rather it is internal. People generally will believe what they want to believe.

Of course, the dishonesty sometimes runs the other way... in reading some of the more vitriolic anti-mos and ex-mos here and around the internet, I either have to conclude that either every ward in the Church that I haven't happened to visit is full of morons, scam artists, child-molesters, and axe-murderers, or that many who leave the Church also believe what they wish to believe and dismiss the good within the Church just as impulsively.

[_Boaz & Lidia]

Of course the dishonesty sometimes runs the other way... in reading some of the more vitriolic anti-mos and ex-mos here and around the internet, I either have to conclude that either every ward in the Church that I haven't happened to visit is full of morons, scam artists, child-molesters, and axe-murderers, or that many who leave the Church also believe what they wish to believe and dismiss the good within the Church just as impulsively.

LDS is not the only group with nice or good people in it, nor does it make it divine or "true".

I left LDS Inc because it was damaging to my children. I left to set the example.

My family is in a far better place today out of the church than in it.

[_antishock8]

I think you see a lot of the same behavior and dogmatism in politics that you see with religious apologetics. There's no doubt about that. Where your insight becomes a little more realistic is with Islam and Bushian Christianity. I think what we do here, or on other boards reference Mormonism is simply bicker over a mostly inconsequential religion and the effects it has on a very small portion of the world's population. I agree, though, that it seems many posters have a hard time admitting being wrong on an issue, or admitting that adjusting one's opinion isn't a problem. That's not good for a person's soul... In any sense...

[_Thama]

Of course the dishonesty sometimes runs the other way... in reading some of the more vitriolic anti-mos and ex-mos here and around the internet, I either have to conclude that either every ward in the Church that I haven't happened to visit is full of morons, scam artists, child-molesters, and axe-murderers, or that many who leave the Church also believe what they wish to believe and dismiss the good within the Church just as impulsively.

LDS is not the only group with nice or good people in it, nor does it make it divine or "true".

I left LDS Inc because it was damaging to my children. I left to set the example.

My family is in a far better place today out of the church than in it.

So you know, I'm currently in the process of leaving the Church, so I'm right there with you. I just don't really jive with the whole RfM mentality... it strikes me as just as wrong and patronizing as the attitudes of those Utah Mormons who think that no good can exist outside of Mormonism.

I don't know what sort of damage you saw that the Church was causing your children, but I look at the Church as a generally positive influence in my formative years. Hell, if my little brothers go on missions, if they come back having grown half as much as I did then it will be worth it, regardless of whether they are teaching the Only Truth.

[_Trevor]

I think you see a lot of the same behavior and dogmatism in politics that you see with religious apologetics. There's no doubt about that. Where your insight becomes a little more realistic is with Islam and Bushian Christianity. I think what we do here, or on other boards reference Mormonism is simply bicker over a mostly inconsequential religion and the effects it has on a very small portion of the world's population. I agree, though, that it seems many posters have a hard time admitting being wrong on an issue, or admitting that adjusting one's opinion isn't a problem. That's not good for a person's soul... In any sense...

If you see what goes on here as no big deal, then you are probably maintaining a healthy dose of perspective.

[_John Larsen]

The comparison is pretty good. But to be fully like the religious debate, one of the parties would have to claim to have magical powers.

[_The Nehor]

The comparison is pretty good. But to be fully like the religious debate, one of the parties would have to claim to have magical powers.

I can do that.

[_Thama]

The comparison is pretty good. But to be fully like the religious debate, one of the parties would have to claim to have magical powers.

I thought both parties claimed magical powers... at least the extremists.

"If you get rid of all government besides the military and police, then we'll magically have utopia!"

"If you get rid of all private property and business, then we'll magically have utopia!"

[_Trevor]

I thought both parties claimed magical powers... at least the extremists.

"If you get rid of all government besides the military and police, then we'll magically have utopia!"

"If you get rid of all private property and business, then we'll magically have utopia!"

I'm with you there, Thama. I agree completely.