Reflection on the first third of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics"

The first four chapters of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics" covered the debates over abortion, gun control, religion's role in politics, and immigration. The authors of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics" discussed both sides of these debates and presented both sides in both a positive and negative light. However, I do feel that the unbiased examination was more present in the first two chapters as opposed to the third and fourth chapters. In Chapters three and four, one can reasonably ascertain that the authors are presenting their view on said debates in a more positive light than the opposing view. This blog post shall summarize the first four chapters of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics".

The first chapter of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics"covers the debate of abortion and offers evidence proving why the debate between those who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice is fruitless in politics. The chapter describes those who are pro-life as individuals who are primarily governed by religious principles and those who are pro-choice as those who are more concerned with a women's right to her body. Major Garrett and Timothy J. Penney describe the debate as fruitless for two main reasons: Both sides refuse to acknowledge their radicals and how similar both their goals ultimately are. The pro-life movement refuses to take responsibility for members that partake in violent acts against abortion clinic employees such as bombings, death threats, kidnappings, and assaults which, at the time of the book's publish date, had been recorded as over nineteen-hundred since the year 1977. However those who are pro-choice refuse to acknowledge those who murder their babies as soon as they surface from the womb. The second reason the debate over abortion will always yield fruitless is that neither side will acknowledge that their goals are ultimately, similar. Contrary to the implied nature of the pro-choice movement, the head of the pro-choice movement actually is dissatisfied with the increased number of abortions in America and sees the increased loss of life as tragic but still values a woman's right to choose for herself. Those who are pro-life also hope that the number of abortions decreases but also altogether ceases. The authors explain that if both sides reached a compromise, acknowledging how their goals were similar instead of how they were different, then the abortion debate might actually yield noteworthy results.

The second chapter of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics" covers the issue of gun control. The authors make a point of addressing popular stereotypes as false, such as more available guns increasing crime rates. The authors used statistics that displayed that most criminals came across guns through illegal means, proving that gun control would only serve to limit the populace's ability to defend themselves from criminals. A statistic that further exemplified this displayed that most citizens that survived attacks from assailants only did so through means of their access to firearms. Major Garrett and Timothy J. Penny end the chapter by explaining the very nature of gun control laws is to grant the populace a false sense of security rather than actual enforcement due to the black market already existing for guns.

The third chapter of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics" covers religion's role in politics. The authors obviously skew statistics in their favor by citing the role that the religious played in ending slavery, sexism in society, and segregation. However neither author cites the fact that those enacting said discriminatory movements used biblical justification to defend slavery and sexism. Slavery was never openly frowned upon in the bible, at most there were passages discussing treatment of one's own slave. In the case of sexism, women themselves were seen as more of support worthy rather than equals due to the tenants of church doctrine placing more authority in the hands of the male gender. Instead of shedding light on how religion was used to justify said discrimination, the authors instead bring up the French "Reign of Terror" as an example of why an atheist community is always an abomination of a society, when the horror of the "Reign of Terror" was more or less a product of less advanced people whom had had strong resentment of the monarchy that farther reaches than that of America's history with the British monarchy. Both authors are obviously Christian, as they mostly point out the morality of the Church being present in politics rather than stressing how the Church being present in politics has also had more negative roles in society rather than just holding back science and pro-choice advocates such as the Crusades and Salem Witch Trials.

The fourth chapter of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics" covers the issue of immigration. Major Garrett and Timothy J. Penny express the opinion that is intertwined with those who are pro-immigration and anti-immigration. Both authors support immigration as a valuable to American society so long as the immigrant is useful to the work force. However, both authors are vehemently against those who are unskilled and poorly educated entering America, as they cite statistics that show that twenty percent of immigrants are high school dropouts that, in their opinion, hurt the American work force overall. Their position, while arguably callous, at least uses statistics to prevent them from falling into the stereotype of simple xenophobia.

After reading a third of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics", I have a prediction about the rest of the book. The first third of the book has had me acquainted with the style of the authors, whom generally, present both sides of an issue as both wrong or right, unless they themselves have a strong view favoring a certain side of said debate. I predict that the next few topics covered will be covered in a similar fashion to chapter one, two and four. However I am also predicting that the partial bias of chapter three will surface in later chapters as well. That is my reflection on the first third of "The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics".