Category Archives: General discussion

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General discussion

Where is George Will when you need him?

I think we need to call noted Cubs fan George Will: someone wants to turn baseball into a government-run death panel.  You see, the Cubs, our local team a few stops down the Red Line, would like the government to borrow some money for them.  I don't really get public financing for sports teams, but I don't know much about it either.  I do get, however, the whining of the rich about handouts (to others) is hypocritical when those handouts are fine when given to them.  Having said that, please enjoy the following selection from a local blog, Windy City Watch on the Rickett's scheme.

Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts dislikes government spending so much that he spent over a half a million dollars of his own money to fight against it. According to the Huffington Post (HuffPo) Ricketts was the “sole financier of the Ending Spending Fund” which invested nearly $600,000 into the Nevada US Senate race against Majority Leader Harry Reid.

HuffPo also points out that the fund is the political arm of a new nonprofit called Taxpayers Against Earmarks, which is "dedicated to educating and engaging American taxpayers about wasteful government spending and the misguided practice of earmarks."

In a video on the group’s website and YouTube page Joe Rickets says, “I think its a crime for our elected officials to borrow money today, to spend money today and push the repayment of that loan out into the future on people who are not even born yet.”

Its funny that Joe Ricketts is so passionate against “wasteful government spending” when his family, led by son, Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts, has just asked the people of Illinois to borrow $300 million in a bond offering so that it can rehab Wrigley Field. This request follows a vote in Mesa, AZ which guaranteed the Cubs $84 million in public funds to build a new spring training stadium and facility.

Does Joe Ricketts think its a crime that the family business will collect $84 million from one government body, while asking for $300 million from another?

When he talks about borrowing money today and forcing that debt on the unborn he is literally talking about the very scheme that the Cubs are pushing. That plan calls for the bonds to be paid off over 35 years through amusement taxes. Many of the individuals paying those amusement taxes haven’t been conceived yet, hell some of their parents are still in elementary school.

Sometimes, folks, tu quoques–briefly: you're a hypocrite, you're argument is invalid–are not fallacious.  This is one of those times. 

Thanks Carin. 

General discussion

Can’t make this stuff up

4 Comments

What have I told you about diet and exercise?  Exercise is irrelevant…. "How do you know all this?"  One of the reasons I know what I know is that I know liberals, and I know liberals lie, and if Michelle Obama’s gonna be out there ripping into "food desserts" and saying, "This is why people are fat," I know it’s not true.  "Rush, do you really believe that? It’s that simple to you, liberals lie?"  Yes, it is, folks.  Once you learn that, once you come to grips with that, once you accept that, the rest is easy.  Very, very simple.  Now, my doctor has never told me to restrict any intake of salt, but if he did, I wouldn’t.  I’d just spend more time in the steam or the sauna sweating it out.http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/11/eat-all-the-twinkies-you-want.html

General discussion

An exercise in spotting and correcting slanted language

9 Comments

Here's an exercise in spotting intentionally slanted language.  Michelle Malkin, commenting on Republican victories, finds that she must use the most divisive language she can in order to explain them.  I'll highlight four of five places in her opening two paragraphs, but I'm restraining myself:

Do Americans share President Obama's desire to impose redistributive social justice on the well off? In liberal Washington State, of all places, voters gave a definitive answer this Tuesday: No! The resounding rejection of a punitive "Robin Hood" initiative shows that it's not just red-state Republicans who oppose extreme tax hikes on the nation's wealth generators.

As Capitol Hill resumes debate on whether to extend the so-called "Bush tax cuts," the White House should pay special heed to the fate of little-noticed Initiative 1098. Its defeat by a whopping 65-35 margin doesn't bode well for Team Obama's class warriors still clinging bitterly to their soak-the-rich schemes.

Lordy. Would it kill Malkin to even try to lead with a fairly articulated argument before the framing starts? First, it's distributive justice, because it's about justice in the distribution of goods.  To call it "re-distributive" either implies that the current distribution meets standards of justice (it doesn't) or that redistribution, regardless of the current distribution, is counter to justice.  Calling it social justice is conservative double-dipping, as 'social justice' has become a new watchword up there with 'secular humanism,' 'liberalism,' and 'progressive' among conservatives.  Malkin, with this one, is showing she's too eager to talk the talk.

Taxing the rich is taken then to be punitive measures on the nation's wealth generators.  I just don't get it.  How is it a punishment, when their standard of living isn't being drastically effected, and yet their wealth depends on the proper functioning of the rest of the society?  Wealth-generators?  Wealth-generators?  Seriously.  I dare all those so-called Atlases to shrug.  None of these Atlases now-a-days are captains of industry or developers of ideas, as idealized by Ayn Rand and her huffy bunch of crazies.  They're skimmers of cream off banks and their holdings, people who encourage over-worked representatives to push mortgages to people who can't afford them, people who shuffle stock packages to hide debt.  Generators?  Overgrown ticks.

So-called "Bush tax cuts'.  So called… by everybody. Because they were tax cuts.  By President Bush.  Bigger than anything imagined by Reagan.  Mostly for the wealthy.  Shameless.  Better phrase: So-called 'So-called "Bush tax cuts" '.

Soak the rich schemes.  Schemes, indeed.   Schemes dreamed up by scheming schemers who dream of nothing but skimming the cream and reaping the bling of Atlases?  Schemes.  Schemes, as in plans.  Soak the rich, as in requiring those who've benefited the most to give back.   Schemes, oh, please.

The lesson: slanting can be fun, but it's really just an exercise for pretending you've got good arguments for what you're saying.  I wonder if Malkin has any of those?

 

 

General discussion

Arguments from Persecution Redux

My last posting was about James Gannon's "Hayseed Rebellion," and the version of ad populum argument I'd called 'arguments from persecution."  I've reconsidered the reconstruction, as I don't think  the argument hangs on the injustice of persecution per se, but the vice of the persecutors being a function of what they are persecuting.  In this case, the crucial element of the argument is that it is addressed to an audience of folks who feel as though they are under attack from somebody (or who are open to being convinced that they are) who persecutes them for what they believe is right.
Take the opening characterization Gannon uses:


If you believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one man and one woman, you are a homophobe and a bigot.


Now, his audience (it is American Spectator) is someone who accepts the antecedent.  But they feel uncomfortable, I think, about the consequent.  I think Gannon's audience would want to say something like the following:  I stand for traditional marriage, which is between a man and a woman, but that doesn't make me a homophobe or a bigot.  That just makes me a conservative. 

Gannon's statement, clearly, attributes a view, then, to an opposition that is inattentive these fine distinctions between conservatives and bigots.  You see, bigots deny rights that are deserved, conservatives deny rights that, erm, aren't deserved. Or are "special rights" that the rest of everybody else has.  Or something like that.  The irony, as Gannon takes it, is that these folks who hold that to be opposed to treating gays as equals is a case of bigotry are educated.   These educated folks just don't get it, yet they look down on conservatives, who are right, you see.

Now, I've myself used this little frame of argument in passing, but with postmodernists.  These folks think that everyone who thinks that logical thinking and valid argumentation is worthwhile are 'logocentric' and hold a 'totalizing' view of the world.  Totalitarianism isn't far (down a slippery slop).   So when I say these things to right-minded folks, i.e., those who see the value of logic and valid  argumentation, all I need to do is say that they have names of disapprobation for these things that are so clearly right.  That's enough, because we see this as a short-hand for saying: this group is composed of stupid people who must be stopped. 

So these contrastive statements (if you believe this thing that seems right to you, then you are a that thing that seems wrong to you) are for the purpose of out-grouping a class of people who think that of you.   We think this, they think the things we think are stupid.  This is right, so that makes them stupid. All done, especially when it's done in the right tone of voice. 

The objective, then, is to show the vice of those who are wrong and stupid: they have special terms of abuse to refer to those who are right.  They call us (conservatives) bigots, homophobes, religious  nutcases, and so on.  That not just shows that liberals are wrong, but that shows that their error breeds unique vices.  Liberals don't just need correction.  They need confrontation, and resistance.

So the reconstruction:
P1:  You hold view p. And view p is true (that's why you hold it, duh!)
P2: Those who belong to group X hold that anyone who holds view p has vice V.
P3: You do not have vice V.
C1: Those in group X are wrong about p.
P4: Those who hold that those with true beliefs are vicious are opponents of truth.
C2: Those in group X are opponents of truth.
P5: Opponents of truth must be resisted and reviled.
C3: Those in group X must be resisted and reviled.

And thereby, you make a case against a group (and provide a rallying cry) simply by the fact that they criticize you. 

Appeal to Pity, General discussion

Boo Effing Hoo

8 Comments

I'm not trying to horn in on Scott's rock'n'roll fallacy posts, (kudos and kleos for correct guesses for what song is in my head right now), but I think there's a sub-type of the ad misericordiam fallacy that we might name by the title of this post. I don't have an example in print right now, rather I've been running into this argument occasionally in conversation. It runs something like this.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

No really, it runs something like this:

A: "We think X is bad because it places significant burdens on us."
B: "That's nothing we have had much greater burdens placed on us."

Or, colloquially:

B1: "Oh, Boo Effing Hoo, that's nothing compared to what we suffer."

So, there are some forms of this argument that might be reasonable, but when it is offered as a reason against rejecting X it seems to me to be fallacious, unless some sort of substantive premise, a "shared misery premise" is added. Something along the lines of:

B2: "It is your turn to share the burden that we have already endured."

But, as I've encountered it out in the irrational wildernesses of discourse, it seems often to be a nice variation on the ad miseridcordiam fallacy–a way of turning an assertion about burdens into a misery pissing contest.

General discussion, ignorance of basic matters of logic

I’m not a bigot, but I play one on “The O’Reilly Factor”

22 Comments

Here's Juan Williams, formerly of NPR, on non-bigotry:

"Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

NPR fired this guy.  If they fired him for being an f—ing moron they would be absolutely more than justified.  I can think of two reasons: first, Muslims in traditional garb are not going to commit acts of terrorism; second, Muslims as a whole ought not to be identified for logical and political reasons with Taliban-style extremists (Wanna be identified with Timothy McVeigh?). 

One more reason: Williams endorsed the justification, although this time a bit more plausibly, for any Iraqi or Afghani or Iranian or just anyone at all perhaps in the non-Israeli Middle East who worries that Westerners, in particular Americans, might want to democratize them. 

Ad Hominem Abusive, General discussion

Facts and science and argument

6 Comments

The first rule of American political discourse is that you cannot mention the inanity of American political discourse.  Here is Obama:

"Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared,” Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. “And the country's scared.”

A thousand examples come to mind.  Just for fun, however, I clicked a link right to the left of this Politico story.  Near the top of the page, this is what it said:

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Monday rolled out a new attack on Barack Obama, charging that the president looks "demonic."

Pointing to a recent picture of the president highlighted by the conservative Drudge Report, Limbaugh improbably declared during his show Monday that there are no other photos of "an American president with facial expressions like this."

"These pictures, they look demonic," Limbaugh said, in comments later posted on his website.

"It is strange that these pictures would be released," Limbaugh said of the images, which were taken by a wire service. "It's very, very, very strange."

"An American president has never had facial expressions like this," the conservative insisted. "At least, we've never seen photos of an American president with facial expressions like this."

Facts and science and argument.  Anyway, Here's Michael Gerson's take on Obama's remarks:

Let's unpack these remarks.

Obama clearly believes that his brand of politics represents "facts and science and argument." His opponents, in disturbing contrast, are using the more fearful, primitive portion of their brains. Obama views himself as the neocortical leader — the defender, not just of the stimulus package and health-care reform but also of cognitive reasoning. His critics rely on their lizard brains — the location of reptilian ritual and aggression. Some, presumably Democrats, rise above their evolutionary hard-wiring in times of social stress; others, sadly, do not.

There is a principle in argument, called the principle of charity, which has it that in the absence of the object of one's criticism, one ought to be nice.  This is not nice.  And it's obviously false.  Obama is talking about the state of our political discourse–the discourse where whether he looks like the devil constitutes a noteworthy intervention. 

But don't let me tell you.  Listen to Gerson (a few paragraphs down the page):

There have been several recent attempts to explain Obama's worldview as the result of his post-colonial father or his early socialist mentors — Gnostic attempts to produce the hidden key that unlocks the man. The reality is simpler. In April 2008, Obama described small-town voters to wealthy donors in San Francisco: "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." Now, to wealthy donors in Massachusetts, opponents are "hard-wired not to always think clearly." Interpreting Obama does not require psychoanalysis or the reading of mystic Chicago runes. He is an intellectual snob.

Not only does this reference the kind of off-the-wall crap that constitutes political analysis in certain quarters, but in engages in the kind of silly discourse Obama is criticizing.  Rather than consider Obama's fairly moderate point–I mean seriously, death panels–Gerson turns the discussion to the person.  Perhaps Obama ought to have said: "rather than have a discussion about reality, some, such as Michael Gerson, would like to talk about what a snob I am to make such a demand."

General discussion

Me and the Devil blues

2 Comments

Sanctimonious Christian moralist and Iraq war salesman Michael Gerson has questions about atheism:

But Christopher Hitchens is weaker on the personal and ethical challenge presented by atheism: Of course we can be good without God, but why the hell bother? If there are no moral lines except the ones we draw ourselves, why not draw and redraw them in places most favorable to our interests? Hitchens parries these concerns instead of answering them: Since all moral rules have exceptions and complications, he said, all moral choices are relative. Peter Hitchens responded, effectively, that any journey becomes difficult when a compass points differently at different times.

One of the neatest things about Philosophy is the way it forces one to think through remarks such as these.  Is it the case that that "good" has no meaning without God?  Whatever would that question mean anyway? 

It seems to me, after all, that's it's not obvious what it means to be good in the first place.  Is it to have the right kind of intentions–as in "when I dreamt up oratory justifying a human rights catastrophe I meant only the best."  That doesn't seem right.  What about this: "when I went along with those with insufficiently skeptical beliefs about the nature of the threat from Iraq and Al Qaeda, I was a sinner with an imperfect, flawed character"?  Well, that doesn't seem right either.  What about this: "no one really can know what the good is, like say invading Iraq, as we are not God, we're sinners and we can't know the future."  That has something going for it.  It just has one problem: it puts you on par with the atheist. 

General discussion

God only knows…

13 Comments

Ever notice how people use the expression, usually when claiming and attributing widespread ignorance, "God only knows…"?  The upshot of it is to say: the issue is evidentially impenetrable, so only an omniscient entity could know the answer.  But the expression doesn't say that.  It says that God only knows, not that only God knows.  If God only knows, that means that knowing is the only thing he's doing. Moreover, it doesn't say that we (or anyone else) don't know… which is what the expression was supposed to imply.  Now, you can imply that by quantifying over God instead of over knowledge.   So why do people say it that way, if it doesn't mean what they say?

Maybe it's because in saying "God only knows,"  one is actually compressing a dramatic pause, so: "God, only, knows," which would read the quantifier ranging over "God," not "knows".   Any thoughts?