Category Archives: Other problems

Problems other than specific logical fallacies–poor explanations, things that are false, and so forth.

General discussion, Op-Eds and other opinions, Unclassifiable

Whatsa Matta Yoo?

A Justice Deparment lawyer, John Yoo (now a law professor at Berkeley–that’s liberal academia for you), put together a legal memo in 2003 that amounted to a justification of the President’s right to torture people in his capacity as Commander in Chief in time of war.  Here’s a critical passage in that argument:

As we have made clear in other opinions involving the war against al Qaeda, the Nation’s right to self-defense has been triggered by the events of September 11. If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions. This national and international version of the right to self-defense could supplement and bolster the government defendant’s individual right.

One reason you torture someone is to discover information (whether that information is any good is another matter).  You might also torture someone for fun or for punishment.  But the relevant sense of torture for this memo is the former–torture for information about the future.  Yoo argues that if you put "information discovery" under the broader rubric of self-defense, then you can torture anyone at any time, so long as you are attempting to "prevent future attacks" (which would probably characterize any interrogation after all).

That seems to be a rather vague standard, as it could be invoked to justify any instance of interrogation torture.  But the weird thing here is that Yoo would construe this national right of self-defense (which applies I would guess to war) as applicable to individual torturers.  Any particular defendant who torturers a suspect for information, you see, is merely engaging in a completely justifiable act of personal self-defense.

 

General discussion, Michael Gerson, Unclassifiable

Impartial birth abortion

16 Comments

Here’s Gerson today:

Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr.’s endorsement of Barack Obama last week — "I
believe in this guy like I’ve never believed in a candidate in my life"
— recalled another dramatic moment in Democratic politics. In the
summer of 1992, as Bill Clinton solidified his control over the Democratic Party,
Robert P. Casey Sr., the senator’s father, was banned from speaking to
the Democratic convention for the heresy of being pro-life.

The elder Casey (now deceased) was then the governor of Pennsylvania
— one of the most prominent elected Democrats in the country. He was
an economic progressive in the Roosevelt tradition. But his Irish
Catholic conscience led him to oppose abortion. So the Clintons chose
to humiliate him. It was a sign and a warning of much mean-spirited
pettiness to come.

The younger Casey, no doubt, is a sincere fan of Obama. He also must have found it satisfying to help along the cycle of political justice.

But by Casey’s father’s standard of social justice for the unborn, Obama is badly lacking.

The first part is just false (as many have demonstrated).  Casey did not endorse the democratic candidates and so was not invited to speak at the podium.  Later Gerson–some Christian he–goes on to distort a remark of Diane Feinstein.  Gerson writes:

These trends reached their logical culmination during a congressional
debate on partial-birth abortion in 1999. When Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer was pressed to affirm that she opposed the medical killing of children after
birth, she refused to commit, saying that children deserve legal
protection only "when you bring your baby home." It was unclear whether
this included the car trip.

Nice one, Gerson.  Here’s what Feinstein actually said:

I would make this statement: That this Constitution, as it
currently is — some of you want to amend it to say that life begins at
conception. I think when you bring your baby home, when your baby is born — and
there is no such thing as partial-birth — the baby belongs to your family and
has all the rights. But I am not willing to amend the Constitution to say that a
fetus is a person, which I know you would.

Gerson’s remark is clearly distorted.  Dear Mr. Gerson, someone once said the truth will set you free.

The last part, "social justice for the unborn," is curious for another reason.  Obama is pro-choice.  As a result, he doesn’t think the unborn are the subjects of justice, as Gerson obviously does.  Gerson goes on to argue:

But Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on
partial-birth abortion — a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama
strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the
partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis
pregnancy — hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

Obama doesn’t have a "welcoming attitude" (what that means baffles) toward new life because he’s pro-choice (and it turns out, by the way, that Gerson twisted Obama’s words–that’s three!).  Gerson’s argument doesn’t do anything other than point out that Obama is pro-choice.  But Gerson takes his having pointed this out as some kind of reason to think Obama is wrong.  Maybe Obama’s view is wrong–but it’s not wrong because he holds  it. 

George Will, Straw Man, Things that are false, Weak Analogy

Write No More Forever

10 Comments

We normally try to keep current around here, but amidst the revelry and excess of our Spring Break, we missed something.  Okay, we missed a few things, but George Will’s performance of March 16, on ABC’s "This Week with George Stephanopolous," is worth back-tracking a bit.  Will is holding forth on matters of race and politics and then this happens:

If you want to know what America would look like, if liberals really had their way in running it, look at what they’re doing in their own nominating process on two counts. First, they cannot get to a majority because they have exquisitely refined rococo rules about how to achieve fairness. Secondly, they have worked for 20, 30, 40 years to make us all exquisitely sensitive to slights real or imagined, so that you run a 3 AM ad and someone says there’s not enough black people in it or where’s the Hispanics and it must be a racist ad. Hillary Clinton says something absolutely unexceptionable which is it took Lyndon Johnson also to pass the civil rights act. Denounced as racist. The Democrats are reaping what they have sown.

Fairness?! Equality?! Sensitivity?! Heaven forfend!

Ye gods. This logic is going to make Bright Eyes cry.

First, the primary process is to liberal governance as our making a mean Guinness stew is to operating a restaurant. Sure, it’s part of the process, but just as our Guinness stew prowess doesn’t indicate our ability to take over for Vongerichten, neither does the Democratic primary process indicate the inability of either Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton–or any other liberal politician, for that matter–to properly govern the country.

Second, snide attacks and smug elitism are no argument. Will’s tritely insulting claim about sensitivity treats as a disadvantage an awareness that has, at least in part, helped us to advance from a country where blatant displays of racism and sexism and the genocide of indigenous persons are the norm, to a country where no matter what happens, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States will be either a woman or an African American man.  Without specific attempts to make people aware of the deep race and gender divides in this country, we never get to the place where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are the nominees for President. Yet Will dismisses these effects with a wave of the hand, instead twisting liberal social policies in service of an undergraduate view of liberalism and democratic process.

Lack of Evidence, Richard Cohen, Thomas Friedman

Taxi driver

1 Comment

If we have learned anything from the war on terror, it’s that individual Middle eastern taxi, livery, and car service drivers have no special insight into world affairs.  Someone on the web has kept track of how often Tom Friedman used that kind of anecdotal evidence to characterize the opinions and feelings of the entire Middle East.  Now it’s time for Richard Cohen, liberal pundit of the Washington Post.  He writes:

In the end, the photos taken at Abu Ghraib produced an explosion of
outrage. When I visited Jordan in 2005, my driver — Bassam was his
name — brought it up himself. Just as the military’s interrogators
knew the intense shame Muslim men feel when stripped naked and viewed
by women, or when forced to wear women’s underwear on their heads, so
did Bassam deeply feel that shame himself. "We are Muslims," he said.

No offense to Bassam, but what makes Cohen think this guy represents anything more than his own view?  There is little question, by the way, that Cohen is right–he’s just not right on account of the testimony of this or of every conveyance driver he meets. 

Bad Explanations, David Brooks, Michael Gerson

Nerds

Let’s say someone very well known for his virtue turns out to have some hidden vices–an anti-prostitution crusader himself sees prostitutes.  Few could really be surprised by that–such hypocrisy is familiar to all.  Well, maybe not to David Brooks.  Recent events have led him to ponder the depths of human failings.  He comes up with one basic answer–successful hypocrites suffer from from being nerds.  He writes

They go through the oboe practice, soccer camp, homework marathon
childhood. Their parent-teacher conferences are like mini-Hall of Fame
enshrinements as all gather to worship at the flame of their incipient
success. In high school, they enter their Alpha Geekdom. They rack up
great grades and develop that coating of arrogance that forms on those
who know that in the long run they will be more successful than the
beauties and jocks who get dates.

They also stand too close to other men:

Then they go into one of those fields like law, medicine or politics,
where a person’s identity is defined by career rank. They develop the
specific social skills that are useful on the climb up the greasy pole:
the capacity to imply false intimacy; the ability to remember first
names; the subtle skills of effective deference; the willingness to
stand too close to other men while talking and touching them in a manly
way.

Seems like the military, with actual ranks, ought to have been mentioned.  Moving on, however, I’m beginning to wonder whether this is meant to be some kind of confession on David Brooks’s part, as this has a not too subtle ring of irony to it:

And, of course, these people succeed and enjoy their success. When
Bigness descends upon them, they dominate every room they enter and
graciously share their company with those who are thrilled to meet
them. They master the patois of globaloney — the ability to declaim for
portentous minutes about the revolution in world affairs brought about
by technological change/environmental degradation/the fundamental
decline in moral values.

Still More confessional:

But then, gradually, some cruel cosmic joke gets played on them. They
realize in middle age that their grandeur is not enough and that they
are lonely. The ordinariness of their intimate lives is made more
painful by the exhilaration of their public success. If they were used
to limits in public life, maybe it would be easier to accept the
everydayness of middle-aged passion. But, of course, they are not.

And he’s not really trying with the evidence here yet.  Here’s the evidence (as best as I can surmise).  First, such people are inelegant when drunk–David Brooks has seen it!

I don’t know if you’ve seen a successful politician or business tycoon
get drunk and make a pass at a woman. It’s like watching a St. Bernard
try to French kiss. It’s all overbearing, slobbering, desperate
wanting. There’s no self-control, no dignity.

Add to that a semi-oblique reference to some recent embarrassments:

So when they decide that they do in fact have an inner soul and it’s
time to take it out for a romp … . Well, let’s just say they’ve just
bought a ticket on the self-immolation express. Some desperate lunge
toward intimacy is sure to follow, some sad attempt at bonding. Welcome
to the land of the wide stance.

Finally, they have pictures of themselves on their walls!

I once visited a home in which the host had photos of himself
delivering commencement addresses lining the stairway wall. I’ve heard
countless presidential candidates say they are running on behalf of
their families even though their entire lives have been spent on the
campaign trail away from their families.

I doubt the "countless" there.  Brooks has only been alive so long.  In any case, we all love explanations for cinematic hypocrisy.  But there are good explanations (the ones that refer to stuff that’s real) and bad ones (the ones that just are pulled out of one’s hat).  This one–so it seems–belongs to the latter category. 

Argument Analysis, Stanley Fish, Unclassifiable

Fish hook

Stanley Fish laments:

The difference between making arguments and analyzing them is not
always recognized, and when it is missed, readers get outraged about
things I never said.

Denying such subtle philosophical distinctions–obvious to all–is what Stanley Fish often does in his columns.  I don’t mean this as an argumentum ad hominem tu quoque–you’re wrong Stanley because you do it  too–because, after all, he’s right, after all, about this.  Such distinctions ought to be a little more frequent in his columns (and radio "appearances"), especially when he critiques the arguments of others.  Here’s an example from today’s column:

He proceeds to write:

This distinction between tribal identity politics and policy or
interest identity politics could of course be challenged (as it was by
many posters), but the challenge would be to its cogency or adequacy,
not to its agenda, because it has none. The distinction is descriptive,
not normative. In offering it, I do not say, “practice identity
politics.” I only say that those who do take identity into
consideration either by voting for someone on the basis of an identity
affiliation or choosing a candidate because he or she is perceived to
be friendly to identity interests are not doing something patently
reprehensible.

Get that–he doesn’t say "practice identity politics," he says "it’s not wrong to practice identity politics."  For those who practice identity politics, "it’s not wrong to practice identity politics" is the same as "keep practicing identity politics–it’s ok really"  He’s making a distinction that regards what one ought to do (or ought not to do). 

But more to the point, Fish’s distinction in this passage regards–and I think we wrote about this a bit ago–the kind of non-distinction drawing about "identity politics" he complains about in others.  Fish asserts that any interest voting is "identity" politics.  That seems fine, but it has the air of a truism.  Besides, that’s not the kind of "identity politics" that people are talking about.  So calling every interest "identity" does nothing to address the issue that most people have with identity politics.  It’s like saying "everything is political."  May be true, but it’s uninformative.

E.J.Dionne, Unclassifiable

Epiphenomalism

2 Comments

It’s not often that one finds someone who embodies an odd philosophical position.  Nobody really is a solipsist (although I think I knew someone once who was).  I’m beginning to think, however, that E.J. Dionne, liberal columnist for the Washington Post, might be an epiphenomenalist, that is, someone who believes the mind has no causal influence on the body, but is merely a byproduct of the brain’s workings.  The epiphenomenalist can merely observe the body doing the things it does, he cannot will the body to do as he wants.  The body does what it wants, then the mind makes up a story explaining why that was what it wanted to do.  In a similar fashion, Dionne observes political changes and viewpoints (even his own) without really intervening.  Here he is yesterday:

The era of the religious right is over. Even absent the rise of urgent
new problems, Americans had already reached a point of exhaustion with
a religious style of politics that was dogmatic, partisan and
ideological.

That style reflected a spirit far too certain of itself and far too
insistent on the moral depravity of its political adversaries. It had
the perverse effect of narrowing the range of issues on which religious
traditions would speak out and thinning our moral discourse. Precisely
because I believe in a strong public role for faith, I would insist
that it is a great sellout of those traditions to assert that religion
has much to say about abortion and same-sex marriage but little to
teach us about war and peace, social justice and the environment.

I’d have two things to say about that last paragraph.  First, where someone else might say why faith ought to have a strong public role, Dionne uses his believe in faith (odd as that may see) as the explanans–the thing that explains–his position.  This is pure Dionne, of course, where an argument is necessary, he brings an explanation.  Thus his argumentative epiphenomenalism: no one in his world has reasons for her positions, there are in fact only personal or psychological explanations.  These may be in some sense accurate and helpful, but they really belong to something other than political argument.  

Here’s the second point.  People whose faith differs from Dionne’s have a lot to say about war and peace, social justice, and the environment.  It’s just a little different.  Ok it’s a lot different.  It involves Armageddon, dominion, and so forth.  Dionne seems to think it’s wrong.  Perhaps in another column he can argue for that claim.  After all, they argue for theirs. 

David Brooks, Lack of Evidence

Ingenue

The theme this week has been the shallow narrative pundit types construct to account for phenomena too complex for the few lines or the few moments they have.  These narratives are amazing both in the staying power (hey–people like stories, especially ones they can remember or those that appeal to their sense of something or other) and in their vacuousness (no way to verify them–we need the medium of the pundit to relate them to us).   Over the past two days we have discussed "liberal" columnists.  Now let’s take a look at David Brooks–grand narrativator.  Today he spins a tale about Obama.  This one, like the narratives that began to circulate in the past couple of weeks, centers on the idea that Obama is all pleasantries.  Brooks writes (my intrusions in brackets):

Barack Obama had a theory [did he?]. It was that the voters are tired of the
partisan paralysis of the past 20 years [that wasn’t his theory]. The theory was that if Obama
could inspire a grass-roots movement with a new kind of leadership, he
could ride it to the White House and end gridlock in Washington [this sounds a lot like Bush’s theory in 2000–a new kind of politics someone said once].

Obama has built his entire campaign on this theory. He’s run
against negativity and cheap-shot campaigning. He’s claimed that
there’s an “awakening” in this country — people “hungry for a different
kind of politics.” [the contextless quotations give this paragraph an air of authority]

This message has made him the front-runner [he’s the front-runner (barely)–but we can’t really say if this is why he is]. It has brought millions
of new voters into politics [evidence for this claim?]. It has given him grounds to fend off
attacks. In debate after debate, he has accused Hillary Clinton and
others of practicing the old kind of politics. When he was under
assault in South Carolina, he rose above the barrage and made the
Clintons look sleazy [how clever of him].

Yet at different times during this election, he’s been told to get
off the white horse and start fighting. In the current issue of Time
magazine, Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs report on a meeting that took
place in Chicago last Labor Day. All of Obama’s experienced advisers
told him: “You gotta get down, get dirty, get tough.”

Obama refused. He argued that if he did that, the entire basis for
his campaign would evaporate. “If I gotta kneecap her,” he said, “I’m
not gonna go there.” 

The thesis of this abysmal piece is this:  Obama’s campaign is based, according to Brooks, entirely on the specious claim that a new kind of politics (i.e., being nice) will captivate people, he’s right (because it has–according to Brooks), but in order to beat the sleazy Hillary Clinton, he will have to practice the old kind of politics, and in so doing, he will become a sleaze like Hillary, and thus his message will have been contradicted and shown to be what it is, shallow tripe (so I suppose we can go back to shallow Manichean moralizing like in 2004).  

This message, I think, is a phantom of Brooks’ imagination.  Obama, like Clinton and McCain, has more to offer–he claims–than inspiration.  His words have meaning.  Besides, Obama seems to have been a rather able debater up until this point, as Brooks even acknowledges.  After all, he did make Hillary look like a sleaze, didn’t he?

While the narrative on Obama is that he’s an ingenue–Clinton is, in Brooks’ narrative, a clumsy, unappealing sleaze who will do anything to win:

Clinton can’t compete on personality, but a knife fight is her only real hope of victory

Naturally this sorry piece of writing can’t rightly be evaluated by the tools of the critical reasoner.  It makes assertions without evidence and draws  apparently contradictory conclusions.  But Brooks has to know this; I hope at least for his sake he does.  I wonder then, what’s it for?

Gail Collins, George Will, Inexplicable

Mind numbing

1 Comment

I’m out of my territory here a little bit, but yesterday’s excursion into press narratives (although only to make a kind of side point) inspired me to read a little more of it.  With that in mind I stumbled across Gail Collins’ column in the New York Times.  She is another card-carrying (remember that phrase anyone?) of the liberal media.  Let’s read:

It’s all up to Pennsylvania!

Yes folks, over the next seven
weeks — the amount of time it takes a normal country to conduct an
entire national election — we will be obsessing about the critical
upcoming Pennsylvania primary. Harrisburg! Altoona! The Poconos! Did
you know that in the Poconos, some hotels have bathtubs shaped like
hearts or Champagne glasses? We actually plan on bringing that up a lot.

That’s really how the article begins.  I think it’s pastiche of the kind of irrelevance we will be subjected to in the coming days.  The kind of irrelevance the following paragraphs provide: 

Of all the things that went right for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, the
Ohio primary win was most impressive. Although Ohioans politely tiptoed
out of Hillary’s more boring round-table discussions, they came to
believe she could be a president who would fix things, no matter how
complicated or frustrating. The mere fact that she had the staying
power to keep her eyes open, they felt, was a good sign.

In
response, the Obama campaign has reportedly decided to do far fewer
exciting rallies and lots more mind-numbing round-table discussions in
Pennsylvania. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we are all
really looking forward to that.

Collins’ fact-free insight and vast power of generalizing amazes me.  Notice two things.  First, she knows what Ohioans are thinking, believing and feeling–in detail "no matter how complicated or frustrating."  Was that a poll question?  I doubt it.  Beyond that, she’s intolerant of meaningful discussions of policy–they’re boring!  Mind-numbing!  And on that point–who is the "we" who is not looking forward to these discussions?  Maybe it’s Collins, who wants to talk about the Poconos.

Maybe I’m just impatient with this stuff, and I miss the larger points Collins is making.  I guess I’m a conservative that way.  I like my assertions supported by evidence.  

Keep in mind, of course, that while the liberal media over here at the New York Times can’t even bother to discuss matters of policy, George Will, conservative luminary, is busy eviscerating such leftist heroes as Oliver Stone, Norman Mailer, and Jean Paul Sartre, for their admiration of Fidel Castro, or Cuba (or something).  What’s wrong with them?  Well, Cuba has basically sentenced people to jail after one-day secret trials.  I know, I know.  That sounds awful to be stuck in Cuba in some kind of extra-legal limbo and convicted after a Stalinesque one-day secret trial.
 

category mistake, Maureen Dowd, Ruth Marcus, Things that are false

Compatible Concepts

8 Comments

Has Hillary Clinton been subjected to more "scrutiny" on account of her gender?  All signs point yes.  A cursory examination of the media coverage will find Clinton having to contend with questions directed at gender in a way that, say, John McCain won’t.  Here’s just one of countless examples.  Enter Maureen Dowd (courtesy of Media Matters):

 

After saying she found her
"voice" in New Hampshire,
she has turned into Sybil. We’ve had
Experienced Hillary, Soft Hillary, Hard Hillary, Misty Hillary, Sarcastic
Hillary, Joined-at-the-Hip-to-Bill Hillary, Her-Own-Person-Who-Just-Happens-to-Be-Married-to-a-Former-President Hillary,
It’s-My-Turn Hillary, Cuddly Hillary,
Let’s-Get-Down-in-the-Dirt-and-Fight-Like-Dogs Hillary.

Just as in the White House, when her cascading images and
hairstyles became dizzying and unsettling, suggesting that the first lady woke
up every day struggling to create a persona, now she seems to think there is a
political solution to her problem. If she can only change this or that
about her persona, or tear down this or that about Obama’s. But the
whirlwind of changes and charges gets wearing.

And Maureen Dowd, by the way, is supposed to be a liberal.  But, like we’ve been saying, the liberal op-eds disappoint.  In the face of such evidence, Ruth Marcus argues that Clinton cannot claim to be "hampered" by her gender.  Marcus’s claim (isn’t she supposed to be a liberal too?) has what we professionals call a ring of falsity to it.  But she also makes a conceptual claim to support the false empirical claim:

 

The candidate of inevitability and the victim of the uneven playing field aren’t compatible concepts.

The candidate of inevitability is an empty concept.  There might have been a presumption among media types like Marcus that Clinton was the candidate of inevitability, but there hadn’t been an election yet.   Besides, being a candidate for a job, as I can attest from personal experience, doesn’t mean you’ll get the job–or that you even have a chance of getting the job.