All posts by John Casey

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Ad hominem tu quoque, Plain Bad Arguments, Straw Man

Let them eat cake*

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I'm pretty sure you can count on James Taranto to criticize Obama for abolishing medicare.  So it's not surprising when Obama points out that market pressures–namely high prices–ought to encourage people to take a little personal responsibility; the government, on Taranto's view perhaps, is not here to "feel their pain."  Or so one would think.  But, sadly, no (link courtesy of Sadly, No!):

At a town-hall meeting yesterday in Fairless Hills, Pa., a man in the audience asked Obama about gasoline prices, which are currently in the range of $4 a gallon. According to the Associated Press, Obama responded "laughingly" and "needled" the questioner. The president's sarcasm comes through in the White House transcript:

I know some of these big guys, they're all still driving their big SUVs. You know, they got their big monster trucks and everything. You're one of them? Well, now, here's my point. If you're complaining about the price of gas and you're only getting eight miles a gallon–(laughter)–you may have a big family, but it's probably not that big. How many you have? Ten kids, you say? Ten kids? (Laughter.) Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then. (Laughter.) . . .

So, like I said, if you're getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in. You can get a great deal. I promise you, GM or Ford or Chrysler, they're going to be happy to give you a deal on something that gets you better gas mileage.

The transcript shows that Obama got lots of laughs. But presumably he was speaking to a friendly audience–to people who regard the burning of gasoline as sinful and who, at least in theory, are attracted to the idea of $8-a-gallon gasoline.

People like that, to paraphrase Pauline Kael, live in a rather special world. For most Americans (we Manhattan residents are a notable exception), driving is a day-to-day necessity, and high gas prices are a constant source of economic pain. Sure, if you're driving a guzzler, it might make sense to trade it in. But not everyone has the money lying around to buy a new car at the drop of a hat. And owners of dinky cars and hybrids still have to buy gasoline for them.

The government is not here to solve the problem of high prices, one might argue.  Indeed, when the price of health care gas is high, the market will sort it out–and responsible people will make responsible choices about finite, expensive, but necessary resources.  They can't expect the government to sort it out.  Or at least, they will recognize the limitations.

Anyway, it goes without saying that Taranto has completely misrepresented the tone of the President's comments.  Here is a passage from the opener:

The fact is, for a lot of folks, money was already tight before gas prices started climbing, especially for some families where the husband or the wife had been out of work or you’ve had to get by with fewer customers or hours on the job. Having high gas prices is just one more added burden.

But I want everybody to remember, every time gases go up, we see the same pattern. Washington gets all worked up, just like clockwork. Republicans and Democrats both start making a lot of speeches. Usually the Democrats blame the Republicans; the Republicans blame the Democrats. Everybody is going in front of the cameras and they’ve got some new three-point plan to promise two-dollar-a-gallon gas. And then nothing happens. And then gas prices go down, and then suddenly it’s not in the news anymore and everybody forgets about it until the next time gas prices go back up again.

That’s what was happening when I was running three years ago. You remember “Drill, baby, drill”? That was because the economy was overheated, gas prices were skyrocketing, and everybody made a lot of speeches but not much happened. And I said then that we can’t afford to continue this kind of being in shock when gas prices go up and then suddenly being in a trance when things go back down again. We’ve got to have a sustained energy policy that is consistent, that recognizes that there’s no magic formula to driving gas prices down; it’s a steady improvement in terms of how we use energy and where we get energy from — that’s what’s going to make a difference. That’s how we’re going to secure our energy future.

It's as if he does feel their pain.  You can read the rest at the link–the link Taranto does not provide.  Wondering why.  And of course, his answer to the question about fuel efficiency is nothing like Taranto alleges.

 *a later edit included this title (I forgot to put a title on the original post).  I searching for the quoted Obama passage, I found scores of right-wing criticism of it (no surprise, it was repeated without context).  Surprising, however, that one called it Obama's "let them eat caek moment."  Now I wonder, isn't that just want conservatives would have the government do for health care, etc.?  I mean, how can Obama be a heartless French royal, and a communist with false beliefs about the environment trying to get us to drive fuel-efficient cars?

 

General discussion

When people change their minds

Sometimes fierce partisans change their minds:

Over the course of September and October I occupied my time writing up articles along these very lines. Some of the articles were fair, even if you disagree with them, but many of them I would now categorize as propaganda filled with strong and unnecessary rhetoric. This is especially true of the YouTube videos I made.

One article I wrote, towards the end of October, 2010 caught the attention of a blogger by the name of RJ, who writes on the blog AmIWorking. He responded to my article about the homosexual agenda with an article addressed personally to me regarding marriage equality. In short, his article had the miraculous effect of instantly putting things into prospective for me.

At that point, between what I had witnessed on the marriage tour and RJ’s post about marriage equality, I really came to understand that gays and lesbians were just real people who wanted to live real lives and be treated equally as opposed to, for example, wanting to destroy American culture. No, they didn’t want to destroy American culture, they wanted to openly particulate in it. I was well on my way to becoming a supporter of civil marriage equality. You can read my statement retracting the statements I made about gays and lesbians here.

This from one the organizers of the anti-gay marriage movement. 

Perhaps there's a lesson here somewhere.

false trichotomy, hollow man

Grown ups

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People acquainted with media narratives know that the "adults" and the "grown ups" and the "serious people" are very often the Republicans, especially when we're talking about entitlements.  Democrats and their union friends, we're often told, are childish or immature for wanting something–public benefits such as medicare and social security–at no cost.  Click here for a funny illustration of that sorry meme. 

We have something along these lines in this Steve Chapman column from the Chicago Tribune.  The "real world," of course, demands cuts and reforms just like the Republicans want:

After House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., unveiled a plan to overhaul Medicare, Democrats announced that despite its minor flaws, it was a brave and thoughtful attempt to grapple with a serious problem that has been ignored for too long.

Just kidding. They said it was the worst thing they've seen since "Sex and the City 2."

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi accused Ryan of offering "a path to poverty for America's seniors." Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Ryan's proposal would not reform Medicare but "deform it." The White House faulted Ryan for "placing a greater burden on seniors."

The chief outrage, in their minds, is his proposal to restructure Medicare for Americans currently younger than 55 while keeping the old version for older folks. Instead of guaranteeing a certain set of benefits regardless of cost, the government would pay a fixed premium so recipients could choose their own packages.

The other meme is the "brave" or "courageous" meme.  This one, unfortunately, has even been adopted by Democrats.  On the unity of the virtues theory, however, you can't be stupid and courageous, or wrong and courageous. 

Back to the point.  The "reality" meme usually requires that you show that someone else's plan is unrealistic.  You can do that by carefully demonstrating the shortcomings of their views or their presuppositions, or you can do that by misrepresenting them.  The second is faster.  Here's Chapman again:

I have news for people old enough to be thinking about retirement: Your children may love you, but not enough to be taxed into poverty. Ryan's detractors pretend we can go on enjoying the status quo indefinitely. But it's only a matter of time before we hit a fiscal wall, hard.

There are three basic choices. We can keep on just as we have in the past until the program collapses of its own weight. Or we can restrain costs by letting the federal government ration medical care. Some patients would have to wait months or years for procedures now taken for granted — and some wouldn't get them at all. Death panels, anyone?   

"Ryan's detractors" sure seem stupid, don't they?  There's a reason they don't have a name–they don't exist.  They're hollow men.  Whatever you say about the opposition to Ryan, you'll have to admit that they tried to have a discussion about health insurance reform in light of the problems of rising health care costs, an aging population, and, of course, the limitations of the private insurance model.  Whatever you say about them, you cannot say that they embraced the status quo indefinitely. 

One more thing along these lines.  Notice that Chapman considers three options for reforming medicare: (1) do nothing; (2) death panels; (3) Ryan's plan.  That's a false trichotomy.  It's like a false dichotomy, only you add two unworkable choices rather than just one.  Since (1) and (2) are ridiculous, ergo, ipso fatso, (3) is our only realistic option. 

A courageous adult conversation about the realities of health care systems in the industrialized world, however, would consider many other empirically tested options.  Would it be immature to want that?

General discussion

Iron man

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Corresponding to the three versions of the straw man scheme (straw, weak, hollow), one may identify three forms of dialectical distortion going the other way–i.e., that is the "positive" way.  That is to say, one may be guilty of not being critical enough, or of being too nice, or too interested in analyzing good arguments to bother with all of the bad ones.  The last one here, I think, is a typical philosopher problem.  

This idea of being too charitable has come up before.  See here. And here and to some extent here.

Like the classic straw man, this sort of distortion would admit of both fallacious and non fallacious varieties.  The non fallacious varieties one might employ in class (among other places), for the kids sometimes make crappy arguments that could be made better with a little tweaking.  It's the same kind of tweaking one does to make them worse, only the point is to then evaluate the better argument, the argument not given.

One type of fallacious employment, let's call it the iron man, consists in being insufficiently critical to an obviously weak argument (or arguer) when that criticism is right, proper, and necessary.  Here's an example from Jennifer Rubin's "Right Turn Blog" at the Washington Post:

Bachmann’s greatest challenge, should she run for president in 2012, will be to convince a wide cross-section of voters that she isn’t the media’s cartoon figure. But she’ll have to do it without dampening the enthusiasm of her most devoted supporters. However, candidly, the biggest challenge will be for the other candidates, who will have to debate a very smart, articulate and entirely underestimated woman. As one Republican operative told me, “Hey, I wouldn’t want to get on that stage with her.” And that is precisely why a Bachmann candidacy, far from being a “joke” or a “farce,” might be the most interesting thing to happen to the 2012 GOP primary race.

Bachmann has many more obvious challenges, but this alternate reality post happily refutes itself, as it seems to suggest her most ardent supporters will be turned off by her losing the alleged media caricature.  Bachmann may be smart in some sense, but she's nowhere near the serious contender Rubin makes her out to be.  And this doesn't help–it doesn't help Republicans in particular–clarify what the viable options are.  Bachmann, on even Bill O'Reilly's accounting, isn't a serious candidate (or person or thinker).  Why we should waste precious minutes in the 24 hour news cycle is beyond me. 

There a Poe's law corollary here somewhere.

 

   

General discussion

Collectivism wins again!

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Some may remember George Will's meditations on the train (via Krugman's blog–I know, pay wall):

So why is America’s “win the future” administration so fixated on railroads, a technology that was the future two centuries ago? Because progressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior.

Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons—to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.

We discussed this here.  Well, today a bit of an update.  There appears to be another reason to take the train.  It's gets you from point A to point B.  Here's Krugman yesterday:

So I think that it is my civic duty to report that yesterday, as I got off Amtrak 161 from Trenton to Washington — having spent 2 1/2 hours being made more amenable to collectivism, not to mention finishing another chapter for 3rd edition — I saw George Will leaving the business class car. (I usually prefer the coach quiet car.)

This is not the first time I've heard of George Will taking the train.  I wonder if he spent a comfortable two and a half hours meditating on his practical inconsistency.  

hollow man, Straw Man

Weeds, birds, and reptiles

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P.J.O'Rourke, the satirist, writes a satire-filled (April 2nd) op-ed against (of course) urban biking.  Sure, it has some funny lines–funny if you think making fun of misfortune is funny:

Even Dublin, Ireland, has had portions of its streets set aside for bicycles only—surely unnecessary in a country where everyone's car has been repossessed.

Stupid Irish.  And then there are the lines that are funny because of their sheer ignorance:

Bike lane advocates also claim that bicycles are environmentally friendly, producing less pollution and fewer carbon emissions than automobiles. But bicycle riders do a lot of huffing and puffing, exhaling large amounts of CO2. And whether a bicycle rider, after a long bicycle ride, is cleaner than the exhaust of a modern automobile is open to question.

But he really does mean to object (seriously) to urban biking or bike lanes in traffic-dense urban areas.  The most serious point he raises is this:

In fact, bike lanes don't necessarily lessen car travel. A study by the U.K. Department for Transport found that the installation of "cycle facilities" in eight towns and cities resulted in no change in the number of people driving cars. Bike lanes don't even necessarily increase bike riding. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the Dutch government spent $945 million on bicycle routes without any discernible effect on how many Dutch rode bicycles.

This is selective.  There are lots of reasons to have bike lanes, such as increasing the safety of bicycle riders.  Besides, if one takes the width of the average bike lane, it doesn't turn a two-lane street into a one-lane street.   Further, bike lanes in very dense parts of New York City (which is what O'Rourke has in mind) are really a small set of bike lanes.  And the alternative to biking there is not driving your personal vehicle (which takes up more space, pollutes more, etc.), but taking public transportation or waking.

 Anyway, dismissing this argument unseriously is merely a set up for his darker purpose:

But maybe there's a darker side to bike-lane advocacy. Political activists of a certain ideological stripe want citizens to have a child-like dependence on government. And it's impossible to feel like a grown-up when you're on a bicycle if you aren't in the Tour de France.

Being dependent on your car is true, grown up freedom.

Satire is fun because it gives you a free pass on sophistries.  For this reason it would be out of order to hit O'Rourke for the slippery slopes, etc. Nonetheless, underneath all of the nastiness he's trying to make a regular argument.  It's just a crappy one.

Speaking of environmentalists and ulterior motives, here's Ayn Rand (courtesy of Crooks and Liars):

Ecology is the war on abundance, fought by the same people who are fighting the war on Poverty. The Ecologists claim that local pollution affects the whole world and threatens the survival of all living species. There is no scientific proof of this claim and none has ever been offered, on the grounds of nothing but arbitrary projections and panic mongering slogans, the ecologists are urging mankind to commit suicide by paralyzing industrial production. Their immediate but not ultimate goal is the destruction of the last remnants of freedoms of capitalism in our mixed economy and the establishment of a global dictatorship. In order to protect our natural environment, this means to enslave mankind on order to protect weeds, birds and reptiles.”

If only that were meant to be satire.

General discussion

Did it for the lulz*

For whatever reason, honestly and firmly believing what you argue seems to be a fundamental requirement in a critical discussion.  On account of this, a key challenge to an opponent is that not even she really believe what she's saying.  It's a kind of (non-fallacious) ad hominem scheme: "you don't believe what you're saying, so I'm not going to waste time with you."  Basically, it's an accusation of trolling.  Enter O'Reilly and Trump (via the Huffington Post–sorry, boycotting New York Times' pay wall):

O'Reilly said his show had looked into the claims about Obama's birth certificate. Once they found the two Honolulu newspapers which announced his birth, he said he "put [the issue] to bed," since "that is impossible to make happen" if Obama was not born in a Honolulu hospital. O'Reilly labeled Obama's mother a "hippie," and scoffed at the notion that there was a "sophisticated conspiracy" to smuggle Obama into the U.S. and forge his identity.

"What is he, baby Jesus?" he joked. Trump said that he remained convinced that there was something fishy going on. "People have birth certificates," he said. "He doesn't have one." He then repeated the speculation that had so angered Whoopi Goldberg—that something on the birth certificate must be so radioactive that Obama is covering it up. "Maybe it says he's a Muslim, I don't know," Trump said. "…If he wasn't born in this country, it's one of the great scams of this time."

O'Reilly finally said he didn't believe that Trump was serious in his skepticism. "It's provocative, I think it gets a lot of attention, but I don't think you believe it," he said.

This is an obviously legitimate employment of it–good for you Bill O'Reilly–but I wonder what you'd call the illegitimate use–should we just call it "trolling."  How might we identify it?  What might be the scheme?

lulz*

UPDATE.  Can't believe I forgot the recent revelation from a Fox News personality that he advocated for an idea he found "privately" to be "far-fetched".  I guess he did it for the lulz. 

Ad hominem tu quoque

Just what you’d expect part 872

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Our university now has an Objectivist club.  Like all clubs, the Objectivist club puts up fliers to advertise its meetings.  Walking up the stairs yesterday at school I spied their (I have to admit) well-designed and well-placed flier.  What made it so well placed, you see, was that it was right exactly at eye level in the middle of the wall of similar fliers.  On the second floor, the flier was tacked on top of–you cannot make this stuff up–a flier advertising a blood drive.  On the third floor, the flier was tacked on top of a flier advertising a course on homelessness offered in the Department of Social Work.

In another, somewhat related, matter, a former real world star (I'm also not making this up), and current GOP congressman from Wisconsin, Sean Duffy, complained at a town all meeting that he struggles to pay his bills on his 174,000 salary (you can support him here).  Video here.   According to TPM, the congressman also supports cutting public employees' salaries:

Duffy also said that he pays more in health care costs and retirement savings than he did when he was a district attorney before he ran for Congress. That said, Duffy said he'd support the idea of "public employees across the board" taking a compensation cut.

"Let's all join hands together and say 'I'll take a pay decrease, absolutely," Duffy said.

Yes.  Let us all join hands together.  The median income in Polk County is around 50,000.  Some sacrifices are more meaningful than others–wasn't there some Bible story about this?

Duffy, it appears, is not actually inconsistent.  He supports Governor Walker-style cuts for everyone.

Nonetheless, we still might run a tu quoque on him–a subjunctive one.  It might go something like this.  The cash-strapped Duffy might be less likely to see the wisdom in that if he were actually cash-strapped.  He's not, in other words, cash strapped in the relevant way.  He is cash strapped relative to his expenses on a robust salary; he is not cash-strapped relevant to having cash at all.