Please enjoy this extended exchange between a 14 year-old Rachel Parent and Canadian talk show host Kevin O’Leary on the subject of labeling GMO food. A bit of background: Parent advocates the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) while Kevin O’Leary thinks, from what I can gather based on this video, being against GMO foods is tantamount to condemning hundreds of thousands of Asian children to death. Didn’t make sense to me either. Watch the whole thing: the kid is amazing.
The kid is amazing, but the real talent is O’Leary: in the face of the kid’s lucid focus on the issue in question he manages not to understand a single thing.
Paul Krugman puzzles over a dazzling bit of dishonesty in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Oregon’s Medicaid program. Here’s the basic issue:
Aaron Carroll reads the Wall Street Journal, which is outraged, outraged, at the prospect that Oregon’s Medicaid system might seek to limit spending on treatments with low effectiveness and/or patients who aren’t going to live much longer in any case. Death panels!
Carroll points us to the actual staff recommendation, which is far milder than the WSJ blast would have you believe. But as Carroll points out, the larger point is the absurdity of the Journal’s position. On one side, it’s fanatically opposed to Medicaid expansion — that is, it’s eager to make sure that millions have no health coverage at all. On the other side, it claims to be outraged at the notion of setting priorities in spending on those who do manage to qualify for Medicaid. It’s OK for people to die for lack of coverage; it’s an utter horror if taxpayers decline to pay for marginal care.
Krugman (and the Aaron Carroll, whom he is citing here) doesn’t quite put the matter this way, but it seems to me that you have a basic issue of scarcity here: in part on account of objections from conservatives, money for Medicaid is short. So best to distribute what little there is to those who need it, not everything can be covered. So the discussion ought perhaps to be about that. That’s not, sadly, what the Wall Street Journal was interested in. Their interest, rather, was in using such perennial problems as evidence that Big Government will put you to death. That is a rather different issue.
So Krugman wonders:
So I understand what’s going on here. What I don’t understand is the mindset of the editorial writers. At some level they have to know that they’re engaged in an act of grotesque cynicism. Do they admit that to themselves? Do they rationalize it by saying that truth is a secondary consideration when you’re engaged in a crusade against the evils of big government? Have they mastered true Orwellian doublethink, managing to believe things they know aren’t true?
My vote is they are probably capable of knowing the difference, but have long ago confused success at selling an idea with the idea’s being true. Or perhaps something else: they believe their are better arguments out there, and though the one they offer may be a stinker, you argue with the arguments you have, not the ones you’d like to have. Someone, after all, will come along an iron man them out of this one.
It’s a common strategy when characterizing one’s opposition to use the non-argumentative device commonly called the downplayer.  So one may use the opposition’s language, but scarequote its best points or one may go out of one’s way to emphasize how little you think of them and their points. In so doing, you prime your audience to hear anything the other side says as ridiculous. The problem with downplayers is that if you do them too much, it’s not entirely clear why you’re bothering to argue with or even correct this person. If the quality of the opposition is so bad, then perhaps you’re not trying hard enough to find thoughtful interlocutors. Or the thoughtful ones don’t talk to you.
Now, hear Sean Hannity’s characterization of Ryan Adams, the alt-country star, here. You see, Adams posted a tweet directed at Hannity, saying that he was “controlled by fear and by hate,” and that Hannity should “evolve” and “see reality.” He also called Hannity “little chicken man.” In response, Hannity had decided to respond. But instead of defend himself against the charges (such as they are), he goes out of his way to downplay. Some highlights of his response to the tweet:
Now isn’t that nice.
You probably don’t know him. He’s not that popular.
His little agent…
If we wanted to torture terrorists, we should play his music to them 24-7.
He’s hiding behind his rockstar makeup like a little gutless coward.
A lot of people don’t even know who he is… so forget it.
And so now once Hannity has successfully downplayed to this point, he’s made himself look pretty silly here — he’s now having to respond to someone who he doesn’t think he should have to respond to. As if to say: This person criticized me… but look at how unworthy of my concern this person is. I mean… really, just pathetic this person. Criticizing me.  I’m not peeved by this or even perturbed… being criticized by such a low, low person. I mean… really. It doesn’t bother me at all, because this person is such a lowly piece of garbage and he criticizes me… It’s not even worth my time to even think about it, that guy, that lowly guy. Not even worth my time to even think about it. Because that guy is just so low. And to criticize me, such a lowlife. Not even worth my time. Sometimes, when you downplay too much, it undoes the force of it.
(Oh, it may not have been worth Hannity’s time to respond, but it clearly was worth the time of Miss Oklahoma.)
Raising questions about an expert’s qualifications, motivations, and possible conflicts of interest is good practice.  However, a fundamental principle of argument says that time is short and that one must therefore dispense with the bullshit.
This principle was violated by Fox News’ religion correspondent, Lauren Green, when she spent several minutes of an interview with well-known religious scholar Reza Aslan puzzling over why a Muslim would write a book about Jesus:
“You’re a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?â€
This not on its face a stupid question, but that was pretty much the only question the interviewer had for the next several minutes. Her implication was that there is something suspect or inappropriate in a non-Christian’s writing about Jesus. This is a variation on the fallacious variety of the ad hominem circumstantial: you’re just saying what you say about Jesus because you’re a Muslim out to terrorize Christianity with scholarship and footnotes.
That’s obviously silly and does not deserve refutation.
Sadly, having watched the interview, I have no idea what the book is about or whether it is any good.
Iowa Representative Steven King reminds us of an important characteristic of ad hominem arguments–viz., calling someone names is not a sufficient condition for an ad hominem. The matter begins with the following remark concerning granting amnesty to illegal immigrants:
“Some of them are valedictorians — and their parents brought them in. It wasn’t their fault. It’s true in some cases, but they aren’t all valedictorians. They weren’t all brought in by their parents.
“For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” King tells Newsmax. “Those people would be legalized with the same act.”Â
Naturally, people were quick to notice that this remark was “wrong” (to use the words of John Boehner, House Republican Majority Leader). Yet, in an all too common response to criticism such as this, King attempted to turn the tables:
“You know when people attack you—in this business, when you’re in this business, you know that when people attack you, and they call you names, they’re diverting from the topic matter,†King told Breitbart. “You know they’ve lost the debate when they do that. We’ve talked about it for years. Tom Tancredo and I joked about it that that’s the pattern. When people start calling you names, that’s what confirms you’ve won the debate.â€
No, that isn’t actually a rule.
This rule only works this way: Person A is wrong about policy X because Person A is an a-hole”. But this isn’t how it went. In the present case, we have Person A said something false so Person A is wrong. It’s an inference to Person A’s character from Person A’s actions, deeds, or words. This is very different.
A young woman in Texas found a provocative way to make a point about freedom of religion–or freedom from someone else’s religion. Here it is:
That certainly got people’s attention. Sadly, her willingness to step into this adult debate has taught her an adult lesson. She writes:
That’s when people started calling me a “whore.”
I’m going to be honest about what it feels like to be called that as a 14-year-old girl who has never had sex and who doesn’t plan to have sex anytime soon.
I feel disappointed.
It’s hard for me to understand why adults would be calling me this. It’s hard for me to understand why anyone would use this term for a 14-year-old girl.
It’s not anyone’s business, but as I said, I am a virgin, and I don’t plan to have sex until I am an adult.
But none of those facts make me feel any less passionate about fighting for a woman’s right to choose and the separation of church and state in my home state of Texas.
I also don’t think this makes me — or any other 14-year-old girl who agrees with me — a whore.
It simply makes us people. People who believe that abortion should be safe, legal and accessible for women. People who believe women should be in control of their bodies and should not ever have to put their lives at risk so that we don’t go backwards in women’s rights in this country.
The adult lesson here is that people act like children when children expect them to act like adults. How I hope this brave young woman does not put away childish things.
Today I want to borrow something particularly interesting from No More Mister Nice Blog. Much of our work here, as we head into our ninth year, involves pointing out the flaws in people’s arguments. I still think that’s an important job after all the years. But here, thanks to NMMNB, is an instance in which David Brooks, once a favorite target of ours (and kind of an inspiration for this blog with all of his hackery) actually changes his mind on account of an argument. Here it is:
Obama spoke about Stand Your Ground laws — and, again, I don’t think he was “sympathetic to all sides” (nor should he have been):
And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these “stand your ground” laws, I’d just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.
Hearing this made David Brooks reconsider his position on these laws:
And I have to say, the point on the Stand Your Ground law was actually clarifying for me. I had some sympathy for the laws because as, you know, as Americans, we should be independent, we should be able to defend ourselves, be strong. But the argument he made about, you know, do we really want all sorts of people, do we really want what happened here, people walking around with guns feeling free to shoot off without legal protections, without the normal legal process — now, that’s a compelling argument, which he put very well.
Yes, Brooks actually said he’d never quite thought about the possibility of extending Stand Your Ground to “all sorts of people.” Yes, even those sorts. When you put it that way, Stand Your Ground is kinda scary, hunh, David?
Nice work, Professor Obama.
I’m relieved that Obama was able to penetrate the fog of this guy’s mind. That’s something, I guess.
NPR’s “All Things Considered” ran a program on young people who challenge common forms of gender identification. Here’s a snippet:
ADLER: But some students are going further. At one college that Joy Ladin visited, things were so fluid you could make up a different pronoun for a different event.
LADIN: So you can be she/her at one event and then you go to lunch and you say, OK, now I am he/him. And then one charming young woman told me, oh, yes, today, I’m just using made up pronouns.
Fascinating stuff, of course. This lead to the usual letters and such, among them was this one:
CORNISH: Amy [Redacted] North Carolina, disagrees with that last line. She writes: How about abused and neglected children? They certainly do not have the luxury of sitting at Oberlin College defining themselves as tractors or determining what gender pronoun they’re going to use at any given moment. Lawton goes on: While I believe that these people have the right to choose whatever pronoun they’d like to refer to themselves, by no means are they the most marginalized members of society. Finally, it seems like there are more pressing issues to address around here than rewriting the gender binary.
This is really terrible criticism. Not to defend NPR, but a search for the exact string “Child Abuse” produced 400 results on the NPR web page.
Now here’s the question.  I imagine NPR had lots of choice here in selecting among the responses to their story. Did they have to pick such a cranky and ill-informed one? It seems like they have an obligation to select strong (that is, relevant and cogently argued) responses.  Here’s another question: is it fair to the cranky letter writer to publish his/her silly letter? Seems not.
I remember a while back, maybe three years ago, Juan Williams, now of Fox News but then of NPR, remarked that people in Muslim-looking garb on planes made him nervous. That was a silly bit of profiling, of course. Now in the wake of the Trayvon Martin not guilty verdict, racial profiling is all the rage, at least at the Washington Post. Both Richard Cohen, who is allegedly a liberal columnist, and Kathleen Parker (a conservative) have penned columns justifying some sort of profiling. Here is Parker:
This is not to justify what subsequently transpired between Zimmerman and Martin but to cast a dispassionate eye on reality. And no, just because a few black youths caused trouble doesn’t mean all black youths should be viewed suspiciously. This is so obvious a truth that it shouldn’t need saying and yet, if we are honest, we know that human nature includes the accumulation of evolved biases based on experience and survival. In the courtroom, it’s called profiling. In the real world, it’s called common sense.
Oddly, this “dispassionate eye on reality” seems to suggest that racial profilers, such as Zimmerman appears to have been, lack common sense. For, after all, being suspicious of biases such as these is common sense, common decency, and basic intellectual skill. Now to be fair, the rest of her piece, by the way, isn’t that bad–or at least not as bad as Richard Cohen’s horrible meditation on hoodies:
Where is the politician who will own up to the painful complexity of the problem and acknowledge the widespread fear of crime committed by young black males? This does not mean that raw racism has disappeared, and some judgments are not the product of invidious stereotyping. It does mean, though, that the public knows young black males commit a disproportionate amount of crime. In New York City, blacks make up a quarter of the population, yet they represent78 percent of all shooting suspects — almost all of them young men. We know them from the nightly news.
Sounds like your uncle at Thanksgiving–for excellent analysis of Cohen’s unpardonably bad piece, see Jamelle Bouie.
TL;DR: this horrible crime (I think) ought at least to provide us an opportunity to reflect on the malfunctioning operation of common sense, or racism, as some call it.
