{"id":5346,"date":"2017-09-12T10:25:03","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T15:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5346"},"modified":"2017-09-12T10:25:03","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T15:25:03","slug":"argumentum-ad-bawitdabam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5346","title":{"rendered":"Argumentum ad bawitdabam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So we’re doing this.\u00c2\u00a0 Kid Rock gave a speech about his upcoming Senate bid during one of his concerts.\u00c2\u00a0 It was not well-composed, but it did have something that looked like an argument in it.\u00c2\u00a0 And here we are, seeing if we can do some logic with the American Badass.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the speech:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OY3zFblpM5s<\/a><\/p>\n

And a transcript of it is available here<\/a> (provided, btw, by Metal Injection<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Rock gave two arguments of note.\u00c2\u00a0 One had an interesting bit of complication about taxes and entitlement programs to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the relevant piece:<\/p>\n

\n

It seems the government wants to give everyone health insurance but wants us all to pay. And to be very frank, I really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a problem with that.<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCause god has blessed me and made my pockets fat.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But redistribution of wealth, seems more like their plan. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe that you should say sacrifice, do things by the book and then have to take care of some deadbeat, milking the system, lazy ass, motherfucking man.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, here’s what I see to it.\u00c2\u00a0 Rock holds that he’s OK with government subsidized health insurance, and he’s happy to pay in to that because he’s rich.\u00c2\u00a0 But he thinks that there’s a limit to what government entitlements he’s willing to support — and so he’s against free riders to the system.\u00c2\u00a0 (He runs a follow-up to the argument about ‘struggling single parents’ and the threat of ‘women, who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even take care of themselves, but keep having kid after fucking kid’).<\/p>\n

But here’s the crucial thing.\u00c2\u00a0 It looks like Rock is saying his defaults are on supporting these entitlement programs<\/strong>, and he’s not willing to let the fact that there are free riders defeat support for these programs.\u00c2\u00a0 He just wants to stop the free riders from doing what they are doing.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, how he proposes to stop them is bonkers. In all the cases, he proposes that we ‘lock up’ those who are taking advantage of the programs.\u00c2\u00a0 That free riding is productive of outrage does not imply that free riders must be punished with incarceration.\u00c2\u00a0 Hence an argument from outrage.<\/p>\n

What’s important here is noting that, again, Rock’s defaults are on supporting the programs.\u00c2\u00a0 It looks like he can distinguish his disappointment with those who cheat them from the fact that the programs work for those who really need them.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, his over-reaction to one shouldn’t overshadow the fact that he’s made a good move with the other.\u00c2\u00a0 (Well, perhaps it can overshadow it a bit … are we really <\/em> going to ‘lock up’ people who have more kids than someone like Rock thinks they should while on welfare?)<\/p>\n

The second argument is just a piece of word-salad that seems to come out as a case for him to be President.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the relevant bit:<\/p>\n

\n

Kid Rock for senate has got folks in disarray. Wait till they hear Kid Rock for president of the U.S.A.. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCause wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it be a sight to see, <\/strong>President Kid Rock in Washington, D.C.. Standing on the Oval Office like a G. Holding my dick ready to address the whole country.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll look the nation dead in the eyes, live on TV, and simply tell them, you never met a motherfucker quite like me<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This image is very hard to erase from a mind.<\/p>\n

As far as I can see, this is a form of ad populum<\/em>, one that runs that because the Kid is dope\/fly\/cool, he should occupy the highest political office in the land<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that the interest in his candidacy has ‘got folks in disarray’ is a form of the negative ad populum<\/em><\/strong> we’ve discussed a few<\/a> times<\/a>, one that runs:<\/p>\n

P:<\/strong> If I do X, it will drive liberals\/elites crazy<\/p>\n

C:<\/strong> I should do X.<\/p>\n

Again, I’m calling the move now negative ad populum<\/em>, because the core of the line of argument is that the judgment of a certain class of people is so badly aligned, they are a barometer for the correct decision, except by way of negation.\u00c2\u00a0 You just do whatever would make them mad, or the opposite of what they would do.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Rock is, in many ways, running this argument convergently — both as an ad populum<\/em> (I’m cool, so deserving the Presidency), and as a negative ad populum <\/em>(my candidacy drives the libs nuts, so I’m deserving of more votes).\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, as with any ad populum<\/em>, the matter is regularly underdetermined by the premises.\u00c2\u00a0 But, hey, when you’ve got a rock show to run, who has time for relevant premises, amirite?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So we’re doing this.\u00c2\u00a0 Kid Rock gave a speech about his upcoming Senate bid during one of his concerts.\u00c2\u00a0 It was not well-composed, but it did have something that looked like an argument in it.\u00c2\u00a0 And here we are, seeing if we can do some logic with the American Badass.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the speech: And a … Continue reading Argumentum ad bawitdabam<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,10,1214],"tags":[1016,2224,780,2222,2223],"class_list":["post-5346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appeal-to-the-people","category-ignoratio-elenchi","category-iron-man-straw-man","tag-ad-populum","tag-argument-from-outrage","tag-argumentum-ad-populum-fallacious-kind","tag-kid-rock","tag-negative-ad-populum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5348,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346\/revisions\/5348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}