{"id":1585,"date":"2016-12-10T23:39:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-11T04:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1585"},"modified":"2016-12-10T23:39:34","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T04:39:34","slug":"russia-election-rational-considerations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html","title":{"rendered":"Russia and the Election: Some Rational Considerations"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been trying to get into the Christmas spirit by detaching myself somewhat from politics. But I have too many friends who aren’t there yet, and they pull me in. So I just want to offer some quick thoughts on the Russophobic\/neo-McCarthyite\/red-baiting line that the Democrats can’t stop pushing:<\/p>\n

It makes little to no sense. Consider:<\/p>\n

(1) IF the Russians hacked the tens of thousands of emails that Hillary Clinton sent over a private server while Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, then they were able to hack her emails. <\/em>Obama and Clinton compromised America’s national security to an unprecedented extent.<\/p>\n

(2) IF the Russians hacked the tens of thousands of emails that Hillary sent over a private server while Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, then the Russians would have an interest invested in seeing to it that she was elected as President<\/em>.\u00a0 Think about it:<\/p>\n

With all of this access to all of Clinton’s and America\u2019s<\/em> secrets, there would be an awful lot there for blackmail and bribery. \u00a0Putin would be in the driver’s seat, for sure.<\/p>\n

(3) Given (2), the claim (still not borne out) that Russia tampered with our election process could mean that the Russians tampered with it so as to get Hillary elected<\/em>. Thus, from the claim that there was election tampering it cannot be inferred that, ipso facto, it was meant to get Trump elected.<\/p>\n

(4) Even if (3) is mistaken, and even though (2) would be true if (1) was true, a Russian interest in a President Hillary Clinton need not be an exclusive<\/em> interest. The Russians would, admittedly, also have an interest in seeing Donaldus J. Maximus elected. After all, he is among a tiny handful of world-famous politicians who have repeatedly expressed a desire for peace with Russia. \u00a0The Russians, presumably, have the same desire.<\/p>\n

Why wouldn’t they want for the head of America to be a person who would seek peace in international relations?<\/p>\n

Of course, the foregoing propositions are all hypothetical.\u00a0 As of now, there is no evidence, much less proof, that Russia tampered with this election, much less determined its outcome.\u00a0 In fact, the FBI has conducted an exhaustive investigation into this matter, and while it hasn\u2019t conclusively ruled out the possibility that foreign entities interfered in the American electoral process, it has ruled out the notion that there was any relationship between Trump and the Russian government.<\/a><\/p>\n

The FBI also believes that if <\/em>Russia involved itself in the election, it was for the sake of causing chaos\u2014not <\/em>electing Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, but,\u201d so scream the objectors, \u201cthe CIA maintained in a \u2018secret session\u2019 that Russia did <\/em>interfere<\/a> to help Trump win!\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s think some more, shall we?\u00a0 It\u2019s not just that the CIA contradicts the findings of the FBI.\u00a0 The CIA, along with the world\u2019s leading intelligence agencies, assured us that Saddam Hussein had \u201cweapons of mass destruction,\u201d a falsehood that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in the Middle East, thousands of our own soldiers, and the maiming of hundreds of thousands more.<\/p>\n

Nor is it intellectually honest to say that no one knew in 2003 what we know now.\u00a0 Some folks did indeed know that the Iraq War was being sold on the basis of a fiction.<\/p>\n

In fact, recently, Barack Obama admitted the rise of ISIS\u2014or \u201cISIL,\u201d as he always refers to this Islamic terrorist organization\u2014was \u00a0not (incredibly!) on his \u201cintelligence radar.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

So, neither the CIA nor any other intelligence agency could anticipate during Obama\u2019s presidency that the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would create a vacuum for bloodthirsty, American-hating terrorists to fill\u2014even though this is exactly what every opponent of American withdrawal warned about.<\/p>\n

Now, <\/em>though, we\u2019re supposed to believe that what the CIA (allegedly) said during a \u201csecret session\u201d is gospel.<\/p>\n

Pardon me for being skeptical.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

I’ve been trying to get into the Christmas spirit by detaching myself somewhat from politics. But I have too many friends who aren’t there yet, and they pull me in. So I just want to offer some quick thoughts on the Russophobic\/neo-McCarthyite\/red-baiting line that the Democrats can’t stop pushing: It makes little to no sense.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRussia and the Election: Some Rational Considerations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia and the Election: Some Rational Considerations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ve been trying to get into the Christmas spirit by detaching myself somewhat from politics. But I have too many friends who aren’t there yet, and they pull me in. So I just want to offer some quick thoughts on the Russophobic\/neo-McCarthyite\/red-baiting line that the Democrats can’t stop pushing: It makes little to no sense.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-11T04:39:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Russia and the Election: Some Rational Considerations","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Russia and the Election: Some Rational Considerations","og_description":"I’ve been trying to get into the Christmas spirit by detaching myself somewhat from politics. But I have too many friends who aren’t there yet, and they pull me in. So I just want to offer some quick thoughts on the Russophobic\/neo-McCarthyite\/red-baiting line that the Democrats can’t stop pushing: It makes little to no sense.…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2016-12-11T04:39:34+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html","name":"Russia and the Election: Some Rational Considerations","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-12-11T04:39:34+00:00","dateModified":"2016-12-11T04:39:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2016\/12\/russia-election-rational-considerations.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Russia and the Election: Some Rational Considerations"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jack Kerwick","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5","name":"Jack Kerwick","description":"I have a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University, a master's degree in philosophy from Baylor University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies from Wingate University. I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1586,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions\/1586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}