Loyalty or Honesty?

Which is the greater trait? Loyalty or honesty?

It doesn't take most people too long to realise you can be loyal without being honest. Yet history is rife with examples of people who were loyal when, honestly, they knew better. The most sensational example of this is, of course, the Nazi's, but the concept hits a little closer to home than that.


Loyalty will always be valued over honesty by those in a position of authority (be it political, religious, secular businesses or social groups) simply because no one wants to be told they're wrong. We instinctively and inherently resent honest notions that force us to justify ourselves. And so, our natural sense of values are topsy-turvy. Someone that's loyal is seen as more valuable, more of a team player, more of an asset. While someone that's honest is difficult, a trouble-maker.

Reality, of course, is just the opposite. The seemingly loyal devotee isn't at all loyal. They're dishonest. While the honest devotee is loyal to principle before position.

If you find yourself in a position where you are challenged to be either loyal or honest, choose the tougher road less travelled and be honest...

Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)

Looking for some light reading? Then this book probably isn't for you. But, regardless, it is well worth adding to your collection.

Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) is a rare look into the sordid world of self-justification. It examines how decisions that are clearly wrong can be made by people and justified or even strengthened when events go belly up.

Take, for example, a cult that believed the world would end on December 21st and that they would be spared by being abducted by aliens at midnight on the 20th. Surely, you would think, when 12:01am rolled around, the faithful would be faithless. In a rational world that would be the outcome, but not in the surreal world of emotional illusions. By 4:40am, when it was absolutely clear to the most ardent of the faithful that the prophecy had failed, the prophet had another vision (what a surprise). And the vision was that the steadfast belief of the faithful (a group of about 30) had spared the Earth (the billions of us outside the fold). The "salvation" of the entire Earth lay with those 30 kind souls. Quite thoughtful, really. After this, instead of loosing momentum, the "faithful" then became more passionate and devoted than ever before.

Ah... I hear you saying, but I'm no freak. That could never happen to me. Yet this same mental mechanism, cognitive dissidence, works on numerous levels. Consider smoking. The consequences of smoking are inescapable and horrendous and yet still millions persist.

Moral of the story. Whether its alien saviours or a fag after a pint, Proverbs 21:2 still holds true, every man is right in his own eyes.

I've painted myself into a few corners over the years and got my feet dirty trying to get out of them... Mistakes were made by me...

Here's a few others worthy of note in this category...

The Lucifer Effect With a title like that, how can you resist?
Dont Believe Everything You Think is another...
A Mind of its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives brings some humour and wit to the arguments

...so if you're stuck in the middle of the UK floods and a little bored, go to Amazon.com and order some of these. The military may not be able to get help to you, but Amazon will :)

Winning the Lottery

On the train into work this morning I caught sight of a fellow passenger sharing indignation with the Sun newspaper. Mugger won £4m on lottery! It turns out the winner had previously mugged an 88 year-old lady for £6 to fuel his gambling habit. Apparently, fury among readers of the Sun is stoked by such an undeserving winner.

Well gamblers and readers of the Sun... that's how gambling works. You see, winners are not chosen on merit. A person gambles in the hope of getting something without earning it. It seems just a little two-faced to get upset that someone else gained what he never deserved.

A gambler's winnings are wholly at another's loss. But don't let the exploitation gnaw at blunted conscience - the odds are overwhelmingly in favour of once again becoming one of the chumps funding another unworthy winner.

The Dutch Kidney Scramble

I suspect the reality show is closer to reality than we care to admit. While the 'best' reality shows are spectacularly contrived and ever more bizarre, it is their connection to the human condition that makes them work.

Three contestants whose own kidneys have failed will - with their families - attempt to outdo each other in miserable accounts of pain and heartache, while a terminally ill kidney donor selects the winner to receive the kidney. Viewers will phone and text in with their votes. The predictable facade of 'money to charity' and 'raising awareness' is both glib and clichéd.

While it would be fun to examine the ethics at stake, I'm also interested in where this 'reality' thing can go from here. What's next? I understand people have already had their marriages chosen by reality show. Perhaps potential suicides will be voted on or off with... "Is life worth living? Dial now to bring your favourite jumper in off the window ledge". How far will this degradation go?

And yet it's really not a sign that things are getting worse. I'm reminded of Pilate who asked the mob who he should release from the death penalty - Barabbus the murderer, or Jesus Christ who had committed no wrong. The mob was thick and the mob was easily manipulated. This is undoubtedly compelling theatre, but hardly the soundest decision making process.

Abolition of Slavery

It's 200 years today since the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. While I appreciate the monumental change for good in the legal abolition of slave trafficking from Africa to the New World, I'm a little more ambivalent about this anniversary - and I'm especially sceptical of the fad for ceremonial apologies. Here's why:

Firstly, I have no doubt there are more slaves in Britain today than ever before. Sex slaves are being brought in from eastern Europe in their droves. Children are being flown in from Africa to live with cousins and aunties as unpaid household help [read - domestic slaves]. Uprooted from everything they know, they will fail at school, fall in with the wrong crowd, and eventually run-away, likely into prostitution (as I saw happen in a family I know).

Second, my ancestors were Scottish - some of whom were mercilessly driven off their land tenure. People were cleared to seize land for the wealthy elite. Yes, that's white people being treated as more worthless than chattel.

Thirdly, it's a lot easier to make theatrical apologies for crimes of another generation than to put your own house in order. Our society still consigns people to miserable hopelessness by fostering dependence on welfare and a host of other morally corrupt policies.

Fourth, many of those clambering for an apology can trace their ancestry back to slaves. But it is almost certain that their ancestry also includes the slave masters. Callused as I may sound - apologise to yourself! We did not chose our ancestors, and it's just too damned convenient to chose to identify with the victim rather than the oppressor. The genes from both sides define every cell in your body.

And finally, the vast majority of white British families never kept slaves. They were more likely to lose their jobs to them. My ancestors and yours had enough to think about putting food on the table before their own children.

So apologise if you want. It'll do more harm than good - because it is not honest.

The Religion of the Secular Left

Those of us who believe in God well know the sneering disdain of the atheist political left. There are of course many kinds of atheists, but few are as self-righteous as the humanist left.

It's striking how religious the anti-religious left-wingers have become.

This stark irony is glaring in the recent bullying of the church by our Labour government. Having grown up in the church I see the worst characteristics of religion in the secular left:

1. Disagreement from the received wisdom is barely tolerable. All efforts are made to suppress dissent. Parliamentary time was not even allowed to debate new laws which will force Roman Catholic run adoption agencies to adopt children to gay couples. The view that "any loving stable relationship" is equal is above question to the elite left. In their arrogance, they smugly dismiss the accumulative wisdom of human history, heritage and design. They have no respect for the knowledge of the church which has been active in caring for orphans and the vulnerable long before the government took an interest. The liberal left's willingness to use children for this reckless social experiment is deeply shameful.

2. Those who dare to disagree are personally attacked. There has to be at least a character flaw, and probably a psychological derangement in anyone who deviates from the holy consensus. To suggest that children should be with a mother and father is tantamount to sacrilege. 'Homophobia' is the much thrown about accusation as though belief that marriage is between an man and woman, or disagreement with gay couples adopting is a mental illness. Actual phobias are real, and can be debilitating to the sufferer. Believing that children in need of adoption should be cared for by a married man and women is not a phobia, it's common sense.

3. Outrageous bossiness. The elite not only demand obedience of action, but obedience of thought. Not content with banning smoking in public buildings, every public building must display regulation signs forbidding the practice. Once again, churches are being made to display the signs. Nobody smokes in church! If the lefties had ever put their head in the door for a moment just to glimpse the heritage of their nation's principles, law, morality and values, they'd notice that no one is smoking in there. We don't need your damned bossy sign defacing the wall! The fashionable morality of the left may be a flash in the pan beside the enduring principles of the church, but those moral fads will be forced on all nonetheless.

4. Condemnation - for all are guilty. We're wrecking the environment, world poverty is somehow our fault, we're supposed to apologise for African slavery. We're even to blame for the shit-for-brains murderous rabble spreading their violence over the middle-east and the world. Your car is too big, your carbon footprint is too big, your arse is too big, you eat too much, waste too much... And fear - the Earth is too small, too warm, too full, too dangerous, and that's our fault too.

Jesus himself detested this religious practice of lording over people...
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

Jesus called them together and said, You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.

So many times I've heard Christians criticized for "pushing their beliefs on others". Religions certainly have been guilty of this, but no more so than today's political left. Jesus didn't put his energy into bossing others around. He taught and lived what he believed, and people were inspired to follow.

Jesus wasn't religious at all. He said "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." It's the political left and this damned Labour government that has all the hallmarks of a constrictive religion.

Artificial Intellegence

Do you trust the machine? An intriguing story at Wired tells of a web service providing bankruptcy paperwork.

A web-based "expert system" that helped users prepare bankruptcy filings for a fee made too many decisions to be considered a clerical tool, an appeals court said last week, ruling that the software was effectively practicing law without a license.

First I laughed, but this has huge implications for not-too-distant future technology.

Reynoso entered his personal information, debts, income, assets and other data into a series of dialog boxes, and the program generated a complete set of bankruptcy forms, including an affidavit for Reynoso to sign claiming he'd done all the legal research on his own.

Fair enough! He did do the research - in a manner of speaking. If he had done his research in books he would still be taking the word of the authors. If he printed pages from the web he could be said to be "doing his own research". The affidavit was an attempt (albeit a failure in this case) to make the user take responsibility for the results.

The problem here arose because of an error in the paperwork and the affidavit was apparently inadequate. But this is very early days, software will improve. Some legal advice is fairly simple and a reasonable short term target for AI software. The same can be said for financial advice.

If I need to decide whether a certain level of mortgage is manageable, or whether to pursue a libel case, there are undoubtedly some rules-of-thumb. Answering a few questions ought to give me some guidance.
Perhaps:
Proposed mortgage in described circumstances constitutes: Extreme Risk!
Consider 20% reduction in mortgage level for Moderate Risk.
or:
Libel case success probability: 30%
Libel case failure probability: 70%

Now if I'm choosing between paying £150 for 5 minutes with a lawyer looking down his nose at my small-beer proposal, or paying £5 for consultancy from software that can trawl a database of a million similar cases, the software sounds like a good start. Sure the software can miss things, but so could the expensive lawyer.

A little further down the road - how long before NHS Direct uses some Artificial Intelligence triage? Of course there will be an outcry when it's first suggested, but it will come.

And I think people will want it. How many of us have already walked into the GP's surgery with a fist full of printed web pages filled with possible diagnoses and courses of treatment. We may have used a search engine to find page. Soon we may try a medical search engine - perhaps a search on a symptom database. Perhaps we'll select a category, narrow down the search, answer a couple of questions and view a list of probable conditions. Then who did the research?

Who will take professional responsibility for recommendations made by this software? In the bankruptcy case, the web site maintainer is held responsible. He was ordered to withdraw the service and pay back the fees. This seems straight-forward at first. But web technology isn't bound like that. The site (or something similar) will pop up again, perhaps hosted in a less regulated country. Ultimately, the user will be responsible for the advice he follows.

And what happens when the software is sophisticated enough to amend itself, or to update it's own research database? Then the software will write new software - a generation removed from human authors!

Science fiction authors have been thinking about this for decades. We'd better all start thinking about it. It's here.

Are Whites Smarter Than Blacks?

I'm intrigued by opinions that should not be expressed - questions that should not be asked.

If I said, "New Zealanders are smarter than Australians", you might conclude I'm a New Zealander looking for a bite. You'd be right. But if I say, "whites are smarter than blacks", there'd be trouble. Why? I think there are two reasons. One is that a history of exploitation makes this no laughing matter. A belief in white superiority has been used to justify many atrocities.

The second reason, and the more interesting to me is that people are afraid that it might be believed.

Can one ethnic race be superior to another in anything? Let's say we select the five fastest women from a great nation of 1 billion. Pit them against the fastest women from a tiny island nation of 250,000. Who would you put your money on? The large nation is India, the small is Barbados. My money is safe on the five from Barbados.

I'm always amused by the refusal of athletic commentators to acknowledge the glaringly obvious. The 100 metre finalists are black! Their ethnic origin is west central Africa. They may be from Canada, the USA, the Caribbean, but their genes are not. Sure there's an occasional white finalist pumped up on Romanian steroids, but that only highlights the point!

I think that the average black is no faster than the average white. (I love these clumsy generalisations.) Well, maybe on average slightly faster, but not so that you'd notice. I don't think you'd notice the difference until you get to the elite. That's where the tiny difference shows up. Once you've selected the very fastest men and women on the planet, they are black.

My first trip to Kenya taught me lesson. As I stepped out into Nairobi I was surprised to see that Kenyans are fat and thin, tall and short, just like English people. Half of them looked like they wouldn't make it around the block (just like New Zealanders). Unknowingly, in the back of my mind was expecting a nation of long-distance runners. "Ah", the locals told me, "the runners all come from that region...", pointing vaguely into the distant mountains. The best up there are among the best in the world.

If one ethnic group has the edge in sprinting, another for endurance running, then can an ethnic race produce better thinkers? Ability to think is not on a linear scale like sprinting. But outstanding thinkers do... well... stand out.

Moral Fashion

When my five year old came home from school chanting:
"Eenie meenie mynie mo..."
I thought, here we go...
"Which will stay and which will go...?"
I'm sure we used to say, "catch a nigger by the toe." Ah hem. I flinch as I type this. "If he squeals, let him go..." Ah, stop! Excuse me. But no one battered an eye back then. I suppose a few did, but I wasn't aware. I didn't even know what a nigger was!

This year I've been fascinated to watch the new ethical fashions come and some of the old go. There's been a clear establishment of the view that drug sellers are bad while drug users are victims. With the five murders in Ipswich there's been a surge of acknowledgment that those selling sex are victims while the users are bad.

I think it's fair to say that these were not widely held views a generation ago. Fashions in morals seem as fluid as any other field. Perhaps more so with the abandonment of an absolute standard in the slide to a secular society.

There are issues we debate, and there are underlying assumptions accepted by both sides of the debate. A few swim upsteam... one columnist had the audacity to suggest that the prostitutes lives were of less value than most - no great loss, he implied. He was roundly put down by left and right, by legalist and libertarian. Most agree that an individual murder victim's social position should not prejudice the vigour of the investigation nor the exactness of justice. But that has not always been the prevailing moral climate. There is little reason to think it will remain as it is now.

There are two possibilities here. Either we have just arrived at the final and complete set of ethical standards for humanity... or fashion will change again. (It would be a remarkable coincidence if this is the age that finally figured it all out.)

It is a near certainty that our children, as post-enlightened adults (or whatever they'll call themselves) will look back on some views held today with a roll-of-the-eyes and mock embarrassment - "oh, that's just how people thought in those days." So I asked myself, what thoughts and values are approvingly smiled upon today by the great and the good, but will seem ridiculous to a new generation?

Perhaps discrimination against the thick will become unacceptable. Nowadays stupid people get an awful rough time, low pay, over-representation in prisons. In future, employees telling jokes about dummies will be frog-marched to tolerance classes. We'll observe Meat-Head Awareness Week, and Dim Pride! No longer will promotion by merit sound so noble... perhaps.

I'm not making judgements about what morals I approve or disapprove of here, I'm just wondering what current standards will prove less enduring than they feel today.

Any other ideas?

Girl Gives Birth at School

I loved reading that a 15 year old Catholic school girl had arrived for class in the morning, gone into labour, and given birth before the ambulance showed up. She was apparently unaware of her pregnancy! The youth and vigour of it all is inspiring, don't you think?

A Spokesman for the Catholic Diocese said "It is not going to help to go moralising on the whole situation. That is not important..." Is that the new Catholic position on morals? The Catholics have had a few run-ins with morality over the years, and wouldn't want any morals ruining their Christmas good cheer. "...the girl is OK, the baby is OK, and hopefully they will be home this weekend and spend Christmas at home," Lovely. (And of course it makes no different that this was a Catholic school, other than to spice up the story a little.)

Now I find morals uplifting, not oppressive or condemning as the Catholic spokesman seems to fear. Given the right moral framework, I think a 15 year old can be well equipped to raise great kids. Mary was about that age when she gave birth to Jesus. What an impressive culture that produced teenagers morally and emotionally prepared for marriage and kids!

Marriage is Best

Half of co-habiting parents split by their child's fifth birthday, while only one in 12 married couples do. The Conservative policy group has pointed out this stark reality that deluded lefties have denied for years.

This family breakdown leads to massive problems of poverty, underachievement, hopelessness and unemployment, crime and drug abuse. The Tory group costed this at £20 billion a year.

For years socialist politicians have insisted that any "loving, stable relationship" is of equal value, arguing for equal recognition of de-facto or same-sex relationships. The sad debris from this social experiment is the feckless underclass that expect to contribute nothing but dead weight.

And yes, there are thousands of tremendous, contributing individuals who come from broken homes (and there are worthless scum from married parents). The individual can overcome any "statistic". But is it willful ignorance to deny the superiority of marriage over de-facto relationships in family outcomes.

One of the greatest things people can ever do for children is marry and make it work. About the greatest thing a father can ever give for his kids is faithfulness in marriage to their mother.

In response to the BBC article:
He [Ian Duncan Smith] insisted that the focus of the report was not to "lecture" people to get married, but to help couples, both married and co-habiting, to stabilise their relationships.
And they will fail because they are still too spineless to conclude the obvious - that co-habiting will remain inferior and less stable than marriage because it is a deliberate rejection of the traditional commitment. The outcomes for children are catastrophic.

No one is asking the Conservative party to "lecture" people what to do, just tell the truth!

Mr Duncan Smith said he was not making a moral judgement about marriage.
That's because the Tories have no morals. They abandoned conservative morality when it went out of fashion.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin

I read an essay the other day suggesting that, while Christians talk about loving the sinner, hating the sin... when it comes to homosexuality, in practice they often hate the sinner, too. The author gives examples of the particular disgust shown for homosexuals above exponents of other sins. I enjoyed reading the article (while disagreeing with several points), and it got me thinking. Other immoral or sinful behaviour doesn't elicit such disgust. Is this a case of double-standards? Jesus railed on hypocrisy much more than he talked about homosexuality.

First, homosexuality is disgusting just as genuine sex is attractive. I can't explain why either is the case, we're built that way. Some may say it's just my perspective or preference. I believe God made it that way. Sex is good and attractive, and a perversion of it is repulsive.

Other sins may not provoke the same emotional reaction, but it is instructive to consider how we do respond. A man who keeps his life in sound balance and cares for his family wins my admiration. One who becomes alcoholic and lets his family down - I pity. It's a different emotional response from disgust... in me. Honesty wins respect, hypocrisy or lying earns distrust and a whole different flavour of disdain.

My emotional reaction to the bad may well be the opposite (or in stark contrast) to my response to the corresponding good. It then follows that where one becomes ambivalent about the Godly design of sex, there will be no strong reaction to the perversion of it.

Emotions are far from any guarantee of a balanced response. But they are part of being human, and often they get us to an appropriate response faster than our intellect can fully analyse the facts. Emotions depend largely on our conditioning. So the way we condition our minds is likely to be reflected in our emotional response to both good and bad.

Jesus responded with compassion at times, and at other times approached people with anger (Mark 3). Emotion can form part of our full appreciation of the situation and can add some zing to our response. If you are conditioned to a Godly design of sex, then you may well consider homosexuality disgusting.

Of course, to genuinely help people, emotions must be kept in check. A group of likeminded people can get carried away with a common emotional response. A group of Christians may be over-the-top in their disgust of homosexuality. As in all things, a balance is needed. Wishing injury or disease on homosexuals is also a perversion. However, I consider it sound to strongly dislike the practice and promotion of homosexuality because I care about the way God designed life and sex.

Often when we see homosexuals on TV, they are flaunting this perversion. There is an exaggerated gay walk and talk. Why is that? - if not for marketing and brand-recognition. When an alcoholic is portraited in a film, he is likely to be a sad case in need of help. But homosexuality is likely to be celebrated in modern media. This is particularly galling.

In contrast, when I work with others who are homosexual, there is no problem. We co-operate in meetings and projects. This is where it makes more sense to speak of loving the sinner, hating the sin.