{"id":631,"date":"2008-04-01T08:41:47","date_gmt":"2008-04-01T12:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=631"},"modified":"2008-04-01T09:01:57","modified_gmt":"2008-04-01T13:01:57","slug":"cotton-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=631","title":{"rendered":"Cotton club"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lou Dobbs, famous for his demagoguery on immigration (among other subjects), turns to the subject of race.  In so doing he illustrates how the red herring fallacy works.  Here’s a (scrubbed<\/a>) transcript <\/a>of his remarks on CNN:<\/p>\n

\n

BLITZER: Let’s check in with Lou. He has a show coming up in an hour. I
\nwant to pick his brain on some intriguing comments from Condoleezza
\nRice involving race in our country. <\/p>\n

You saw what she said. <\/p>\n

LOU DOBBS, HOST, "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT": I saw what she said. That the
\nUnited States has a birth defect on the issue of race. I think it’s
\nreally unfortunate that Secretary of State Rice believes as she does.<\/strong>
\nThe fact is most Americans don’t have a problem talking about race. <\/p>\n

What we have is a problem of talking about race without fearing
\nrecrimination and distortion and someone using whatever comments are
\nmade for their own purposes. Usually political purposes. <\/p>\n

The reality is, this is the most socially, ethnically, religiously,
\nracially diverse society on the face of the earth. Wolf, we don’t make
\nenough of that in the nation media. We listen to some idiot<\/strong> say you
\ncan’t talk about race or there ought to be these responses when you
\ntalk about race or ethnicity and too often, in fact nearly always, we
\nfail to point out that there is no country on the face of the earth as
\nprogressive, as racially and ethnically diverse as our own. <\/p>\n

It’s something for us to be proud of and if any – and to hear a
\npolitician whoever it may be talk about how difficult it is to talk
\nabout race, well the heck with them. We’re living with the issue of
\nrace. We’ve got to be able to talk about it and I can guarantee you
\nthis, not a single one of these<\/strong> cotton, these<\/strong> just ridiculous politicians should be
\nthe moderator on the issue of race. We have to have a far better
\ndiscussion than that. <\/p>\n

BLITZER: Lou, we’ll see you back here in one hour. Thanks very much.<\/p>\n

DOBBS: You got it. [edited for accuracy] <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Let’s get this straight.  First, Condoleezza Rice claims there’s a "birth defect" on the issue of race:<\/p>\n

\n

Asked for her views, she told "The Washington Times": "The U.S. has a
\nhard time dealing with race because of a national birth defect<\/strong>." She
\nsays black and white Americans founded the country together — but
\n"Europeans by choice and Africans in chains." <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If I’m not mistaken that is a historical point about race in American history–and a pretty obvious one at that.  Dobbs responds (1) by griping about politically charged discussions of race [not the issue at all] and (2), by pointing out what a diverse country we live in [again, not the issue].   Both of them are red herrings.  That we live in a diverse society or that some people demagogue on the issue of race (1) no one can dispute and (2) has nothing to do with Rice’s point.<\/p>\n

Finally, considering Rice’s other public pronouncements on the issue of race, it’s baffling to see Dobbs react the way he does.  If anything Rice would agree with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lou Dobbs, famous for his demagoguery on immigration (among other subjects), turns to the subject of race.  In so doing he illustrates how the red herring fallacy works.  Here’s a (scrubbed) transcript of his remarks on CNN: BLITZER: Let’s check in with Lou. He has a show coming up in an hour. I want to … Continue reading Cotton club<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed-writers","category-red-herring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}