Ideological investigative journalism

APOLOGIA

By Hendrik van der Breggen

The Carillon, February 16, 2017

                  

Ideological investigative journalism

I think there is a need for ideological investigative journalism. By this I mean a form of journalism that examines the ideology (faulty belief system) that lurks behind journalism, often slanting reports and thereby ignoring or misrepresenting truth.

Consider these examples.

A few weeks ago this book was published: Gosnell: The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer. Written by veteran journalists Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, the book is a true crime story about Philadelphia abortionist and drug dealer Kermit Gosnell who murdered hundreds (perhaps thousands) of born-alive infants by “snipping” their spinal cords with scissors. Gosnell is now serving three consecutive life sentences without parole.

But mainstream journalists didn't dare to challenge the sacred cow of abortion, so they initially gave the trial of Gosnell a pass (until public outcry). This is abortion-friendly ideology at work. We should be grateful to McElhinney and McAleer for courageously challenging this ideology.

Yet things get worse. As the authors report, Gosnell was also given a pass by “pro-choice” politicians and bureaucrats who kept health inspectors at bay. This served to enable Gosnell's grizzly work in a grungy, cat-feces-laden “clinic” staffed with unlicensed “professionals,” resulting also in the deaths of two women. (The doctor even collected severed babies' feet as trophies.)

Back to the book itself. Gosnell quickly climbed to #4 nonfiction bestseller status (#3 on Amazon) but the New York Times excluded it from the top 15 non-fiction list. Go figure.

The citizen's group Accuracy In Media astutely reports: “It is the media’s duty to report the facts, the whole truth… not merely the facts that align with their own biased agenda.” Gosnell co-author McElhinney sums up the situation thus: “The media doesn’t want this story to see the light of day because it shines a negative light on abortion.”

Moving from abortion-friendly ideology at work, let's get more controversial and closer to home. Consider LGBTQ-friendly ideology at work in Canada.

Remember Steinbach's gay pride parade?

CBC News visited Steinbach apparently to cover community views concerning the upcoming gay pride parade (because, yikes, not everyone agrees with the beliefs of the LGBTQ community). Four people were interviewed. Three pro, one con. The one who is con was an old woman who suffers from dementia.

Happily, the CBC deleted the interview with the dementia-stricken woman, thanks to local citizens who expressed concern. Still, the original CBC story had over a thousand shares. Moreover, the revised story only presented pro voices.

Remember the concerns about security at Steinbach's gay pride parade? The original concerns arose out of the parade route going near a construction zone. Later media reports made it seem like the concerns were due to Steinbach's community of anti-gay terrorists.

Remember Steinbach's vigil for the Orlando massacre (the massacre in which Omar Mateen shot 100 gays and lesbians and killed 50 in a nightclub)? The Carillon covered it with a front page article (that spilled over onto page two), an editorial, plus a couple letters.

But no editor or reporter or letter writer (besides a later letter from me) mentioned anything specific about Omar Mateen's motive, i.e., that he was a Muslim jihadist who publicly expressed allegiance to ISIS. Nadda. Nothing.

Yes, we were told there was a terrible massacre at a gay club, which is truly terrible. And then we were told we've got to have more inclusive attitudes about sexual orientation and gender identities, and we should be more accepting of district-school-related issues advanced by the local LGBTQ community.

Wittingly or unwittingly, this was a manipulation of public mourning and outrage in the service of LGBTQ ideological ends. The unspoken suggestion/ implication was that those who disagree are at fault or responsible for the murders at Orlando. But Mateen and ISIS are at fault.

More could be said about Canada's push for Medical Aid In Dying (a.k.a. physician-assisted killing ideology), the Women's March on Washington (abortion-friendly ideology again), and the U.S. election surprise (anti-conservative ideology), but space does not permit.

Ideological investigative journalism—it's what we need in our so-called “post-truth” times.

(Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is associate professor of philosophy at Providence University College, Otterburne, Manitoba.)

Transgender ideology

Covers: Canada edition (left), U.S. edition (right)

APOLOGIA

By Hendrik van der Breggen

The Carillon, January 19, 2017

Transgender ideology

The January 2017 “Gender Revolution” edition of National Geographic magazine signals a popular embrace of transgender ideology. Popular or not, I have concerns.

First, a couple clarifications.

Clarification 1. All people, including people who identify as transgender, deserve respect, compassion, plus protection from bullying and violence.

Clarification 2. To identify as transgender is to feel one's personal/ gender identity does not correspond or fit with one's birth sex (i.e., the sex allegedly “assigned” at birth). Transgender ideology says such feelings are true, good, and should be expressed.

Here are four concerns.

Concern 1. Faulty immunity from criticism.

Many persons dismiss criticisms of transgender identity merely because the critics are alleged to be “transphobic.” But such a dismissal commits the ad hominem fallacy (i.e., the mistake of attacking the arguer instead of his/her arguments, when doing so is not relevant).

Criticisms should be accepted or rejected because of the criticisms' merits or lack thereof, respectively, not because of the critic's personal idiosyncrasies.

Concern 2. Absurd implications due to elevating feelings over fact.

Reason carefully used with evidence should put a check on feelings that are sometimes out of touch with reality. Remember anorexia nervosa, the disorder in which a person feels overweight when in fact isn't, so diets to a dangerous extreme? Here reason shows feelings, though sincerely held, can be untrue.

But now, for many, feelings are trump. Consider Bruce (“Caitlyn”) Jenner. He is a man who feels he is a woman and so has had plastic surgery to “feminize” his face and throat, has taken hormones to grow breasts, and may undergo genital surgery to remove his testicles plus use his penis to construct a “vagina.” But he isn't a woman. In view of the dangers with sex change (in transgender-friendly Sweden the rate of suicide for those who have sex-change surgery is 20 times greater than normal), isn't this like offering liposuction to someone with anorexia?

Significantly, if my feelings about myself are sufficient justification for my identity, why stop at transgender (e.g., a man identifying as a woman)? Why not trans-age (an adult identifying as a child)? Why not trans-species (a human identifying as a dog or cat or dragon)?

Upshot: Feeling as a sufficient guide to reality reduces to the absurd.

Concern 3. Moral incoherence.

Ethicist Andrew T. Walker and Bible professor Denny Burk astutely critique National Geographic’s feature article (written by pro-transgender journalist Robin Marantz Henig) as follows:

“The final page of Henig’s article celebrates the mutilation of minor children with a full-page picture of a shirtless 17-year old girl who recently underwent a double mastectomy in order to ‘transition’ to being a boy. Why do transgender ideologues consider it harmful to attempt to change such a child’s mind but consider it progress to display her bare, mutilated chest for a cover story? Transgender ideologues like Henig never address this ethical contradiction at the heart of their paradigm.”

Walker and Burk continue: “Why is it acceptable to surgically alter a child’s body to match his sense of self but bigoted to try to change his sense of self to match his body? If it is wrong to attempt to change a child’s gender identity (because it is fixed and meddling with it is harmful), then why is it morally acceptable to alter something as fixed as the reproductive anatomy of a minor? The moral inconsistency here is plain.”

Concern 4. Non-permanence of transgender identity.

It turns out that a child’s transgender identity isn’t fixed. According to psychiatrists Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh, there is “little evidence that gender identity issues have a high rate of persistence in children.”

Walker and Burk add: “In fact, about 80 percent of children who experience transgender feelings completely resolve their difficulties without any intervention after they reach puberty.”

Dear parents/ responsible adults: For our children’s sake, don’t be duped by transgender ideology.

(Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is associate professor of philosophy at Providence University College. The views expressed in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.)

Further reading:

• Walt Heyer, I was just like the 'trans' 9-year-old in National Geographic. Now I know it's pure fantasy (article)
• Lindsay Leigh Bentley, I am Ryland: The Story of a Male-identifying Little Girl Who Didn't Transition (article)
• Michelle Cretella, I'm a Pediatrician: How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse (article)
• Vaughan Roberts, Transgender (book)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, Phobic anti-phobia? (article)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, Transgender preferred pronouns? (article)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, Untangling LGBTQ arguments (article)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, C16 and Forcing Your Religion (article)
• Hendrik van der Breggen, Men in women's bathrooms? (article)

Video:

• Camille Paglia, Lesson from History: Transgender Mania is Sign of Cultural Collapse (7 minutes).  Author, art professor, feminist, and cultural commentator Camille Paglia speaks on the current transgender mania, the wisdom of early medical and surgical intervention (calling it "child abuse"), and how the explosion of gender identities is a recurring sign of cultural collapse throughout the history of civilization.
• Genevieve Wood, Three Facts Those Promoting Transgenderism Ignore (3 minutes). Genevieve Wood works with The Heritage Foundation as senior communications advisor and senior contributor to The Daily Signal (which is the Heritage Foundation's multi-media news organization which covers policy and political news plus conservative commentary and analysis).
• Tranzformed: Finding Peace with Your God-given Gender (DVD)
• Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best (59 minute video which, refreshingly, shows pros AND cons of transgender issue)

Are we getting stupider, or just being duped?

APOLOGIA

By Hendrik van der Breggen

The Carillon, December 8, 2016

Are we getting stupider, or just being duped?

Maybe I'm getting crankier as I get older, but there's an awful lot of stupid going on. Here are some examples.

Our Prime Minister praises Fidel Castro by saying Castro was a “remarkable” person who “served” and “had tremendous dedication and love for” the Cuban people. Really?

Only if “serve” and “dedication” and “love” include murdering thousands of political dissenters by firing squad, putting additional thousands of dissenters into inhumane prison cells, forcing thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children to flee in rickety boats in shark-infested waters while soldiers shoot at them, impoverishing the millions who don't escape, and being willing to sacrifice Cuba by initiating nuclear war.

My goodness. Castro was a murderous tyrant. But our PM says a murderous tyrant “served” his people? Our. PM. Says. A. Murderous. Tyrant. SERVED. His. People.

Let that sink in—and shudder.

Also, consider this: Our federal government is avoiding due process in its efforts to pass Bill C-16 which protects all gender identities and expressions. Bill C-16 seems innocent enough. But think.

All. Gender. Identities. And. Expressions.

Facebook, which had 58 gender identities, now has “unlimited” gender identities. What does the bill mean? Does it include the 52-year-old man who identifies as a 6-year-old girl?

It's also not at all clear that critics of gender identity will not be considered purveyors of hate speech. Will dissenters be prosecuted?

Where is the robust, truth-seeking debate? Why haven't dissenting expert witnesses been invited to parliament’s committee process?

And why, by discussing Bill C-16 openly, is University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson risking his job? Risking. His. Job.

Is a gender identity ideology, now almost enshrined in law, choking freedom of speech? Once C-16 is passed, will Trudeau's government squelch dissenting opinion and thereby “serve” Canadians as Castro “served” Cubans?

Speaking of dissenting opinions, and getting closer to home, this summer local gay pride organizer Michelle McHale said to those who disagree with pro-gay ideology: “No! No! You don't have a right to your opinion.” No. Right. To. (Dissenting.) Opinion.

Let that sink in. Is this Castro-style “tolerance”? Why aren't local media all over this?

Alarmingly, this ideology is on a long march through all our institutions, including public schools.

Also, Canada's criminal code doesn't recognize unborn children as human beings. Huh? Clearly our law is 100% out of touch with contemporary science that tells us the unborn are in fact human beings.

What are they, if not human beings? Kittens? Puppies? This is beyond stupid.

Yet over 100,000 prenatal children are killed annually in Canada (most killed without medical necessity). But political dissent, especially in Canada's ruling party, is squelched. This is pro-abortion ideology at work.

Also, a while back Manitoba's college of physicians and surgeons asked for public feedback on physician-assisted killing but called it “physician-assisted dying.” Physician. Assisted. Dying.

Of course we all want medical assistance when we die: we all want clean bandages, food, and morphine as death takes its course.

But by “physician-assisted dying” our college of physicians and surgeons means to kill us, not care for us. This. Is. Orwellian. Why weren't the media all over this, too?

About physician-assisted killing: it's now the law of the land in Canada, so present concerns have to do with conscientious objection.

University of Manitoba ethicist Arthur Schafer tells us that all hospitals should perform such killing because rights to conscientious objection belong not to institutions but to individual doctors and nurses. But in another interview this same ethicist tells us that if doctors have moral qualms about physician-assisted killing, they should choose another profession or branch of medicine.

So, on the one hand, doctors have a right to conscientious objection, and, on the other hand, they don't. This. Is. Absurd.

It's also pro-death ideology at work.

Maybe I am getting crankier as I get older. Nevertheless, there is a whole lotta stupid going on. And we're getting duped by it.

Think, folks. Vigilance against ideological tyranny requires it.

(Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is associate professor of philosophy at Providence University College. The views expressed in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.)