In a recent Whale’s Tales, I criticized the present administration in Washington, D.C. — not for its goals, but for the methods it is using to achieve long-overdue, laudable changes in the federal government.

Methods, I said, that seem to me ill-thought out, hasty, clumsy and cruel.

I stand by what I wrote.

Given such a sharp departure from the usual tone of these columns, I expected the responses I got back to vary from supportive, to scathing. And that’s what I got.

I especially liked the one I got from the guy who called me “biased and ignorant.” Let’s unpack that.

Consider “Jones,” a man born into a particular family, in a particular part of town, educated at particular schools and colleges, under particular teachers and professors, reader of particular books. Will he or she not look out at the world through eyes attached to a particular brain that absorbed the experiences unique to that person and helped shape him or her? Of course.

My point here is that we are all biased, and sometimes the best a person can do is recognize his or her own biases and work to weed them out.

As for being ignorant, nope. The adjective means “not knowing,” which, unlike stupidity, can be corrected. Indeed, while I do not know everything there is to know about this modern world — who could? — I have bumped around on it for nearly 63 years, and in so doing, I have learned a thing or two. So count me among those beings who are doing their best to figure out what they can about this life, and do what they can in the time allotted to them.

And just like everyone, else I have no choice but to base my judgments on the limited lights I have.

What astounds me is hearing people with roaring biases, “broad blown, as flush as May,” as Shakespeare wrote, who fail to grasp the simple truth that they, too, are biased. That the position(s) they take on any issue show their biases, though they call them “the truth.”

As if they are saying: “There’s bias in you, Mac, but I am bias free. I speak the pure truth. And to the extent you deviate from my unassailable position, you are biased and ill-informed.”

In short, they make themselves the touchstone of the B.S. vs. truth debate, a position nobody — not you, not me — holds. To them I say, “Hey, who died and made you boss?”

I was careful in my prior column to steer clear of any partisan criticism of the ideology of a political party. I even said so several times. So, for those who didn’t get it, I’ll say it again: what I questioned was how the current administration goes about achieving its goals using the methods and tools it has.

That is not the same thing as saying all the goals are bad. Not at all. Yet, there appear to be many people incapable of making the distinction. Studying the methods used seems to me a thing apart from the goals. They are not part of established norms of any party, and so, open to criticism and discussion.

Many of the responders failed to recognize that last week’s column did not name names, yet they assumed it was attacking the president. Again, my only question: is it really necessary to go about this in the way they are? Couldn’t you do in more humane way? Yes, people voted this administration into power, but I’ll bet most of them did not vote for the administration to act in this way.

Because, often forgotten in the zeal to cut the cost of government is a truth too often lost in glowing accounts of the money saved: that is, we are not talking about abstractions but about human beings who are losing their jobs. Real human beings. People who have dedicated their lives to serving the American public honorably, but are now getting the axe through no fault of their own. Just like the rest of us, these are people who have planned their retirements, who have mortgages to pay, bills coming due, families to support, their children’s education to look to, and how they will support their elderly parents and relatives. All of these things are now in peril for them.

Consider also that there’s not much of a market for many people whose specialized skill-sets don’t translate well into the private sector.

People of faith are fond of talking about human will answer to God for the wrongs they have committed against others in their lives. I believe that. But don’t these people of faith regularly apply the judgement to nations?

We are taking about people have been betrayed by their nation and by their fellow man

On another note, philosophers like to talk about something they call “The Moral Law.” It tells us without our having to learn to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As C.S. Lewis noted in his book, “The Abolition of Man,” the Golden Rule is is found in every culture in the world.

Centuries ago, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant formulated what he called “The Categorical Imperative.” Don’t let the fancy term baffle you. It’s easy to understand. What Kant suggests is when we do a thing, act in a certain way, we ask ourselves: what if the particular thing I am doing right now were extended into a universal law? Would that be a good thing? The answer depends.

Consider the murderer. By the moral law within him, he understands that murder is wrong, even without man-made laws telling him it is. So does he want murder to become a universal thing? Does he want everyone to be free to murder everyone else? No, he doesn’t.

Does the thief want thievery to be a universal thing, so everyone is free to steal from everyone else? No, he doesn’t.

So, what they do is carve out exceptions to the moral law for themselves. Like how the mafiosi of the world happily steal from everyone else, while anyone who steals from them gets whacked.

As a Christian, I find the methods this administration is employing contrary to everything Jesus taught us about mercy, love, compassion and other virtues. And based on those principles, I reject the methods.

And I stand by what I wrote.

Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@auburn-reporter.com.