Pharaoh Flip-Flop

Pharaoh Flip-Flop
EXODUS 9: 22-35

In the rough and tumble of U.S. politics, you have to be very careful about changing your mind, or you may be accused of flip-flopping. It’s appropriate that there should be a term for an unprincipled change of mind or change of policy, one that may be designed merely to try to win votes from people who opposed the policy you previously espoused, or one that indicates you are not very good at thinking things through. Yet there are occasions when presidents or governments need to change their minds and their policies in light of developments in events or in thinking. John Maynard Keynes is credited with the comment “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” In this connection it’s a shame when accusing someone of flip-flopping becomes itself a way of getting votes, a cheap way to discredit an opponent. The assumption is that people like to think of their leaders as clear thinking and decisive; deriding them as flip-floppers marks them as lacking in judgment and indecisive...