When It Comes to the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, What Is the “Greater Miracle?”
18th Century Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote, describing the way the human mind processes information and draws conclusions: “We always disbelieve the greater miracle.” I.e., given the choice between two options, we tend to believe the one that seems more likely.
I’m reminded of a meeting I had years ago with an older guy who was (or claimed to have been) part of the Houston-based NASA team that put the first man on the moon. After a great deal of discussion about the physics at work, I eventually asked him if he was aware that there are people who believe the video “recording” of this event was shot in a studio in Hollywood.
“Of course I am. But I was actually there in Houston, in a room packed full with engineers like me, each of whom had spent years of our lives pulling this off. I still have boxes full of our calculations in my garage, if you’d like to come by some time.” I politely declined the invitation.
OK, I’ve got to make a choice here. I’m going with the engineer across the table from me and not some nut-job who also believes the Earth is flat.
Let’s look at the meme above which speaks to Hume’s statement directly. Over the years, there are very few documented incidents of voter fraud. In 2020, there were fewer than 475 potential instances out of more than 25 million votes cast (in swing states), a number that would not have come close to changing the outcome.
I believe that the reason for the absence of significant fraud lies in some combination of the following:
• The penalty for the crime is so much heavier than anything that can be gained by committing the crime.
• The United States has a centuries-long record of free and fair elections, because they are monitored by ordinary citizens who have no connection to one another and have nothing to gain by cheating. In modern days, these monitors number in the hundreds of thousands.
• A conspiracy that would result in any significant amount of fraud would have to be orchestrated across many different states, across thousands of different people, who, if caught, would face the immediate end of their careers, and possibly prison time.
• Fox New just coughed up close to a billion dollars where a civil litigant (Dominion Voting Systems) proved that Fox deliberately lied to the American people that the election was rigged.
• Belief in this conspiracy would also have to take into account that judges in 60+ courts at the local, state, and federal levels would have had to have been involved. Are some judges corrupt? Maybe. Are 60 consecutive judges?
OK, let’s look at the other side. It is conceivable that prospective voters going into the 2020 election could have been motivated by four years of Trump in office to want to remove him? Is it possible that the political scientists who say that, at this point, greater voter turnout favors the Democrats?
More to the point, is it possible that Donald Trump, the man who sits at the center of all this, is a man of truth, and that his claim that the criminal prosecution against him has no basis in fact?
Before you weigh in, let me remind you that tens of millions of Americans believe that Trump is entirely innocent, that this is a “witch hunt,” and that the re-election of the former president is the only way to make our country great again.
Again, I’m with Hume. But, having said that, in your mind, it’s entirely up to you.
