Tag Archives: Red Herring

Plain Bad Arguments, Red Herring

On the pier

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Some military types together penned an op-ed in the Washington Post arguing against gays in the military.  Some of their arguments are manifestly absurd–like this one:

And the damage would not stop there. Legislation introduced to repeal Section 654 (H.R. 1283) would impose on commanders a radical policy that mandates "nondiscrimination" against "homosexuality, or bisexuality, whether the orientation is real or perceived." Mandatory training classes and judicial proceedings would consume valuable time defining that language. Team cohesion and concentration on missions would suffer if our troops had to live in close quarters with others who could be sexually attracted to them.

We don't need a study commission to know that tensions are inevitable in conditions offering little or no privacy, increasing the stress of daily military life. "Zero tolerance" of dissent would become official intolerance of anyone who disagrees with this policy, forcing additional thousands to leave the service by denying them promotions or punishing them in other ways. Many more will be dissuaded from ever enlisting. There is no compelling national security reason for running these risks to our armed forces. Discharges for homosexual conduct have been few compared with separations for other reasons, such as pregnancy/family hardship or weight-standard violations. There are better ways to remedy shortages in some military specialties than imposing social policies that would escalate losses of experienced personnel who are not easily replaced.

"Nondiscrimation" (in quotes!) sounds odd, to say the least, in the context of an argument arguing for systematic and legalized discrimination against homosexuals.  Aside from its grade C sophistry, this argument repeats the claim uttered by many that their civil rights would be infringed upon if homosexual marriages are legally recognized–a claim made in a recent commercial against gay marriage.  See here for entertaining commentary on that particular advertisement.

On the other merits of the piece, the authors argue many–too many–would leave the military (in a time when we need them all).  The primary cause would seem to be the "forced intimacy" required by military life: 

Section 654 recognizes that the military is a "specialized society" that is "fundamentally different from civilian life." It requires a unique code of personal conduct and demands "extraordinary sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice, in order to provide for the common defense." The law appreciates military personnel who, unlike civilians who go home after work, must accept living conditions that are often "characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy." 

Not having been in the military, I can't really attest to that (anyone?).  But one can easily imagine it.  What might be a counter example to this–perhaps the only comprehensible worry on behalf of those afraid of homosexuals, at least the only one the authors mention–might be some other military which allows gays to serve openly.  And indeed there is one, or two or more.  The authors write:

Some suggest that the United States must emulate Denmark, the Netherlands and Canada, which have incorporated homosexuals into their forces. But none of these countries has the institutional culture or worldwide responsibilities of our military. America's armed forces are models for our allies' militaries and the envy of our adversaries — not the other way around. 

They might have just added: those countries, however, serve red herring, a nutritionally deficient form of sustenance, in their MREs.  The question is whether allowing gays in the military–especially in Canada, a country very much like ours, with troops committed overseas in various operations–has affected military service in Canada.  Did mass amounts of people leave the military?  The fact that our military might be the envy of our adversaries is immaterial and irrelevant–unless, of course, they "envy" it's not gayness. 

Charles Krauthammer, Red Herring

Argumentum ad Farkam

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If you haven't seen Fark.com, you should take a look.  It's a kind of one-line news aggregator with one-word commentary: e.g., dumbass: Man insures his honeybees.  Often the observations on the events are hilarious.  But you wouldn't or shouldn't at least consider them serious news commentary.  But when it comes to the stimulus bill, worth something like a trillion dollars, this is the kind of discourse one is treated to.  Thus, Charles Krauthammer:

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus — and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new — a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

Most of Krauthammer's piece is an argumentum ad Obamam–anything short of Jesus spells failure for the politics of hope, etc.  But the evidence for the old-school hope-crushing ways of Obama (with respect to the stimulus) from (a now suspicious of a fear-mongering government) Krauthammer is a couple of miniscule farkish examples: Honeybee insurance!  

It seems self-evident that there are philosophical differences between the two parties on the nature of the stimulus package–after all, ipse dixit!–and perhaps the readers of the Post could be favored with a discussion of those differences, rather than a series of childish and context-free examples of government waste and feigned disappointment at Obama's not being Jesus.  

Michael Gerson, Red Herring

Know your enemy

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Don't know what to call your enemy?  Try al Qaeda.  Note how Michael Gerson twists and turns in order to make all of the fronts in Iraq a "central" front in the war on, yes, al Qaeda.  He writes [our intrusions in brackets and italics–sorry about that, but I couldn't find another way to point out all of the fudging here]:

It is a central argument of the Bush administration that the outcome in Iraq is essential to the broader war on terrorism — which is plainly true. When it comes to Sunni radicalism, the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are a single struggle. Al-Qaeda [is it the case that Sunni radicalism is the same as al Qaeda?] has latched on to local grievances, tribal conflicts and general chaos in all three nations to extend its influence [what does this influence consist in?].

But this argument, used to justify U.S. efforts in Iraq ["used to justify" has a nice passive ring to it–sounds like it doesn't actually justify], cuts another way as well. Is America taking all three related insurgencies with sufficient seriousness?[odd, that wasn't the way I was thinking]

Iraq, while consuming greater sacrifice, is now producing the most encouraging results. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is reeling. U.S. Special Forces in Mosul — a largely Sunni city north of Baghdad — are conducting [conducting–why not "succeeding at"] about eight to 12 missions against al-Qaeda each night [what makes them sure it's "al Qaeda?"  And is "al Qaeda in Iraq" the same as "al Qaeda"?]. In Baghdad, the surge strategy of securing civilians has dramatically reduced sectarian violence [This is really a different issue]. And in Basra — located in the Shiite south — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has finally shown some fight against radical militias [what kind of "radical militias"?].  [What about general anti-American insurgency?]

Hurray for all of those things.  Maybe.  But let's not exaggerate.  These are all different things.  It's obvious from the most superficial news watching that Iraq has numerous sectarian struggles going on plus an anti-American insurgency.  The most obvious one of these sectarian struggles–that between Shiites and Sunnis–has the Sunni radicals on the losing end–as they are the religious minority in Iraq (and Iran–remember them–they're Shiites aren't they?).  That means the sectarian war does not intrinsically benefit Sunni radicalism, i.e., al Qaeda, as Gerson suggests.

But that can't be true, one might say.  The only way, I think, it could be true is if we consider "al Qaeda not to be a specific terrorist group, as it is, but rather a stand-in for all the forces of evil.  Why?  because al Qaeda is a force of evil and disorder.  Any disorder and evil is a victory for the terrorists.  And all terrorists are al Qaeda.  Well at least all terrorists share the evil aims of al Qaeda, which is the same thing. 

Except when it isn't.  

If Gerson's strategy of making al Qaeda the mother of all red herrings has done anything, it's given al Qaeda legitimacy as a global superpower.