I'D LIKE TO INJECT a little bit of verbal clarity (or perspicacity, if you will) into the rhetoric swirling around the candidates in the current Republican presidential primaries campaigns. It has to do with the widespread use (and frequent misuse) of the expression "flip-flop," which has been slung like swamp mud at nearly every candidate in the race, albeit at some more than others.

Correctly used, to "flip-flop" on an issue means to switch back and forth on it — to be first here, and then over there, and then back here again.

Simply to change one's position on an issue, from there to here, is not a flip-flop. And yet anytime it can be demonstrated that a candidate has changed his view on any issue, someone is going to accuse that candidate of flip-flopping.

The difference is significant — profound, even. Let me explain.

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Let us suppose, for example, that a certain hypothetical candidate who, for the sake of discussion, I shall call Glove, once favored "a woman's right to choose" but over time came to realize that his position on abortion was wrong. Perhaps through soul-searching, perhaps through persuasive arguments presented to him by "right-to-life" advocates, perhaps by meeting and hearing the compelling story of an abortion survivor, perhaps after seeing a graphic documentary on partial birth abortion — whatever the motivation, Glove came to recognize that legalized abortion is not a protection of women's rights but a deprivation of the most fundamental of all rights of human beings who are awaiting their moment to be born.

Whatever it was that reached into Glove's head and heart and soul and made him realize that he had been wrong in his previous stance on abortion and needed to change it, his embracing the right to life is not a flip-flop. It is a transformation. It is spiritual growth. It is character growth. It is reformation. It is repentance. It is redemption. Such changes should be welcomed and embraced, not criticized.

We do, of course, have a duty to make a judgment on whether we believe a candidate's conversion is genuine. Unfortunately, such judgments are too often rendered based on an individual's predisposition toward the candidate. I think it is far better to listen carefully to the candidate's explanation of why he changed his view, then make an intellectually honest, non-prejudicial assessment based on whether that explanation appears forthright and credible. Then observe what he says in different venues to see if he is now consistent in his position, and scrutinize his actions to see if they are consistent with his new profession.

But anytime political candidates, or anyone else, make genuine changes for the better in their lives and in their beliefs, principled conservatives should praise them for it, not criticize them by saying, "He's a flip-flopper. He used to think differently."

Show me the man who has never changed an opinion in his life, and I will show you a man who is not open to truth and who is unable to admit when he is wrong, even when confronted with the facts. I would never trust such a man. God, only, is "the same yesterday, today and forever." The rest of us need a little humility and a willingness to let God, our friends, and our life experiences show us when we are wrong and in what ways we need to change. And we need to allow — and encourage — that kind of change in others.

The irony to me is that when some people accuse a political candidate of flip-flopping because he used to be wrong on certain issues, those same individuals will often talk about the need to try to influence candidates to "come around" to the right point of view. Aren't they, by their own definition, asking those candidates to flip-flop? Some consistency here, please, folks.

What we should be concerned about is not whether a candidate used to be on the wrong side of an issue and has now come around, but whether he has gone back and forth on the same issue, or has moved from the right side to the wrong side of the issue, or whether he remains unrepentant with regard to wrong actions or statements in the past.

Suppose, for example, that Glove, our hypothetical candidate, says he opposes Obamacare and as president will work to repeal it, but he expresses no remorse about having supported similar legislation in the past at the state level. He remains unrepentant and continues to defend it. That is still not a flip-flop. It may not even be a contradiction, depending on his views, and ours, regarding States' Rights. Each of us needs to ask ourselves, in such a situation, whether we believe that government-mandated health care programs are wrong in principle, regardless of the level of government, or whether the Bill of Rights limitations on government power apply only to the Federal government but individual states can do as they wish.

The reality is that there is no candidate or politician, nor ever has been, who has always been 100 percent right on everything, and no candidate or politician who, over the course of his public life, has not shifted in some way. The pertinent question is whether he has shifted in the right direction. — Perspicaciously Yours, Rand Green, Editor/Publisher, PerspicacityPress.com

Source: www.PerspicacityPress.com. Copyright © 2011 Rand Green Communications.
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