TX House 91 – Ken Sapp: All-American at Intellectual Dishonesty

My dear friend Jim Sutton has been reading my blog posts, and he believes that I have shown favoritism to and bias for Mr. Sapp in my posts. I take Jim's rejoinder to heart. Some of my word choices in the previous posts were meant to be witty, a bit satirical, and entertaining. Instead they may have come across as snarky. My apologies. To demonstrate to Jim that I am equally hard on every candidate, I share this post, with the observation that you will not find the name of the other candidate in the District 91 race anywhere in this article.

Before the candidates began to announce their run for the District 91 seat, as a concerned citizen I decided to do as much research on them as possible before the record began to get tainted and colored by the various claims of the campaigns. (DISCLAIMER: Because of political connections I have, I already knew the names of each of the ultimate candidates in late December 2011 or early January 2012.) As I researched Sapp, I came across these self-penned articles from 2004-2005:

http://www.localnewsonly.com/01newlno/nrh/04_12_07sappcolumn.htm

http://www.localnewsonly.com/01newlno/nrh/05_03_17sapp.htm
http://www.localnewsonly.com/01newlno/nrh/05_03_11sapp.htm

I found the last article to be particularly noxious. He is in total attack mode against those he opposes. His attacks use pejorative and spurious arguments, trigger words, and absurd hypothetical extremes. He sets the tone early in the article by accusing the opposition of having ties to the Libertarian Party, but he never offers any evidence to support the accusation. Then, in his most condescending professorial tone, he instructs the reader:

“Libertarians support very limited government (some call it anarchy). They believe individual citizens should have absolutely no restrictions on use of their personal property and should not be required to support societal issues.”

I won't take time to dissect this statement for all the ways it is untrue, misleading, and mean. This is not the kind of well-reasoned, insightful, intellectually honest discourse that adds value to the community. Rather, it's the ugly side of politics that has become cancerous to the Republic – a rhetorical scorched-earth approach.

When I read these articles, even before Sapp had declared as a candidate for the race, I concluded that I could not support him on matter of principle. I want more from my leaders. I have purposed in my heart that I will hold my elected officials to a higher standard of honesty and integrity. I encourage all my readers to join me in this crusade.

In conclusion, many may ask the question “to what standard we should hold our candidates?” Is it some high and lofty, unattainable standard? I don't think so. Here are the two tests that I use to judge the integrity of political statements:

1. Could I make that statement personally and still be able to look in the eyes my wife, my children, my friends, my neighbors, my pastor, my co-workers, my clients, and my elderly parents?
2. If my child made the statement, would I accept it from them as being true, accurate and fair?

If we began to put the claims of Sapp and all other candidates for office to this two-fold test, I wonder how many of their statements would pass?

PENALTIES: For myself being snarky in previous posts, I get a reprimand from the league office for blowing calls. For Sapp, I'm warning all my officials to pay special attention to him on the field because he plays dirty.