This book refutes itself. But, while we’re at it: Image courtesy of Sadly, No! as well. Anyway, that’s something like the fallacy of the excluded middle–a formal fallacy, a rare thing, by the way, for the Non Sequitur. It goes like this: 1. Some Nazis were vegetarians 2. Some liberals are vegetarians 3. Ergo, … Continue reading Liberal Fascism
Here's another article about how liberals condescend to conservatives. It begins: It's an odd time for liberals to feel smug. But even with Democratic fortunes on the wane, leading liberals insist that they have almost nothing to learn from conservatives. Many Democrats describe their troubles simply as a PR challenge, a combination of conservative misinformation — … Continue reading Dialogue more valuable than ever
A guest op-eder in the Washington Post asks: "Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?" My immediate response is–so what if it is–it must be kept alive by heroic measures. To be honest, my immediate response was: "Does that hyphen go there, I think not." In any case, upon reading the article, I'm struck by the standard employed to … Continue reading Brain death
Anyone who has taken an ethics class is familiar with the Nazi analogy: "but on your view, a Nazi could be authentically happy. . ." therefore, etc. In philosophy classes, as in real life, Nazi is short for every kind of evil person, activity or thing. While this has a lot to do with history … Continue reading Nazi Analogies
If you look at the website for Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, you'll find a lot of email from alienated college students, praising the bold and cogent thesis of the book, and commending its author for the way he handled himself on A Daily Show with Jon Stewart. You'll also find its author responding to negative … Continue reading Five thumbs up
If a prize were given for sophistry, Jonah Goldberg would win, not because he's good at it, but because he earnestly believes his own nonsense. The entire thesis of his recent book, Liberal Fascism, rests (judging by his frequent descriptions of it) on the following hodgepodge of fallacies: the formal fallacy of the undistributed middle; … Continue reading Dux nobis
It is very hard to have an adult discussion about distributive justice when the very notion sends some people’s minds sliding down slippery slopes to Hitler and Stalin (see yesterday on the ad stalinem). A recent exchange illustrates this point.  Last month, fellow Chicagoan Harold Pollack wrote a reply to Greg Mankiw’s defense of the 1 percent. Pollack … Continue reading Not the way to conduct reasonable political discourse
David Catron’s piece at the American Spectator is titled: Is Obamacare Socialism or Fascism? How about liberal, progressive, or egalitarian for tertium quids? (N.B., check out Catron’s opening paragraph, where he insists that he won’t eat healthy food, and thinks that’s a good thing to do given what he thinks is coming in Obama’s America.)
David Limbaugh (yes, brother of that Limbaugh) has a message for all those liberal-types and namby-pamby conservatives who aren't down with the Tea Party: the more you act like or say that Tea Party Conservatives are extremists, that just shows what an extremist you are. I'm surely not the only one who notices the persistent … Continue reading I’m rubber, you’re glue…
Some may remember Jonah Goldberg's thesis that liberals are the real fascists because (a) they share some ideas with the fascists and (b) they think government ought to make people do stuff for the common good–such as have health insurance, not pollute, not abuse their children, among other things. The former point of course is … Continue reading Die Goldberg-Variationen