Defense of Truth

Context and its Subversion

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:13:00 +0000

[Image connected to Daily Mail article here]

Everyone has seen the clip from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in which NY Republican Rep Elise Stefanik deftly corners three prestigious university presidents into revealing their ambivalence toward not just garden-variety antisemitic rhetoric, but to genocidally antisemitic rhetoric. It's an instant classic in which smart and powerful folks feel so trapped by the easy moral "yes" they could have unequivocally offered on a question of whether calls for genocide constitute bullying or harassment that the only escape hatch they see under the light of scrutiny is "it depends on context". As if calling for genocide is somehow not inherently a call to violence.

Harvard President Claudine Gay's testimony is not technically inaccurate that Harvard's recently revised anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies and procedures don't operationalize a way to address even strong speech calling for violence, unless it's directed at an individual by an individual. As if a group chant somehow absolves each of the group's members of their personal accountability for engaging in harassing speech. As if a targeted group doesn't deserve protection from calls to violence against them unless those calls single out one member of the group for specific violence. While I'm sure some of the most lauded legal minds from Harvard's prestigious law school contributed to the drafting of these policies, this glaring loophole seems to have escaped them: that consequences for calls to harm anyone based on race, ethnicity, religion, or other protected categories can be avoided as long as those calls are calls to harm them all.

Despite her nearly immediate apology in which she wished she had had the "presence of mind" to steer away from the policy and procedure context of the hearing session back to her "guiding truth" that antisemitic threats "have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged", Gay knows she is caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Student sentiment reflexively and unreflectingly joins loudly with activist faculty in whipping up angry mob fervor against ideologically convenient targets based on vague definitions, propagandized accusations of oppression, and spillover between distinct categories of analysis. But a significant portion of alumni in the donor class won't tolerate what they see as unambiguous hate speech. Harvard's donor bench is deep enough that threats to pull funding over offenses are largely toothless, so her apology can hardly be read as a response to the realpolitik as was fellow House Committee session invitee and U Penn president Liz McGill's resignation, but I'm sure Board pressure and pressure from the Jewish community and allies contributed to the apology Harvard did get.

Underlying both Gay's testimony and her apology are questions of context which she claims to be attentive to, but she consistently demonstrates that she doesn't understand the very conceptual framework of.

In any interpretive endeavor, linguistic and extra-linguistic frames and footings are at play, and the hermeneutic task consists in establishing from among them the salient features that allow for intended meanings to be clear. To be fair, interpreters also have the leeway of discerning unintended meanings, there is a range of participants in a communicative act that make some intentions more salient than others, and there are also certainly many intentionally hidden intents among even salient participants. And also, to be fair, the words themselves get in the way--it's nearly impossible to fully express oneself, even on simple propositions. However, it's broadly true that when people communicate, they understand themselves to be agents, acting in consistency with an identity, having a purpose for speaking, and trusting that their selection of words within the shared code of language transparently conveys their clear intended meaning to their target interlocutors. They are doing something--sending a message. They are choosing a cooperative stance with the interpreters of that message--speaking in a form they hope the other will not mistake. They are speaking in function of their understanding of the communicative frame--the flow of topics and themes, what the "talk" is about is something they're engaged in or engaged in altering. And they are speaking in function of a role they understand themselves to be taking up--explaining things puts you in the temporary role of an expert or witness, saying " I'll do it" commits you in the role of effort-maker, and asking a question makes your role that of elicitor of a response, whether out of genuine curiosity or imperious need to establish truth, and implies that you'll soon pass the turn to your interlocutor and listen. In all this, speakers are each differently aware and are playful with their place in various categories of interacting contexts--pragmatic, syntactic, semantic, broadly social, narrowly interpersonal, and more. This discursive field precedes and escapes their full control, but they all participate at all levels of analysis on the continuing evolution of that field's shape, some with more control than others, some despite themselves.

If the idea of context can refer to all of this impossibly complex discursive field, then the term itself is effectively an empty signifier, meaning whatever one wants it to mean, and nothing useful, let alone concrete. Using it that way has advantages--one of which Gay and the other college presidents defaulted to when cornered: an escape from moral judgment. All they have to do is claim "context dependence" and they are absolved of the responsibility to think through general standards of behavior, and the concomitant need to insist on sufficiently rigid, concrete, and operational definitions underlying the standards by appealing to the impossibility of cataloguing all possible instances in which behaviors may arise.

But if, on the other hand, "context" is a meaningful term with a constructive purpose between cooperative interlocutors, there has to be some selection made between the various levels of analysis, and a principle of centrality by which a rational choice can be made between what's really pertinent to what's really at stake and what's extraneous. When cooperating to achieve mutual understanding, communicative participants often dance with reframing, but it's also generally understood between them what's core and what's peripheral. How do they do this among all the complexities? It's not actually that hard, it turns out. All you need is a method to organize your interpretive assumptions. You start with the surface, and move to the broader and deeper. You start with the intention and move to the reception. You start assuming purpose, and measure success at achieving it by the purpose's own standards.

Analytical philosopher W.V. Quine's problems of indeterminacy in meaning making are undone as soon as this principle of purposive context enters. He relates a fictional situation where a rabbit crests a hill as a linguist and a native speaker whose language the linguist is just learning look on. The native speaker points and utters a new word, which the linguist notes as meaning "rabbit". Technically, that assumption is premature--the native speaker may have meant "supper" (as in that's what I'm going to hunt for dinner), or "hop" (because that's how rabbits move), or "ears" (because that's a distinguishing feature of rabbits). But as soon as you remember that there's a pre-negotiated and cooperative frame of purpose surrounding both the linguist's presence and the speaker's utterance--that they are both there to achieve mutual clarity--all the weird hypotheses about what it could mean flake away, and you're left with the only one that answers the purpose: teaching the basics requires building on fundamentals, so we can expect that the native speaker will begin with naming, and only later move to putting nouns and verbs together.

In the same way, protesters who chant racist and genocidal slogans have a purpose--and it's not even close to ambiguous: to express hatred, outrage, and whip up popular mobs against their targeted group. What that whipping up produces is inherently dangerous to anyone connected with the target, because mobs have a psychology all their own that often escapes each individual's normal rational baseline of moral restraint. This is why capitol police were right to fear violence on January 6th 2021 even though Trump clearly called for peaceful protest, not vandalism or worse criminality. It's also why Pelosi's even more condemnable for refusing the police presence buildup that was recommended that day. There's a limit to the comparison, of course, but if the Left wants to claim insurrection on this standard, then veiled calls to genocide from their own side isn't merely political speech, isn't merely and tightly focused on Israel as a state, but at Jews as an identity category.

So let's go through it methodically. On the surface lexical level, does genocide mean something? Yes, it objectively means the eradication of a people--all individuals so identified if the attackers get their way. Pretty violent, menacing, unwelcoming stuff. On the deeper level, does a genocidal chant against a people imply reasoned, principled opposition to political or ideological positions? Not in any sense, except possibly as the most extreme Nazi-esque hyperbole. If we go as broadly historical as we want, there is wiggle room for the uninformed to entertain wildly incorrect opinions about the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza--all of which also fail the test of conceptual and contextual rigor--but to flesh ideological opposition out in words with a genocidal chant against Jews as an identity group also has an effect that corresponds so much more directly to the surface meaning and purpose of the protests, that methinks they do protest too much. Moving on, our analytical method calls for scrutiny of intent and reception/impact. It's clear that genocidal chants by masses are intended both as signals to the powerful in support of genocidal policies and also as intimidating shows of force to the targeted groups among them that potentially action-inspiring hatred is ubiquitous and unopposed by authorities whose duty it would normally be to protect against such threats and harassment. The reception, as testimony from Jewish witnesses and community members showed, was successfully induced feelings of intimidation, unwelcomeness, and lack of physical safety. And keep in mind that we're saying "feelings" here not because they're mere emotions, but because we are rationally using the closest available vocabulary to describe impending potentials for harm that haven't yet completely materialized. This is not the same "feeling" as someone who takes offense when none was intended.

And let's contrast that clear result of methodical contextual study of Harvard's anti-harrassment policies and Gay's congressional testimony thereon. The purpose of the 20+ page policy document is stated in a lengthy preamble so clearly as to be inescapably clear: "Harvard University is committed to cultivating a community that is open, welcoming, and inclusive, and that supports all community members in pursuit of the University’s mission of learning, teaching, research, and discovery." Would any rational human conclude that genocidal chants targeting groups present in the community serve or impede that open, welcoming, and inclusive kind of supportive community cohesion surrounding such a lofty mission? This is not to equate every offended feeling with the right to shut the offender's mouth, but rather to acknowledge that while offenses are in the eye of the beholder, there are objective interpretations of meaning in context available by which we can judge purposes without the relativism of invalidating the testimony of the affected, and implying that it's the job of the victim to be tougher. Gay's pivot to the procedural portion of the policy--complaining that even objectively offensive speech doesn't have an operational definition allowing Harvard to pursue justice against it unless it becomes individually spouted and individually targeted--is all the more condemnable because it completely ignores the core, clear context of what purpose those procedures are nested in. Especially because I suspect she is doing so strategically and cynically: she knows the purpose is entirely overthrown by genocidal chants, but the she's part of the mob itself seeking intimidation and can't admit its clear immorality without throwing her own ideological fellows under the proverbial bus.

It's broadly true that the principle of free speech requires all of us to steel ourselves against vile insults because the same condition of possibility that enables us to communicate love, peace, intelligence, and cooperation enables another to communicate their opposites. And it's even more important to keep centralized authorities from defining for those they govern what constitutes and what does not constitute punishable political expression--because crossing that line almost guarantees rampant and frequent political imprisonment. But the correct response of those in power to the abuse of rights and liberties is righteous use of their own more powerful voice and influence to stop evil, not to throw up their hands and absolve themselves of the responsibility to confront it, even if under the guise that people are free to speak. When individuals don't exercise their duty to refrain from evil speaking, the kicker is that they actually limit their freedom--they move away from the internal love and peace that forms the source of all liberty, and get absorbed in anger, temptations to act on anger, and eventually, the consequences of their acts. Some may successfully forestall those consequences, but eventually all will account for deeds, words, and even idle thoughts. But inevitably, and usually long before that final judgment, freedom simply is not found in the gall of bitterness. And I'll be looking in the future for the evidence that Gay's assertion was not insincere--that all who threaten (note also the careful wording sleight of hand--threaten is narrower in meaning than harassment or unwelcome, anti-inclusive, or even genocidal chants) Jews will be held to account by Harvard. But I'm not holding my breath.

Historical Malpractice

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 01:24:00 +0000

Heather Cox Richardson is a favorite among some of my leftist friends. Her position as an academic offers imprimatur for her wanton partisanship and her acumen as a historical researcher helps her find the cherry-picked details she needs to cover a false narrative with a veneer of historicity. I don't usually engage because her posts are long enough that it would take too much unpacking to deal with, but I wanted to take a crack at just a part of this one.

Keep in mind that her schtick consist mostly of framing modern Republicans as morally corrupt and modern Democrats as knights in shining armor for all that is good and right, by peppering her argument with so much actual historical facts that you have the feeling of "context" so you don't notice the logical sleight of hand by which her narrative escapes reason and reality. With that said, here's my summary, responding in snarky kind to her own partisan framing, but faithful to the content of her ideas:

Assume Al Gore's hanging chads, Stacey Abrams, the Mueller report, and every other evidence of Democrats exhausting every legal means to claim an election wasn't legitimate don't exist. Next, assume Trump's efforts to also exhaust appeals to courts, local officials, his own vice president, and anyone who would hear him that the election irregularities deserved more investigation are not mere partisan rigor, but are, in fact intentionally criminal attempts to use power to extort a victory when he lost fair and square and knew it. Now, tell the true story of how the 14th amendment came into force and combine that with some news of a paper written by anti-Trump but somehow "originalist" constitutional scholars claiming that the amendment summarily and automatically makes Trump ineligible for future office.

The crux of the historical context goes something like this: Lincoln's VP tried to make executive deals with Southern power brokers to make some sort of reconciliation after the South was defeated. Congressional Republicans of the day found it so scandalous that the most ardent traitors of the Union would come, with extra clout now that black citizens counted as full citizens, as the 2/3rds compromise lost effect, to wield power in their federal halls that they added an amendment to ban traitors to the constitution from holding office.

And now, here's the pull quote. See if you can see the trickery at work here:

Republicans in the 1860s would certainly have believed the Fourteenth Amendment covered Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of a presidential election. More, though, that amendment sought to establish, once and for all, the supremacy of the federal government over those who wanted to solidify their power in the states, where they could impose the will of a minority. That concept speaks directly to today’s Republicans.

There's at least two elements to the sleight of hand no proper historian should be attempting but which she does:

1. Impossible assertion based on anachronistic and utter partisan mindreading--no one can know what Republicans in the 1860s would "certainly" have believed about Trump's defense of the constitution. And defending it was exactly what he thought he was doing at the time--resisting a stolen election.

2. More importantly, that amendment sought to establish the supremacy of the federal government over what now? Over the question of whether the states can be trusted to guarantee basic human rights, certainly, but over all power in the states writ large? The entire concept of delimited powers? Not even close! The principle of states rights is NOT what the Civil War did away with. Federalism is not dead. The line needed to be moved because the South was abusing the concept of states rights to oppress and maintain power for a minority elite. But don't throw the baby of states rights out with the bathwater of slavery.

The true principle that a collectivist hack like Richardson will feign to never understand so that she can knowingly demonize her political opponents through her malpractice of history is this: decisions should be made at the most local level possible because those who a problem affects deserve to succeed or fail at its solution using their own resources. We can't change history--there was a South. It was slaveholding. From before 1776 the South was betraying the concept of liberty the nation's founding documents derived their raison d'être and inspiration from. But let's not pretend that centralized government, frivolous prosecution of electoral opponents, and the channeling of dead Republicans expand anyone's liberty. None of it is based in truth. Her point is out of context, and distorted. Liberty needs the laboratory of strong states to whom all legislative, executive and judicial powers belong EXCEPT those delimited by the Constitution, which is a limit on the FEDERAL government, not the "solution" to those unruly states who just need to get their minds right on what the fat cats in DC believe flyover country should agree with. We have a Republic, thank God, not a democracy.

Gender and Astrophysics

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 16:49:00 +0000

I generally love Star Talk. I don't have tiktok because I limit my social media, but Facebook's creepy spy algorithm knows I'm interested in the sciences, astrophysics especially, and enjoy deepening my understanding of the vastness and marvels of God's creation by watching educational documentaries every now and then. It's a genuine interest, but it also partially stems from a barely conscious need I have for a counterbalance to the constant stream of subjective, often barely coherent arguments to which I am constantly exposed in the literary, political, moral, and ideological realms in which my ideas almost constantly swim in my professional environment.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is one of my favorites. He offers keen insights in his field, often with pedagogical panache, attention to current events, and doesn't just know how to make a point, but how to ground it in the history of ideas so that its impact has context. He delivers epic smackdowns on flat-earthers, notes how the rotation of the earth might have "helped" a football go through the uprights, and is generally engaging all around, and does so with various guests with various public profiles so he's genuine when he brings complex concepts to the level of his interlocutors.

However, he has also been known to dip his toes into domains in which he is not an expert--and while he's generally pretty well backstopped and balanced in his judgment, there are a few issues where his own bias gets the better of him. Religion being the first--he's a militant atheist with little patience even for eminently reasonable scientific arguments if they have an "intelligent design" component that might hint at a Creator. The second just hit a few days ago as he broached the subject of gender spectra.

The tiktok video walks us with his interlocutor, sometimes controversial sports journalist and culture commentator Stephen A. Smith, through the scientific method as he discusses an "experiment" (that I put in quotes for reasons that I hope will be abundantly clear as I describe his process):

1. Curiosity: He begins with his musings on a subway train wondering whether his own assumptions about each passenger's gender were "correct";

2. Hypothesis: That the common markers that reveal gender are superficial--secondary and tertiary "added features" in his manner of speaking--and that therefore gender is a matter of preference, the signs are merely cosmetic, and the construct is nonbinary;

3. Observations: He lists some cosmetic differences between those he assumes the masc-presenting folks in his 10 person pool of the fem-presenting folks.

4. Analysis: He also brings in supporting evidence from outside his experiment--stores divide clothing by gender, and 300k women in the US get breast surgery in the US to alter their natural anatomy in some way.

5. Conclusions: It's incontrovertible. Gender is a choice that the XX/XY chromosomal binary is insufficient to explain, ergo gender is a spectrum and anyone who disagrees deserves having shame and anger directed at them because their narrowmindedness unequivocally attempts to enforce and impose the cessation of everyone's pursuit of happiness because of their inability to conceive of gender as anything other than binary.

Did you catch the logical errors along the way? Outspoken de-transitioned commenter Chloe Cole points out some of the most salient ones in her takedown here.

I'll summarize:

1. Tyson confuses cosmetics with basic biology, artificial aesthetic choices with natural facts

2. Tyson pretends that his own preference that the endurance of his own 1950s stereotypes about how the social norms of how gender maps onto biological sex should be done away with is the same thing as proving that the stereotypes don't exist, even though his own "enlightened" breakdown of the binary into "percentages" actually affirms the binarity of the norm.

3. Tyson confuses the infinity of personalities which each individual decides their own expression of, with gender binary through which all personalities express themselves variably.

But Chloe missed the biggest one: Tyson is making the most egregious two errors for a scientist to make by pretending an unfalsifiable matter of opinion is within the realm of scientifically testable facts, and then by elevating his preconceived conclusions into "facts" without testing them. Nowhere in his "experiment" does he actually even attempt to confirm anyone's gender. Nowhere in the formulation of a hypothesis or a test to confirm or deny it--which are the first steps in the scientific method--does he stop to ask whether what he's wondering is testable scientifically, or whether it belongs to one of the many realms of life where science's purview ends. If you have a question about the factual nature of an observable phenomenon, use the scientific method. If you want to know what it MEANS, or what meaning your fellow humans make of it, the question you're asking is NOT scientific, but subjective, philosophical, moral, religious, or any of a million other domains outside of the sciences.

To be fair, Tyson fashions himself a philosopher, and he has every right to opine on matters of opinion--in fact he brings evidence from his field to inform his opinions and thereby makes many of them more solid logically. And many of our scientific friends do this all the time. They themselves who engage in the dry, repetitive testing of the natural world to determine its properties by direct experience, can't escape from the task all humans have of making sense of their experiences and imagining their own place in the world, in the natural order, in the vast cosmos for themselves. Humans are meaning-making entities. It's what distinguishes us from machines. Philosophers have been trying to make sense, with the tools available in their time periods and environments, of the world long before our current body of scientific knowledge was established through testable methods because the lack of knowledge doesn't prevent our inherent agency from moving us to seek out theories of our moral context. And, as one brilliant colleague put it. when philosophy gets good, they call it science.

But the first question of science is and should always be: is this a scientific question. If it's not, don't pretend, just move on. If it is, move on to the scientific method and experiment.

There's another thing Chloe misses that's important to address. And that is that BOTH her and Tyson are performing logical sleight of hand maneuvers hoping you won't notice that they are crossing categories that deserve to keep their integrity and rigidly in focus. Gender is NOT the same concept as sex. As wrong as she was on many of her moral opinions, Simone de Beauvoir was not wrong that while it's scientifically, factually verifiable that some are born female, no one is born a woman, because the gendered MEANING individuals and societies attach to the biological fact is a social construction that we can logically abstract and analyze outside of the concept of sex. Tyson is not technically wrong when he says that XX and XY chromosomes are insufficient to explain why certain bundles of clothing, hair, and other cosmetic features get attached more strongly to one sex than another, because while gender roles and styles ARE binary and DO map onto a biological reality, they are ultimately styles and roles--socially constructed, arbitrarily connected, differently so by differing cultures, and with norm enforcement and diffusion practices that vary with respect to history and individual agency to change. But he's elevating that correct understanding of gender's cultural construction into a claim that others can incorrectly coopt and misuse--the idea trans-theorists advance, which is that sex is ALSO a social construction in and of itself, and that no biological reality exists behind gender expressions and markers. Calling gender a spectrum conflates gender with sex, and gives license to think of sex on a scale rather than as the binary it is. Calling gender a spectrum conflates the choices people are free to make of an infinite range of ways of expressing their gender with the illusion that anyone can choose an infinite range of sexes. This conflation is harmful because no matter how successful a person can become at fooling their fellows through superficial products, practices, perspectives, or performances that they belong to the opposite gender, they are not, in fact, making themselves anything less than illusory--they are not escaping their sex, and are still bound by all of its biological imperatives. Medical science has advanced to be able to remove some of the consequences of these biological imperatives, but this is only a costly (in terms of financial burdens as well as in moral, psychological, and long-term physical burdens) avoidance of the unavoidable nature of sex. As one astute lawmaker put it recently in the Congressional record during a back and forth with a medical expert witness in a hearing: "sex change operations have a 100% failure rate" (and the witness, who mistook the purpose of the question, nevertheless correctly reported that they fail in another way: they don't accomplish the therapeutic purpose under which such expensive, extensive, and mutilating operations are "justified"--suicide rates after these surgeries are still 19 times higher than the average!).

What a profiteering, dishonest culture we've developed that so many of our prominent scientists pronounce the popular to be truth without test, in flagrant denial of obvious reality. Where so many of our doctors, in the name of care, intervene so deeply into doomed attempts to alter the basic architecture of their patient's sex, rather than help their patients learn to live with the unalterable sex they have. Where right gets called wrong, black gets called white, and opinions get called facts in an effort to shame the truthtellers into self stifling. Where the closed minded are hailed as open because the publicly deny the consequences of the true in the name of caring for the freedom of a group whose popularity is surging whose currency is victimhood.

The liberty to pursue happiness is good and right and available. But not every choice is morally equal, not every way to pursue happiness achieves it, and no choice is free from its natural consequences. the only way to truly be happy is to accept truth and base behavior on it. Even Tyson agrees in every other aspect of his scientific practice. Gender is not merely a matter of personal choice. It's a matter of meaning-making into which a range of choices present themselves, but you have not undone the binary simply by asserting the anti-scientific notion that cosmetics determine belonging anymore than I can destroy the fact that humans are a bipedal species just by amputating one of my legs.

For another takedown of Tyson, it's instructive to review Matt Walsh, who deftly dismantles him on the grounds that he doesn't even believe what he's saying, and on the grounds that spectra don't work the way Tyson claims they work for gender.

Abortion "Complexities" and Morality

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 02:01:00 +0000

It's just not that hard, folks. Unless we're dealing with the context of a justified war, there's simply no moral defense for killing innocent humans if there are any other options, let alone for the convenience of the living. And while both sides may exaggerate to make a point, only one side of the argument does insane logical backflips to hide the true and morally repugnant nature of the acts, their numbers, their consequences, and the assumptions underlying their "justifications".

Ever since the leaked Alito draft hinting that Roe v. Wade was about to be overturned, pro-abortion activists have had their day. I suppose I can understand a certain need to defend against what they perceive as a threat on their liberties and rights. So now that they've had their time to externalize their fears and put out ad campaigns, and fake being handcuffed at protests in unlawful locations, let's stand back from the emotions and just examine the core moral arguments for their accuracy, validity, and truth-value.

1. "Abortion is health care."

This half-truth hides a multitude of dark thought processes. It's flawed, however, from its definitional foundation to its carefully obscurantist consequences. Let's take the extreme case first, because it's clearest: what is the proper medical treatment to save the life of the mother if a pregnancy threatens it? The moral answer is whatever it takes to save her. If it's true that the only way to save her is to terminate the pregnancy, the procedure is, by definition, not abortion. Not everything that results in the death of the unborn child belongs to the definition of abortion. Abortion proponents will complain to high heaven that an ectopic pregnancy, for example, requires an abortion as its treatment, but expanding the definition of abortion in that way is a self-serving strategic choice. If they can make you believe that the life-saving choice a doctor must sometimes make from a position of expertise and under conditions of near-certainty to preserve the life of the mother is morally analogous to the choice a woman can make, from a position of non-expertise, under conditions of uncertainty, to reduce risks to her physical or psychological health, ambitions, education or career plans, emotional groundedness, or to other considerations, then you've already conceded an apples to oranges comparison and can appease your conscience, avoiding by a trick of sophistry the long-term guilt that would otherwise accompany such an obviously wrong and harmful choice. It's not a mere matter of degree, a threat to life is a categorically different thing from a risk to health. They want you to believe they are caring for the woman--considering these factors and leaving the "choice" with the mother--because that allows them to cast those who wish to defend the rights and well-being of the child in question as evil, uncaring, heartless and judgmental. It makes them feel better about themselves to think of any measure to protect the child involved as an exercise of force, control, or power because doing so casts themselves in the role of defenders of "reproductive rights" and "women's health". The problem, at bottom, is that their definition deliberately muddies the moral waters and converts a self-sacrificing ethos into a self-serving, self-justifying exercise in self-gratification. The only definition of abortion that makes moral clarity of the actual choice involved is the one in which saving the life of the mother is what is defined out. In other words, if the degree of certainty (she will die unless) and the degree of risk (endangering health isn't a high enough standard, only endangering life is) align with the condition that the child cannot be saved another way, then the treatment falls short of the definition of abortion. This leaves situations under that threshold of certainty and danger, and situations in which the child may receive its own saving health care properly but the choice is made to abort anyway in the same sphere of morality: they are elective.

We don't have nationwide statistics giving a reason for every abortion, as far as I can tell. Nor can I find statistics on the percentage of pregnancies in which a threat to the life of the mother occurs to know how many were saved at the cost of their child. But the state of Florida interviews women whose fetus died as the direct intended consequence of medical intervention, and they also carefully record statistics on maternal deaths whose causes are pregnancy related. Much of the data they have compiled seems eminently generalizable to me. They report that 0.27% of the roughly 70,000 "abortions" in that state performed in 2018 don't fit our proper definition of the term, because the reason was to save the life of the mother. In that same state, in 2017, there were identical percentages of women who died from ectopic pregnancies as there were of women who died from abortion procedures (see Figure 7, page 12 of Florida's PAMR). These cases are extremely rare, despite what abortion proponents will say, and while the number of cases isn't germane to the moral argument, it is germane to exposing the rhetorical sleight of hand that abortion proponents are trying to pull. They want you to believe, essentially, that the 99.73% of elective abortions that don't involve the gut-wrenching context of a doctor in the ethical quandary of being forced to save one life even if another must die as morally equivalent to the 0.27 % medical procedures that do.

Health care is about applying medical expertise to protect life first, reduce suffering second, and minimize risks to both third. Abortion is objectively about none of these, and only even subjectively about the latter two (with dubious results at best, counter-productive ones at worst).

2. "What about rape or incest or other hard cases, like devastating physical or mental malformations? You pro-lifers are just inflexible."

Leaving aside the deafness to their own hypocrisy on statements like these (many "pro-choice" activists seem to believe that only one choice is what defines a pro-woman position when it comes to abortion, which seems more than a little inflexible to me and to the millions of pro-life women who share my beliefs on these matters), let's categorize the "hard cases" into two separate baskets and tackle them each according to their own moral nature.

a. Crimes like rape and incest can result in pregnancies. Should the expecting mother, then, be expected to bear and raise the product of the crime perpetrated against her? Shouldn't she have the choice of escaping this second sort of "victimization" through an abortion? While my heart goes out to the victims of these kinds of crimes, and while they deserve the fullest redress and that the swiftest justice possible be done to their brutalizers, what's unclear to me is how to justify a crime against a second innocent party because, through no fault of their own, they happen to be connected to an initial crime. To be sure, there's no parallel to the traumatic kind of theft rape is, but in thinking of general principles of justice, where else would we want to harm a secondary victim in order to make restitution to the first? Would we burn a borrowed wallet before it could be returned to its original owner so the victim wouldn't have a reminder of the object of a mugging? Should the owner of a rental home be denied an insurance payout because the residents who are victims of an arson don't want the home rebuilt as a reminder of their trauma? Again, these comparisons aren't valid in terms of the emotional impact or nature of the traumas or their consequences, but are only valid at the point of intersection of the Venn diagram that abortion activists don't want anyone to consider--the one in which the child sits as innocent secondary victim of a crime. In a caring world, mother and child would receive the most supportive, expert, and continuous care possible, not the illusion of being made whole through the killing of an innocent. Should a woman be forced to carry a child? Never. And let's also keep the frame of decision-making in its proper scope: if there is a conception as the consequence of a rape, has the woman already been forced? Yes, and there's no reversing time on that. Moral choices after that point are not whether or not to continue the force--that's the false dichotomy abortion proponents want you to believe you're limited to--the choices are much more open and focused on what good can we make of things despite what happened.

b. What belief underlies the abortion of fetuses with mental or physical handicaps if not the already morally reprehensible failure of imagination that can't see a life "worth living" for such? The only logical difference abortion proponents propose between the crime of murdering an adult with Down's Syndrome and the murder of a still gestating child with the same condition of human neurodiversity is their age. The motivations remain every bit as condemnable: the fact that you may not be able to imagine the happiness and fulfillment they can have does not justify you taking their life.

3. "Abortion is a reproductive right."

It's understandable that many women would see a "right" to abortion question as a part of the march of progress toward equality of all rights. It helps them feel connected to something larger than themselves, to a broad current of a positive history to be able to claim that the tradition from which they spring argued for, militated for, then turned public opinion toward the granting of basic human rights of personhood, then property, then the vote, then education and career choices, and on to marital equality--with no-fault divorce options, for example. To this framing of the debate, it's more than a little useful to point to the institution of marriage as one of the key mechanics of patriarchal oppression, wherein no one married for love, no woman was happy in marriage, and no male was considerate in the least of the wishes of his spouse about planning the arrival of children into their lives. I make this obviously hyperbolic point to demonstrate that the edge of this idea is really rather absolutist and doesn't seem to reflect much nuance in the historical record. Of course the opposite would be equally ridiculous: that every marriage reflected an equal partnership between spouses in all matters across all time. But even allowing for the historical fact that different horizons of expectation about how the partnership could play out existed in different periods, and all have been largely biased against the women, let's not go too far: the institution itself isn't what's to blame for inequalities within it, it's the abuse of the principle of a perfect love at the heart of each marital union that is to blame for any oppression therein.

The diachronic record being misrepresented as it is by the pro-abortion side, it's also not surprising that they mischaracterize our current synchronic situation. What does a reproductive choice consist of? For the choice to procreate, ideally, the two considering procreation would communicate, come to a consensus, and then act until such time as evidence of fertilization crowns their choice with the knowledge of success. If the choice isn't mutual, ideally, the two either don't pass to the act itself, or put in place preventive measures to impede the act from achieving the procreative portion of its purpose. Of course, living in a world far from the ideal as we are, communication can fail, contraception can fail, or one party (let's be honest men, it's far and away you who are guilty of this when it happens) can enforce their will despite the lack of consensus from the other partner. If any degree of coercion by commission or by omission results in a pregnancy, the moral position condemns it and seeks redress for it. But let's also be honest about this, pro-choicers: abortion isn't a reproductive choice at all, it's an attempt to avoid the consequences of a reproductive choice. It's pretending that the choice that engaging in sexual activity which always has pregnancy as a potential result wasn't fully decided simply because there are medical means of "undoing" the choice before pregnancy advances too far for society to ignore the existence of the new life. It's an attempt at moving the goalposts on the effects of a choice, not a reproductive choice in and of itself. As mature adults, we all recognize that the principle of "if you break it, you bought it" applies just as much in the china shop as it does in nearly every other domain of choice; that the principle of "don't do the crime if you can't do the time" applies as an apt metaphor for nearly all exercising of agency; that picking up one end of the proverbial stick gives you both ends. It's part of basic maturity to recognize that denying that choices have consequences doesn't buy anyone out of suffering the actual consequences. Abortion may stave off a choice that a woman regrets, but it's only the avoidance of reproductive consequences, not a pro-active reproductive choice in and of itself.

And even after we think through the nature of the choice itself and conclude that it doesn't qualify as reproductive, we still have a consideration to make about whether it qualifies as a bona fide "right" in parallel with others like the freedom of association, conscience, or speech.

The mother's "right" to choose isn't made in the void--the consequences of an abortion are not isolated to her person. Why should someone else be made to pay the ultimate price because of your regret, or negativity (some reasons women give for abortion amount to a failure to imagine the blessings of going through with a pregnancy)? Just as my right to fight stops where your nose begins, a woman's right to kill a child within her stops where the latter's metaphorical umbilical cord begins. When the loss of the child, and the infinite potential each child represents both for their own fulfillment and for the advancement of the entire world, is given its due consideration, it become harder to insist that it's merely about the "rights" of the woman. The very definition of rights anyway has to include the concept that they include no imposition upon others except the duty of non-interference, and since abortion, by definition, interferes with the rights of the child, it doesn't qualify as a right worthy of the name.

4. "They're not going to stop at abortion. They're coming for your same-sex and interracial marriages too."

I could move on quickly by simply correctly labeling this as mere run-of-the-mill fear-mongering dirty politics, but it's worth pointing out that Alito himself, in the very draft of the opinion enjoined by the majority that abortion activists were all up in arms about, pointed out that the logic by which the court needed to challenge stare decisis in the Roe v. Wade case didn't apply to the nature of the other cases to which the Roe v. Wade case is often attached because hanging on similar questions of privacy. Each of those would require separate cases if they were to be overturned.

And in any case, the consequence of overturning Roe v. Wade was not to advance an agenda, but instead to remove the question from judicial purview and place it back where it belongs: either the US Congress takes up legislation that settles the matter at the federal level, or it devolves to the individual states to decide as they will. Many states had prepared trigger laws to allow abortion restricting legislation to go into effect immediately upon the repeal of Roe v. Wade, but many states didn't and Congress is far from even considering national legislation.

Finally, no one who argued that Roe v. Wade was bad law is also arguing that people shouldn't marry people of other races, or that the federal government should regulate same-sex marriages. Critics of those applauding this repeal simply can't point to actual examples that it's just a step to the rolling back of other decisions. I've seen a few attempts at misleading headlines, but the details of no news story since the repeal has supported the idea that the "right-wing" in the US has any serious initiatives or are making any public proposals to alter the state of rights for same-sex or interracial couples.

5. "It's just a clump of cells. You wouldn't deny me removing a wart, would you?"

I don't know by what extraordinary act of willful blindness to reality one can seriously advance the idea that abnormal growths of a body are analogous to an embryo or fetus, but it seems obviously clear that the moral status of the two are apples and oranges since only one is a person and only one results from a conscious act of will. Deeper, the whole "when does life begin" debate is what's implied here. No one seriously argues that killing an infant is morally permissible, but if we can define the beginning of their life at birth, or sometime between conception and birth, we'll have wiggle room in which to end the progress of the sub-organism before it becomes fully "human", right? We can claim that our act of killing an innocent being is justified because the being isn't really a being.

And here's where all kinds of claims about the status of human beings come into play: are they born? living? conscious? sentient? autonomous? viable? A vertiginous parade of prevaricating variables enter into the self-justifying calculus.

Let's go through the litany, even though it never seems to redound to the argument the pro-abortion crowd wishes. There's no denying that science and logic have to identify that a new entity is created at the moment of conception, and that this entity is unique and living, and is its own complete organism even while developing. Its biological systems have a nourishing connection within the body of another as they develop, but the systems themselves are distinct and discreet. This new entity goes through stages of development, but is fully human at the first union of the 23 pairs of donor chromosomes by definition--its species is homo sapiens and not any other. At the earliest of these stages of development, removal from the host environment would result in death, so there is a point of viability at which saving the life of both can become possible, but before which saving the life of only one might be the only possibility under a threat to life. It's quite well established, even among abortion proponents, that children are very much capable of feeling and perception in utero, and are therefore sentient, even if there remains debate on when those capacities become developmentally available. And the question of consciousness is simply ludicrous unless by the same standard our morality permitted the killing of coma patients for the convenience of the living.

The question of the living status, human status, and viability variables of a child in utero, including sentience, seem settled, and the ludicrous question of consciousness is dealt with, let's take the question of autonomy separately

Abortion proponents like to distinguish between internal and external resources because it helps them draw out a claim about the category of autonomy. In utero, a child isn't "autonomous" in the sense that they need resources that only the mother's internal organs can provide--they may have separately functioning biological systems, but one is housed entirely inside the other such that resources from the outside can't supply the baby's needs. This conveniently avoids the normal conception of the term "autonomous" which suggests self-reliance and independence of action, because it's important not to remind women considering abortion that this barely technically accurate conception of "autonomy" that an infant gains upon birth is extremely abstract, and does away with none of the very concrete and massive dependence an infant will have on resources for years. Still, they're not wrong that at the moment of delivery it becomes possible that someone other than the mother can provide the resources the newborn needs, such that the mother's internal biology is no longer the only necessary supplier. The infant isn't fully autonomous in any stretch, but it's a fair point that something changes at birth in terms of dependence on the mother's internal organs. So, as we've dealt with the variables of "status" of a child in utero (living, conscious, sentient, autonomous, viable), what still remains unclear to me, even with the special definition of "autonomy" that we can grant in these contexts, is what about the autonomy of child and mother justifies the killing of one for the benefit of the other. I mean, because it is separate although subsumed, because it's sentient, living, and viable after a certain point, and because it's human, when do we begin discussing a duty of care rather than a "right" to terminate? And let's push it even further: let's imagine we can't make the call, and we find it morally ambiguous enough that we'll justify killing it up to the point of viability after which it's no longer ambiguous and we have to grant it full rights as a human. What standard does that set up? Can we now "abort" other kinds of humans because they are no longer "viable"? Does euthanasia become our preferred solution for those whose death would be more convenient to those of us left behind? What about debilitating illnesses or accidents? Do we just set a "viability" or "quality of life" expectation and say everyone living below it it's okay to kill? A very slippery moral slope indeed.

6. "You aren't pro-life, you're just pro-birth. You couldn't care less what burdens you're forcing those mothers to endure. Plus, if you were really pro-life, you'd be pro-universal health care."

This old canard doesn't surprise me, but its persistence stymies me somewhat. Adherents to the pro-life position are varied and numerous, and omnipresent in the US and around the world. Many overlap in their beliefs about the value of life with other charitable enterprises and volunteer and donate countless hours and resources to helping those in need, many but not all of which are private. From soup kitchens and food banks to adoption agencies, hospitals, schools, and everything else our society generally finds to be a public good, you'll find pro-life people helping, organizing, and donating to, and not just occupying minor positions, either. As for the idea that a political opinion on minimum wage, or details of how welfare is administered, or even on whether it's best for the country to nationalize health care services, all of that deserves its own debate. Claiming that pro-lifers are hypocrites if they don't agree with you on these things isn't just an uncharitable application of the hasty generalization fallacy, it's reductive, and hostile as well.

Here's a link to a list of medical pregnancy resources that provide alternatives to Planned Parenthood, usually for low or no cost, some of which aren't even directly connected to pro-life activist groups. The network is wider than Planned Parenthood by nearly 20 times, if my count is accurate. There are networks nearly as vast for resources to support expecting mothers beyond their medical needs and in caring for anyone with needs from cradle to grave (and, if the spiritual help can be counted, sometimes beyond!).

7. "I cannot be compelled to support another human with my own body. My body, my choice."

This one, by far, is the most compelling argument. I've heard two scenarios offered to illustrate, both of which fall short, but let's take each separately

a. In moral dilemma A, a fireman has only enough time to save one of two things in the same room before the fire destroys it. One thing is a 3 month old baby, the other is a cooler with dozens of embryos meant for implantation. The logical trap for the pro-life position is that since we claim life begins at conception, we're supposed to be stuck in moral relativism reducing the thought process to a mere cold calculation: if the lives really are all worth saving, then saving more lives means choosing the cooler, does it not? If the pro-lifer chooses to save the single child, it's supposed to count as proof positive that when asked to vote with their feet and reveal their true beliefs, pro-life folks are merely hypocrites at bottom, unable to admit to themselves that they really do understand the difference between a child and a clump of cells because no one is really alive until born.
Ultimately this is very clever projection, but projection nonetheless. It's the pro-choice position that's hypocritical, morally relativistic, and in denial of its truly evil nature. Abortion activists know that the duty to save life is present from the earliest revelations of its existence, and that it's pure sophistry to fail to provide parental care to the growing lives within and beyond the womb as soon as it's clear that they exist. This very example demonstrates that they are the ones who need to objectify and dehumanize those lives in order to justify the choice to terminate them. The choice they're trying to impose is a false dichotomy, and it's held out facetiously. One must clearly save the infant not because the embryos are less vulnerable, or have less infinite potential, and not because the embryos aren't human and don't deserve saving, but just because two things are not morally equivalent doesn't make the less moral of the two things wrong. Ultimately, however, the scenario merely obscures the true nature of the choice one is making at abortion, which is killing--not an object, but a life.

b. In moral dilemma B an influential virtuoso musician whose loss would be incalculable to society and culture, nearly at his prime, but still expected to produce several chefs-d'oeuvre before his lifespan is over finds himself suffering from a condition that requires blood transfusions. On a flight in which no one else on the plane shares the compatible blood type, a woman awakes to find that she had been hooked up to a transfusion machine while she was unconscious. Is it morally right for her to unhook herself from that machine, since it requires her body and consent even if it might cost the life of the eminently valuable fellow human? Again, this scenario is intended to beat pro-lifers on their own turf: our appeal to fundamental human rights. Of course it is morally wrong for anyone to compel such a woman, and the "value" or lack of value of the other life isn't even part of the moral equation: if she does not consent, the other has no right to take her blood. And if a woman has an absolute right to deny life-saving sustenance to someone like that, all the more reason for her to be able to claim the same rights over her own body before the child's value is known, before it becomes a full human being, in their eyes. This argument only hold, however, when it succeeds in making you forget a few key elements of the context. First, the biological consequences of sex are not a mystery--the possibility of pregnancy is inherent in the act, therefore consenting to sex is tantamount to consenting to a possible pregnancy. One can consent to sex for its many other benefits, but one cannot deny that consent to the possibility of parenthood is inherent with it. The fact that medical technology allows us to intervene to terminate a pregnancy that a woman claims was not wanted doesn't remove the fact that doing so requires the death of the other being involved. The nature of abortion is that it's not merely refusing to consent to support another life, it's the active murder of the vulnerable and innocent life and the going back on the previous consent already inherently granted. Furthermore, there is a difference in the moral duties connected in this scenario. Yes, a woman has the right to deny support to another human for reasons of bodily autonomy. But that's because the musician isn't her child. In a parental scenario that same woman does have a duty to support her child, and can be prosecuted for failing to do so, especially if her neglect contributes to the death of the child. In utero, a mother's duty to nurture is morally every bit as present as after birth.

The pro-life argument isn't about controlling women's bodies, it's about protecting the value we place on life, and admitting the truth of the moral reality that modern medical technology cannot remove from the decisions that affect us all in society: all lives are valuable and require that we defend them.

8. "Your a man, so you can't have an opinion on abortion. This is all about men controlling women."

Of all the arguments pro-abortion activists make, this one is the most asinine. Besides the fact that a great many women are pro-life (to the tune of 33% on a flat average, even though Gallup's way of asking the question is massively reductive, since many pro-choice women don't advocate for zero restrictions to abortion), it doesn't require a uterus to understand the moral question on which society must legislate. This is about the value of human life and where to draw the line between protecting life and protecting individual liberties. Women need to have bodily autonomy as a fundamental freedom just as much as men do. And while biology has dictated that my double X-chromosomed fellow-humans can incubate humans in a way my body can't, that doesn't change the moral and political question: when does your freedom to do with your body what you see fit deserve to be curtailed by society? The answer is twofold: when it interferes with another's right to bodily autonomy, and when the harm you might otherwise choose to do to yourself has harmful consequences on others that rise to that society's agreed upon level of intervention, like when a parent fails to nourish their child. Abortion fails both: it denies the child it's bodily autonomy rights and its death deprives society of the next potential Einstein, Picasso, or Beethoven. You don't have to be a biologist to know what a woman is, a vet to know what a dog is, or a woman to know that's it's wrong to kill.

But let's be consistent with ourselves. If a child is a child whether born or not, then we need to undo a current double standard: let's accurately label the life as worthy of both protection and parental support. Under current law, men whose collaborative acts result in pregnancy aren't on the hook for the child support until the child is born. I'm in favor of the main idea behind this GOP-proposed draft legislation that would rectify this inequality between the sexes. There may be more precise language required concerning children that naturally don't come to term and what that means for the support by the impregnating party, but the general concept of making men responsible for the consequences of their actions is good, right, and necessary.

So Slanted - Untwisting Progressive Responses to Current Hot Topics

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 03:50:00 +0000

A thoughtful leftist friend of mine posted a series of "rebuttals" from a Progressive website called "So Informed" to their own caricature of Conservative talking points on recent current events. It's worth thinking through each of them in turn, especially since I haven't posted in a long stretch, as a way to engage with the current state of our national culture's slide into centralized authoritarianism. This friend gets full points for speaking her mind, engaging with compassion, and standing up for what she believes. My concern here is to correct improper frames for debates, inaccurate and/or beside-the-point facts, and logical fallacies. All of this is centered on the ideas in question, not impugning the motives of the holders of such ideas. It's done in the spirit of believing in the other's freedom and intelligence strongly enough to offer sincere chances for them to change their mind. The ideas themselves, however, come from somewhere and have implications. So at points I may need to accurately describe beliefs that a sub-group of those who believe them may not be fully admitting to themselves the abhorrent nature of. People with good intentions can still be: a. wrong; b. mean; c. unaware of their meanness.

Let's get started...

1. Fallacies include: causation/correlation, straw man, hasty generalization

A. What's the context when a Conservative uses the quoted phrase? I've only ever heard it to suggest that guns are inanimate objects and that it takes an agent choosing to use them, for good or ill, to fire them. It's incontrovertible that guns are inanimate objects, isn't it? That it takes a human agent to fire them, no? The implication, when Conservatives deploy this phrase, is that measures to restrict availability and use of firearms are mistargeted, and our political efforts would be less wasted on external controls if we, instead, educated individuals to make good choices, to value life, to value good behavior, to value controlling negative emotions, and to behave responsibly in general. In other words, for Conservatives, choices matter. In none of these implications is there the hint of the suggestion mental illness as the core cause of most gun violence. Assuming that Conservative mean "mentally ill" people when they say "people" amounts to a straw man fallacy. Certainly people with mental health issues may not always make balanced choices on what is good behavior, and may struggle more than others to restrain harmful emotions. But no Conservative claims what they claim we claim.

B. So Informed "rebuts" the Conservative claim that the gun control issue should be about people, not guns, is the morally relativist position that lots of people elsewhere in the world struggle with the common struggles of humanity to which Americans are not the exception, and that therefore the main difference we see at scale is that Americans resort to guns more frequently than non-Americans because of the ubiquity of firearms in the American landscape. It's a position worth examining.
How does the US stack up in the worldwide landscape when comparing apples to apples? Certainly the statistics So Informed cites on ownership don't seem wrong. But they don't even ask the question of comparison. They just move quickly to the ownership stats and a context-free history on what kinds of weapons are allowed in the US. Their rhetorical purpose is to scare you into believing that mere ownership is equivalent to violent use, that the types of weapons allowed automatically and inevitably leads to greater violence. It's a hasty generalization fallacy. In truth, comparing mass public shootings around the world, the US isn't disproportionately affected, especially not to the degree expected if association could determine causation in the way the So Informed folks want you to believe. Based on research from roughly the past 2 decades, the US share of mass shooters has been 1.3%--far lower than the nearly 5% of the world's population touted by their own statistics. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3671740) The question the rest of the world should be asking, is how is America so successful at maintaining a climate of peace with so many guns in the environment. Every serious answer needs to consider the possibility that it might be because of the guns, not in spite of them.

I'm leaving unaddressed for the moment the tacit poke here that lack of access to mental health is a big part of the problem.

2. Logical fallacies include: straw man, correlation/causation, inaccurate facts

A. No Conservative who says "don't make shootings political" is unaware that gun control/rights is a political topic, or that it is up to politicians to legislate according to the popular will on such matters. In context, when Conservatives deploy phrases like this, it's against the knee-jerk reaction of do-something leftists who immediately, before even knowing the facts of the cases, clamor for blanket bans, gun-free zones, and restrictions to unrelated weapons without thought to the actual, logical, pro-con analysis of the facts at hand. Be this straw man as it may, So Informed is not wrong: gun control is a political question.

B. On political spending: two quick points: a. $16M is barely a spitwad compared to the ocean of lobby spending in the US, which Statista estimates at $3.73B (https://www.statista.com/statistics/257337/total-lobbying-spending-in-the-us/). If the gun rights lobbyists are "buying off" cynical politicians, as the So Informed scare stat wants you to believe, that are willing to vote something they know is wrong because of the money they get, they're doing so on the cheap. b. A more balanced view of lobbying begins from the opposite premise, that contributing money to a politician's campaign is a sign that they want to help someone who already believes like they do to advance their ideas. It's up to counterbalancing interests to contribute to the campaigns of voices they would like elevated, and it's up to the electorate which voice to choose to represent them. There's nothing untoward, or automatic about $16M of contributions to politicians, since this IS a political issue and there IS significant opposition to gun rights seeking to influence public opinion on these important matters. Correlation is not causation. This is essentially a guilt-by-association fallacy.

C. The most logically substantial element of this page is their evaluation of the results of the 10-year "assault" weapons ban. It's worth considering. After a look at the data, it appears that the numbers of mass shooting didn't actually go down over the period claimed, and rose thereafter. Analysis is mixed on the rise thereafter, but the claim that the rise in "assault" weapon shootings after the law sunsetted is statistically insignificant has merit (https://crimeresearch.org/2022/05/biden-on-assault-weapons/).

3. Logical fallacies include: guilt by association, false dilemma, apples to orange comparisons, slothful induction, the Texas sharpshooter

A. I have nothing but my personal experience to cite, but I could swear that I'd heard this quote long before Wayne Lapierre uttered it in 2012. There are so many hits on it in google that tracking it down to a source of origin would take more time than I have for this, so I'll leave no other than my own word.

B. In any case, the remainder of the page is a giant self-own. First of all, a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, but this does not entail that every good guy with a gun can: a. stop any bad guy with any gun; b. be present at every occasion a bad guy with a gun attempts a crime with it. Their evidence? The delay in police action at Uvalde. To be fair, assuming the police are the good guys, the So Informed analysis is not wrong that while there are some crime prevention measures they can take, their role necessarily brings them to the presence of crime scenes after the crimes have occurred. But isn't there an apples and oranges comparison being drawn here? The police aren't merely average citizens with the right to self defense and to the adequate tools for the job. They are charged with public defense in a way average citizens aren't, and are bound by training, rules, and structures of accountability that give them expertise and extra responsibility to meet threats to public safety in ways private citizens aren't. But they also, by necessity, can't be everywhere all the time. Having a critical mass of average citizens armed to meet deadly threats with equal force is much more likely to create, in any given instant, conditions of rational hesitation on the part of anyone seeking to do harm with firearms than the current state of delay for "experts" with guns and responsibilities to protect us causes. In other words, the fact that police didn't in Uvalde and can't in other scenarios be present as the "good guys with a gun" allowing other folks to be that good guy is what Conservatives support. So Informed is making our point for us. They give a one-sided, but essentially correct analysis, but draw the wrong conclusion, out of a mix of fallacies: the false dilemma (this isn't only cops or nothing), the lazy induction (because cops failed doesn't mean no "good guys" all failed), and the--please excuse the term--Texas Sharpshooter fallacies (they aim at police as the "good guys" but don't take into account that "good guys" includes a broader category). All of which shift the rhetorical goalposts in their favor. when framed properly, comparing apples to apples, average citizens with guns logically stand a better chance to be present to prevent violence than the police alone, and at the end of the day, even if it is on ly the police with guns, they do tend to eventually stop further killing--Uvalde even with its delay, Dayton and others with a much shorter delay. Reality is not actually on the side of the So Informed talking points as evidenced by this compilation of news reports about defensive uses of guns, specifically the prevention of potential mass shootings: https://crimeresearch.org/2022/05/uber-driver-in-chicago-stops-mass-public-shooting/

4. Fallacies include: straw man, no true Scot

A. Not sure how relevant, or even what the specific "unending restrictions" that politicians (who were the "solution" just a few paragraphs ago, remember) or "misguided parents" from only "
red" states are that cause such universal burdens upon teachers, but let's grant that teachers are hired and trained to teach, and should be allowed to concentrate on their job and not duties of defense of self and classroom. And let's grant that the 2018 Gallup poll stands as accurate and is telling the complete picture. No Conservative wants to force all teachers to arm themselves. This is entirely a straw man argument. Every proposal to allow firearms in the classroom was designed as a voluntary measure, ostensibly for the 27% of teachers that do not oppose being armed. Having even a fraction of those teachers come strapped would provide a massive deterrent to anyone seeking to do harm in the entire school, simply because the existence of a new threat to the criminal imposes a higher risk to their carrying out of the crime.

B. The fact is that this "rebuttal" is moving the rhetorical goalposts in another way. The reality is that whether or not teacher want to "only" educate, the chance of a mass shooting occurring in their school is not zero. The reality is that they can prepare against a world where threats to their students' lives happen, or they can choose to hope outsourcing it will eliminate the problem, but remain personally unprepared. In the moment when a shooter bursts into a building and starts firing, those who are prepared can do something about it that those who aren't simply can't. It's no longer theoretical that mass shooters exist, so pretending they don't is sticking one's head in the sand. And hypocritically so if we are to believe, as the previous page attempted to show, that police can't be trusted to stop mass shooters (they can, just not before the fact, and not always to timing that anyone finds satisfying). Not all true teachers oppose being prepared in every needful way for the immediate demands that a crisis situation imposes, even if it means training for good use of and bearing arms.

5. Fallacies include: false dilemma, straw man

A. I call straw man. I don't know anyone who would say this, and will apologize immediately if I see one, but until then, let's simply correct the statement and see if it still holds logically: "There would be fewer unplanned and/or unwanted pregnancies if contraceptive measures were more frequently deployed." Not seeing how this corrected statement has any weakness.

B. What we can fairly evaluate, though, is the implications and assumptions surrounding the original. It's fair to assume that some abortions are sought because pregnancies happen but aren't wanted, isn't it? So Informed gets that core assumption right, but deals with it in an odd way: first it implies that abortions should remain available to handle the non-zero possibility that pregnancy prevention measures fail, and then it makes the moral claims that unless the cost of all such measures were zero, the availability of abortion is the only viable solution. This argument amounts to a false dilemma, but really just seems to be deeply condescending. First of all, the implications surrounding the presence or accuracy of sex-ed courses seems to be trying to dig at Conservative communities who believe that failing to teach that abstinence from sex works 100% of the time it's tried (which some sex-ed programs do actually fail to teach) leaves the sex education incomplete. But even the heart of the argument--that widely available, low-cost contraceptives within reach of the poorest of the poor are insufficient to prevent unwanted pregnancies--seems to imply that people who end up with unwanted pregnancies either do so only because they couldn't budget $1 per encounter for an act whose consequences include the potential for the lifelong set of responsibilities included in parenthood or only because they were unaware that those acts include the potential for the lifelong responsibilities included in parenthood as their consequences. In both cases, So Informed seems to imply that their readers are spectacularly uninformed.

6. Fallacies include: straw man

A. Not sure who said this, ever. So I'm calling straw man, again.

B. Taking the assertion as it stands, I don't think any informed Conservative would disagree that it's ludicrous to call for breastfeeding alone as a solution to the baby formula shortage. The grounds on which So Informed builds its case against the statement aren't solid--breastfeeding does not require worksite lactation programs, storage supplies, special environments, and doesn't always include extra costs or pumping--but not fundamentally wrong. I find it odd, however, that they don't include the most salient argument against moving from formula feeding to lactation: mammary glands can't be started at will. With that said, my only real hesitation on this point is that its context implies that Conservatives (the political opponents of the entire thread) somehow oppose a woman's choice to formula feed.

7. Fallacies include: tu quoque, rank credulity (this isn't present in the Aristotelian delineation of logical fallacies, but deserves to be--it's when people believe a politician for what he says. People should be appropriately critical in general, and especially skeptical of political claims)

A. This one is so nebulous and partisan that it's hard to nail down on which fallacies it fails the test of logic. It seems to be mistaking opinions for facts, falsely claiming relative things are absolutes, and engaging in lots of tu quoque (the "you did it too" idea that doesn't turn the second wrong into a right). Let's just begin with the question of how to judge a politician. Is it on what they claim (especially about themselves!) or on their record? Biden may not fancy himself a socialist, and he may not vote for the entire socialist enchilada of full state control of all means of production (which, as the So Informed page fails to do, actually defines full socialism), but is it fair to ask where his voting record leads? Of course. And as a proponent of gun control, national control of the healthcare and health insurance systems, cradle-to-grave welfare that expands its purview into the creation of dependency on government largesse, massive deficit spending, etc. isn't it fair to describe the direction of his policies as being toward centralized control of the nation's resources?

B. The dripping condescension evident in the ad hominem of claiming that those who oppose specific tax and minimum wage policies are ignorant of true socialism deserves a little clapback: it's they who don't understand socialism and how societies march toward it unless liberty is defended afresh at every generation.

8. Fallacies include slothful induction, apples to oranges comparisons, out of context facts that beg the question

A. When Conservatives blame Joe Biden for gas prices, it should be obvious that they don't believe Biden has a gas price button that he presses to inflate the price at whim. Of course there's not direct control of the entire industry, let alone its globally traded nature. So while this page gets the essential narrative of a global consequence of the shut down compounded by Ukrainian conflict effects right, it's committing a fallacy of lazy induction or selective whitewashing to conveniently forget that Biden was critical of Trump's response to COVID and wanted earlier, longer, stricter, and more federalized lockdown protocols than were implemented by his predecessor--at least while on campaign against him. It's obvious that his policy preferences on lockdowns were informed almost exclusively by narrow-scope epidemiologists, not by balanced advisors who could assess the broader system of risks, health and otherwise, to locking down the country during COVID, and that they therefore contributed to the consequences of a rebooting economy--high gas demand, coupled with supply shortages.

B. It's also hard to seriously dispute the impact of leadership styles on Putin. Trump took out an Iranian general on Iranian soil with a missile despite threats of retaliation. Biden, by contrast, offered a sternly worded rebuke and promised not to let American troops get directly involved when Putin amassed troops on the Ukrainian border, claiming it was merely for a routine training exercise. Strongarm dictators like Putin aren't likely to think twice about angering the US president unless they have legitimate fears about being on the receiving end of a real threat if they cross a line. Ask Syria's Assad what he thinks of Biden's involvement in "red lines. It's hard to imagine Putin invading any countries with NATO membership applications pending under Trump, so it's logical to assert that Biden's role in enabling the conditions for the Ukrainian effect on gas prices is a factor.

C. Not sure how to parse the apples to oranges of comparing Trump's first year of drilling permits versus Biden's first year other than to insist on more context. Here's a fuller picture: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/03/09/biden-claimed-his-climate-agenda-isnt-hurting-domestic-oil-production-here-are-the-facts-n2604276. Let's not pretend that Biden is pro-energy independence, and let's not pretend that we don't pay a cost in blood for dealing with Russian oil when we shut down pipeline construction to free and fair countries like Canada.

9. Finally. Fallacies include: hasty (vague) generalization,

A. This one barely deserves a response. It's obviously taking something way too seriously, and So Informed is therefore unintentionally making a parody of itself. However, it's a schtick I also like to employ when Progressives say ridiculous things, so let's let them have this one and see where turnabout can become fair play. In context, this expression implies that there are some core, essential components of life as an American that freedom dictates that you either show your acceptance of or be consistent with your own voice on, and vote with your feet to leave a place you can't support the essential characteristics of. In all cases, it's a call to confirm words through actions, not an actual demand that anyone abandon their place of living. The problem is that So Informed took a toss-away expression seriously enough to investigate whether the average American had the means to pull up stakes, make like a tree, and leave, but not seriously enough to actually define what "it" might constitute a take-it-or-leave-it issue. So we're left with the emotionally charged accusation that anything a Conservative might defend is somehow "deeply flawed", but without any rational basis for evaluating the accusation. Par for the course, Progressives.

B. Regardless of how much a move costs, or whether Americans have debt (which constitutes a non sequitur fallacy, technically), the deeper question of first amendment import here is worth upholding. Conservatives hold the freedoms of thought and expression sacrosanct. We defend the rights of even our most ardent and ridiculous opponents to say the most ridiculous things because we recognize that our own liberty to argue back depends on the same freedoms. However, only a moral relativist can seriously advance the notion that criticism of a country is--with no reference to the direction of the criticism--"healthy" for the country. Just because there is value in considering a diversity of opinions on a given subject does not make all opinions on that subject equally right, equally solid, equally based in accurate and properly-framed facts, or equally participating in a broader project to shake out the best ideas and support them. Telling a person who dissents on the principle of freedom of speech that they should leave if they don't like the freedom here isn't unhealthy, it's logical.

Objective Morality and Why Laws Against Prostitution Aren't Anti-Liberty

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Sat, 04 May 2019 16:06:00 +0000

Adult topic coming up below...

The first principle of morality is liberty (moral agency).
The first principle of liberty is morality.

Said another way, there are two fundamental truths connecting morality with liberty: 1. The degree to which people aren't free to determine right from wrong for themselves is the degree to which they are not free to choose the right, therefore all moral choices are premised on the free risk that they might choose wrong if left to; 2. While individuals must have the freedom to choose in order for any right option to be chosen, one of the consequences of choosing wrong is always a limiting of freedoms.

Part of the extremely confusing problem of these principles intertwined in this way is that it's super easy to believe illusions about what's right and what's wrong, to be in denial about whether something's wrong, or about the consequences of choosing wrong. And to further complicate things, we're living in a state of: 1. suspended ultimate consequences--very few of the full consequences of our actions are immediate; 2. ignorance as to the true eternal nature of our choices. Because of these two complicating states, we are in a condition that requires faith for every action and we only get partial confirmation of the rightness of our morally correct acts at every faithful experiment.

These complicating conditions make the question of what IS right or wrong extremely difficult, and with liberty being the first principle of morality, the first moral rule is therefore: never impose your own sense of morality on someone else. This is why definitively taking away someone's moral agency in this life is what every society, despite these complicating factors and large cultural differences, has universally considered the most immoral of acts: murder.

The trick in understanding that morality is BOTH a private choice AND an external objective truth acting upon us, then, is to avoid omitting either side of that equation.

The degree to which you forget that the consequences are inevitable, is the degree to which you succumb to selective or total moral relativity: if your only rule is that you can't impose your morality on others, it's easy to just let the immoral acts of others go unchallenged until you've painted yourself out of the responsibility to discern between degrees of morality--and there ARE degrees.

By the same token, the degree to which you forget that morality is a matter of private choice is the degree to which you begin supporting authoritarianism and unrighteous dominion.

The balance, I believe, must lie in the level of imposition/engagement: 1. if others use words to promote an act you find immoral, then using words to convince others of your own sense of morality doesn't impose upon them, but rather respects their agency and calls on them to revise their own sense, and behave accordingly; 2. if others commit immoral acts as defined by the laws of their society (which brings some kind of averaging of individual moral senses into play--which is one way of approaching moral standards as enforced by a legitimate authority), then the society in which those acts are committed using acts to punish immoral behaviors and even using actions as preventive measures doesn't impose upon their sense of morality, but rather imposes a societal standard of behavior.

This is the logical backstopping needed to think about the moral question of prostitution.

What I find striking about the Teen Vogue opinion piece referenced in the below article, and about the medical practitioner writing it, is how far to the morally relative end of the spectrum they go. She uses words to try to convince others of her sense of morality. No harm in that whatsoever. However, the content of those words is a false attempt to equate the morality of: 1. Using expert counselling and medical advice to help individuals have healthy experiences with emotional and physical intimacy between two human beings committed to each other's happiness; with 2. the immorality of commodifying sexual acts for the unhealthy self-gratification of one party. As if the only difference between the work of a doctor and a prostitute is in the credentials they hold.

I find the rebuttals from the ex-prostitute and the former sex crimes prosecutor extremely compelling: calling prostitution "sex work" is a misplaced attempt to remove the stigma of social judgment from immoral choices, because it obfuscates the true nature of the immorality and its consequences. It doesn't "empower" the "workers" involved to remove the stigma of judgment because they themselves report being dis-empowered and nearly universally seek a pathway out of the "work", and instances of traumatic violence and abuse are disproportionately higher in their field of "work" than in others.

This article lends support to the idea that immorality isn't relative, even if individuals must be free to have their own sense of it. It's possible to withhold personal judgment, leaving to God what "shame" a person deserves, and to treat a prostitute with full human dignity and at the same time OPPOSE the immoral ideas people try to use to justify such acts--noting how immoral choices don't lead to the consequences that moral relativists such as this doctor claim, and how they DO objectively lead to harmful consequences and the loss of liberty just as the moralists claim. Also, it's moral to use one's voice to convince others of the flaws in their individual sense of morality (some methods work better than others, that's not this conversation), and to support laws pushing the average standard of moral behavior in one's society toward a more moral position.

My faith has two scriptures I try to live by and help others understand: "Wickedness never was happiness", and "I the Lord will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men." The former forbids all moral relativism, and the latter I take to mean that the only moral position for us to hold vis-à-vis our fellow mortals is to think of them as brothers and sisters of infinite potential just like us, able to be convinced to line their own sense of morality up with that of objective morality, but not our problem if they don't.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/teen-vogue-op-ed-why-sex-work-is-real-work-defends-prostitution-but-former-prostitutes-blast-narrative-to-bits

#MeToo and Truth

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Thu, 20 Sep 2018 14:22:00 +0000

1. The "this" when they say "this could ruin his life" is an accusation. This "it" when you say "without acknowledging it already ruined hers" is an attempted rape. The two are not equivalent, therefore we have to temper the assumptions of both sides by examining a hypothetical under both conditions of possible truth values: If the accusation is true, most would say his life deserved to be ruined. If the accusation is false hers was not already ruined, but deserves to be now.
2. The age of the perpetrator and victim rightly speak to both maturity level (which provides some context for why both were drinking, why both might not have the awareness to avoid a compromising situation, and why one might have impulse control issues compounded by alcohol) and level of accountability (we have special courts to determine guilt and sentencing for minors for this very purpose) but not to severity of crime or emotional impact of the events. No one should excuse any male child for attempting to grope and/or silence a female minor in framing it as a youthful indiscretion. This is the only fair charge in Marisa's litany. No one should be "excusing" attempted rape on the grounds that it was some kind of youthful indiscretion because to do so denies the victim's equal right to context and minimizes the damage and impact. However, we also have to keep in mind that this is all a giant hypothetical too. The people "excusing" a youthful indiscretion don't actually believe the episode happened, and the people who are pointing up how terrible this "excuse" is are right, but only after drawing a currently baseless conclusion that the event happened.
3. The brevity of the event is something I've never seen anyone bring up. Don't know where Marisa got the idea, but, again, there is a giant IF that she's not properly dealing with: If the accusation is true, no one would talk about how brief the encounter was but would instead be calling for the proper punishment for the act no matter its length; but if the accusation isn't true the claimed impact on the accuser's years is also fabricated.
4. The "this" in "he doesn't deserve this" is referring to a false allegation. The "this" implied in "as if she does" is referring to attempted rape. The two are not equivalent. This rhetorical game can only be solved in light of a hypothetical entertaining both truth options: If the accusation is true, most would say he absolutely deserves this and deserves punishment to the full extent of the law, but if the accusation is false she deserves punishment for libel at the very least, and received no consequences from the never accomplished act in the first place.
5. "Boys will be boys" is a phrase parents use to understand the reckless behaviors they have difficulty teaching their boys to maintain self-control over, not an absolution of responsibility for those acts. If it ever becomes an absolution, critics are right to point out that it is stupid and destructive, because all human beings need to learn self-control and society needs individuals to be responsible for their actions. However, the phrase denies no girl her girlhood to admit that boys generally have a tendency for recklessness that deserves special attention. Girls come with their own particularities and tendencies to behavioral norms. The good ones deserve encouragement and the bad ones require discipline. But acknowledging the differences of the challenges should never be an excuse to deny the reality of either one's challenges. In the context of the accusation, again, the condition tense is required: if the accusation is false, the charge that an excuse is being made by the expression "boys will be boys" is devoid of any sense and no one would be saying it, but if the accusation is true, most people would teach their boys that attempted rape is not acceptable by condemning the attempted rapist and calling for appropriate punishment.
6. The implied "than this" from the expression "he deserves better" refers to a false accusation. The "than this" implied from the expression "she does not [deserve better]" is an attempted rape. the two are not equivalent. Examining the two possibilities in light of the truth conditions upon the accusation yields the following: If the accusation is true, most would say he deserves exactly the scrutiny he's getting and deserves punishment on top of that, but if it's false, she is the one deserving of a fitting penalty for libel.
Look, this is brilliant rhetoric. It does a fantastic job of demonstrating how pernicious defenses against rape allegations can be. Blindly supporting a man accused seems to drudge up heinous excuses which dehumanize the victim. If the accusations are true, everyone blindly supporting the perpetrator has a burden of guilt for the perpetuation of a sexist culture. However, if the accusations are false, what appears to be excuses mostly aren't, but are merely tricks of rhetoric designed to impugn the character of the "excuse"-makers. When revealed for the sleight-of-hand they are, systematically misplacing referents as they do, these statements reveal more about the accuser than the accused--they reveal Marisa as a libelous underminer of equality and justice, as the false prophet of a nonexistent sexism in society, and as a divisive and destructive force for a nation which should prize the weight of the evidence over the seriousness of the charge. If the accusation is false, Marisa is wrong, but since we won't know that until further truth comes to light, she is currently operating as the voice of mobocracy, demanding action based on prejudice and prefabricated conclusions.

Moral Relativism and Holocaust Denial

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 03:40:00 +0000

American university students are getting more rigidly dogmatic when it comes to a progressive worldview. Activism, and a leftist bent has been a feature of college life since prior to the Soviet Union, of course, but there has never been a time like today when only students who seek it out by getting an education where conservatism is explicitly part of their university's institutional identity have access to conservative ideas in their classrooms.
While the left has a stranglehold on academics, and a near total lock on theory in the humanities and social sciences, there have been at least a critical mass, up until this decade at least, of balancing academics who don't feel threatened by the existence of ideas they don't agree with, even if their goal is to indoctrinate their students into believing that their political opposition is not only wrong, but anathema. And there still exists a faction within today's liberal arts faculty bodies who believe that exposure to opposing ideas allows one to firm up one's own arguments, think through the challenges to them, and retain the orthodoxy with a better grip on how to affirm it convincingly in mixed audiences. I generally try to appeal to this faction when I bring up any conservative ideas among my colleagues.
However, I fear there has been a tipping point.
I was in a recent discussion in which a colleague's students were offended by readings in Dany Laferrière's novel I am a Japanese Writer. To be sure, Laferrière is an offensive writer. He provokes, plays devil's advocate, and cares not one whit to maintain a sympathetic relationship with his readers. His readers love him precisely for that quality. Why? Because they understand the satire, the over-the-top character of his stereotypes, and the ironic distance between the narrator's/character's opinions and the author's own. This novel in particular is meant to highlight the ridiculousness of the kind of pigeonholing to which he himself has been subjected as a "black" author with a Haitian heritage coming of age in Montréal. What was so offensive to these students? As a black man, he apparently had no right to joke about, parody, pastiche, or satirize people of Asian heritage--he wasn't an insider with the authenticity to perform self-critique of an in-group.
My colleague's concern, as you might well imagine, was that if students are so rigid about purity testing speakers rather than engaging in their ideas, they have become precisely the kind of essentialists that critical race theory has been railing against since its inception. Literature especially is supposed to be a privileged space of imagination where authors and readers alike can get out of the roles that define them for a time, and engage in understanding the universal, and the boundaries of the real--where exploring differences is safe and healthy. The worry with this kind of student, then, is that their rather superficial mapping of skin color to culture works against the very basis of the idea of dialogue across differences--that only those who are "authentic" may have a voice.
I suggested to my colleague that one way out of the dilemma would be to take a look at how culture is defined. Is it the expression of innate characteristics or is it a set of products, practices, and perspectives that agents and communities can alter as a matter of choice? Are cultures time-bound? Geography-bound? Racially and/or ethnically bound? Or are they porous by nature with elements open to transmission to other groups? I specifically mentioned that conservative theorist and Stanford economist Thomas Sowell might be a good place to go because he problematizes the very notion of cultural boundaries.
With no sense of irony whatsoever, the response was: "There are certain things that are not up for debate in my classroom."
Her concern was that Sowell's critique of the fixedness of culture might build a case for denying the concept of "institutional racism". In complete earnestness, she revealed that she thinks of conservative race theory (or rather what she CONCLUDES, before allowing any evidence of what conservative ideas about race even are to begin with penetrate her mind) as the functional equivalent of holocaust denial. In denial of her own utter relativism and dogmatic stance, she was unable to see the moral distinction.
It shouldn't have to be stated, but since one purpose of this blog is to make the assumptions behind ideas explicit, I'll do it: the main difference between a holocaust denier and a conservative theorist who denies the existence of institutional racism is that the former can only do so through a cynical distortion of all of the facts and of analytical reasoning to draw a biased and faulty conclusion, whereas the latter fully engages with the truth of the facts at hand and with rigorous logic to draw an impartial and plausible conclusion. Only by thinking of the two with total relativism can you miss the orientation toward truth that is fundamentally opposed between the two types of deniers. There is a difference of opinion possible between earnest students of a given phenomenon who don't disagree about the basic facts in evidence. Scholars often do come to different conclusions--it's a feature of the diversity of thought--and exposure to their ideas, debate between them, reveals the best of the theories. But holocaust deniers are not students or scholars, they are liars whose deceptive artifice becomes apparent under the light of truth and whose logic is only ever fallacious.
Look, I honestly wouldn't give a holocaust denier the time of day either.
But to deny my ideological other any space in my classroom would accomplish two things counter to the pursuit of truth: 1. kill debate so the truth can't be measured against anything; 2. make me and my students dogmatic.
As the saying goes: if you don't know the other side of the argument, you don't know either side of the argument.

Gun control Propaganda Examined

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Mon, 21 May 2018 02:01:00 +0000

A facebook reply I decided to post here instead of with the liberal friend.

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/998315679844618240

I'm just looking at these and finding out if they're true.  Some of them aren't very balanced.

1. No background check required for "private" sales: true, but that's actually pretty standard US-wide because the state has no way to effectively know when a private sale takes place.  A friend can sell/give a gun to a friend (or anyone, really) and the only way the govt would know is if they were honest enough to report it themselves.  There's a lot of selling of cars that also goes on without the govt being able to do much about it.  Also, it's important to remember that "private" is a special legal term here and its opposite is NOT "public" like you might expect.  Private just means someone too small fry to need a license to sell.  I'm sure some abuse the category and avoid needing a license, but the vast majority of gun sales and sellers are licensed and ARE required to do background checks on all sales.

2. No licenses/registration for gun owners: true, but it's not clear to me how that would help or how such would be used.  There are a great many deadly products we don't see fit to require a permit for or registration of in our society. The idea that guns are machines meant solely to kill may make it seem obvious that this puts them in a category that we should license for, but upon scrutiny, cars aren't and yet we do, so there must be some other criteria for licensure/registration. The theory under which most states don't require these measures is that a person has a right to defend self, family, and property with whatever tool deemed necessary and govt has no right to interfere. I'd like to hear thoughts.

3. No requirement to report lost/stolen guns: true, but again there's no requirement to report lost or stolen meds, vehicles, etc. which could be equally dangerous. By what principle would we create a special category for a self-defense tool?

4. No law limiting multiple purchase: true, but only a handful of states have such limits.  TX does, however, have a reporting law in place on some kinds of guns so that someone attempting to buy more than one of that type within a short period sends a red flag to authorities.

5. No state license required for dealers: true but completely disingenuous.  TX doesn't have one because it finds the FEDERAL one adequate, as do most states.  All non-"private" gun sellers in TX must be licensed.

6. No law regulating possession or transfer of "assault" weapons: true but largely a question of style that doesn't engage the real question of substance. The features that make a weapon "assault" in the military sense are not available to the public by federal law. There are semi-automatic weapons available which mimic the military styles, but when you ban them by substantive feature rather than look, you end up with mostly the current federal ban anyway.

7. No requirement to keep sales and background check records: see #5. Federal law already requires no-"private" sellers to keep records of sales and background checks indefinitely.

8. Somebody is killed with a gun every 8 hours in TX: I didn't check this one, but I'm guessing that they included suicides and accidents to pad this statistic.  For an apples to apples comparison in which we are asking about violent acts perpetrated upon others, the statistic is much lower.  For some comparison, however, the rate of homicide by gun in Chicago (which is exclusively urban, which introduces another variable, and can't also control all the gun laws in surrounding states/localities, so not strictly apples to apples either, but still), with a much stricter approach to gun laws, is orders of magnitude higher per capita.

Thank you for the chance to inform myself, read a few things from sources I don't politically agree with, and gain a better understanding of the details of the issue at hand.  My conclusion from all this is that there are many ideas for how to regulate gun ownership better that deserve discussion.  I'm not persuaded that most of these measures would be anything more than an inconvenience to law-abiding people and would tend to deny the right they would otherwise have to the tool of self-defense they find suits their conditions unmolested by arbitrary govt impositions.  However, I'm open to discussion on them.

On the other hand, as a scholar of rhetoric, it's hard for me not to soundly condemn this video.  The purpose of its litany of compact statements is to depict TX as a place of wanton violence, the wild west, where lawmakers don't take any obvious measures to restrain the tools of violence.  But each point is either a careful distortion to hide the full context, a primrose path to a conclusion that wouldn't really solve what it claims, or a baseless apples to oranges comparison.  My experience with TX is that it's a place full of love, life, and many acts of kindness with excellent educators, legislators, and law enforcement authorities working to keep a criminal minority from disturbing the civilized peace that the vast majority experiences, who base their daily routines on an expectation that it will continue.

Political Correctness vs. Respect For One's Political Opponents

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 15:40:00 +0000

University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson has become something of a youtube sensation for his hardline stance against political correctness and its divisive and liberty-curtailing logic. When asked by a fellow panelist on Bill Maher's profanity-encouraged HBO talk show, Real Time, how he squares this seeming promotion of offending with a concern he voices about giving American Trump-supporters an off-ramp in the event that Trump is impeached or otherwise removed from office, he seems to fumble the logic football a little.

How I would have responded?

Liberals choose to believe in an ideology that confines individuals to groups with assigned collective grievances. Their choice leads them to believe that anyone calling into question those grievances or their assignment to a given group can only do so out of a hatred of that group even though that hatred may be disguised to varying degrees. It is completely consistent with this choice of core beliefs to virtue-signal frequently--to pat oneself on the back for one's morality and intelligence by seeing through the disguise and boldly proclaiming the inherent evil of the motives of one's ideological opponent. The virtue-signaling is accomplished in the same stroke as the condemnation of hatred, thereby, to use Peterson's phrase, "weaponizing compassion" as an effective ideological bludgeon. If a conservative stands up for the idea of freedom of expression, it can only be part of the disguise--only because he wants to defend nefarious motives. The logic is entirely circular, each assumption seeming to confirm the correctness of the last without ever actually examining it or seeking external verification.

Conservatives, on the other hand, choose to believe in an ideology that celebrates individuality and seeks to limit the power of governmental forces constraining individual liberty to the most local level possible--a society of one if possible. Their choice leads them to believe that anyone calling into question that freedom is either misled about the consequences of concentrating power--in which case the remedy is respect of the other's liberty, and taking the care to demonstrate by counter-argument the logical flaws leading to the misconception--or is cynically maneuvering to hold that power for themselves--in which case the remedy is not to convince the power-seeker, but the broader group whose power the power-seeker seeks, via the same care to demonstrate by counter-argument the logical flaws leading to the undoing of the illusion. In other words, conservatives don't impugn motives, but rather attack bad ideas in recognition of the people's inherent goodness and moral agency. Conservatives that attack liberals ad hominem rather than attacking liberal ideas ad ideis are acting either in abuse of their own principles, or in defense against ad hominem attacks fighting fire with fire.

The theory liberals hold in perfect consistency with the core ideas of their ideology, not in abuse of them, is not only weak--since no conservatives would recognize themselves in a liberal "explanation" of their motives, the "theory" liberals hold about conservative motives doesn't actually explain the phenomena it purports to--but circular because it the presumption of ill-intent is a self-fulfilling prophecy priming the intellectual pump to filter out counter examples, and see all evidence of well-doing as merely a more clever veneer for the suspected hatred in the conservative heart. And it is not only an error of circular logic that leads liberals to demonize conservatives, but, as it gathers critical mass, it is therefore also liberal ideology that is the root cause of political polarization and divisiveness.

Conservatives are perfectly consistent in opposing the force and imposition that political correctness seeks to impose on individuals while at the same time opposing the divisive impugning of the motives of conservatives as somehow inherently racist, bigoted, sexist, homophobic, or whatever other false stereotype with which they seek to brand the only ideology that truly respects the freedom of all races, creeds, genders and orientations, because ours is the only one that doesn't aim for any group to assign grievances or even membership to any other. Only when liberals are able to see this consistency will they be able to break out of their circular set of assumptions and truly evaluate ideas and the motivations of people for what and who they are.

Sigh

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 16:48:00 +0000

We interrupt this gun-fetishist fantasy to remind you that the reason a trained & capable police officer had to shoot & kill a child is because the child was able to get a gun & bring it to school.
Also: The armed police officer's presence did not deter the child from doing so.
— Jon Zal (@OfficialJonZal) March 20, 2018

Um...Actually, we interrupt this dangerously naive virtue-signaling fantasy to remind you that the reason a trained and capable police officer could prevent the deaths of the innocent children around him was because he had the proper tool to defend them.

Also: Neither Maryland's current prohibition on guns in schools, nor current federal laws prohibiting handgun sales to minors deterred the child evildoer from bringing a gun to school.  Only the gun in the hands of the good guy prevented more blood on the hands of the bad guy.

Le Pen:Trump::French Conservatism:American Conservatism?? Hardly!

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Tue, 30 May 2017 17:00:00 +0000

Quick post on the false equivalency that the ignorant or the agenda-driven blithely draw between what they see as a rise of populism in Europe and Trump's populist rhetoric and victory here in the US. A few caveats to consider before concluding they're the same thing:
1. Trump is not a conservative, but tapped into the vast electoral power of a few key conservative ideas--not because he understands them properly, or argues them effectively, but because the electorate trusted that he could deliver on the results they want. Conservatism is above all an ideology which values results and evidence over utopian ideals and "war on poverty"-esque promises that deliver no measurable improvements despite decades of money thrown at problems. American Conservative intellectuals almost all had one of two reactions to the Trump nomination: a. he's not a Conservative but could deliver on our vision for the country than the other nominee, therefore we'll hold our nose; b. never Trump.
2. Le Pen is not a conservative. She's less progressive than the French Left, but seeks to centralize power every bit as much as the Left does, just to different ends.
American Conservatism proper is about conserving what? Self-determination.
In Europe, that core idea of the purpose of political organization, of limiting government to the most local level possible, of keeping it out of the way of liberty except for the bare structures of order and security required for equal exchanges and access to opportunity to exist, has been warped over the generations. When they use the word "right wing" or "far right", they are instead referring to an ideal of an illusory cultural "purity" that political organizations must protect and prioritize. The European right operates on the populist flattery that claims a one-to-one mapping of culture to territory, labels traits by belonging or not to that territory, and finds a "solution" to all of society's ills in handing power over to a small group who promises to purge the outside influences whose unfair competition is the reason the "people" aren't getting what they "deserve". In case you haven't taken sufficient care in the reading of the previous sentence to notice the red flags, it's a narrative remarkably consistent with Marxism--the only exception being that Marxist populism targets upper classes, rather than foreign cultural elements.
This is not to say that there is no overlap between American and European Conservatism, and this is also not to say that there aren't real forces of globalism and real economic and (especially supra-national) governmental pressures brought to bear upon Western societies that Conservatism universally reacts against. However, when your "conservative" principles come out of a claim to an unbroken connection, centuries old, between your culture and your rights, then what you're looking to "conserve" tends toward a fascistic sort of nationalism that would subordinate your individual freedom for the collective culture's centrally planned benefit. And that's NOT the American idea.
America's Conservatives aren't trying to protect a MONOLITHIC culture, despite what their critics might claim, but instead define "culture" openly, as a condition of freedom of individual and community expression, so as to include the products, practices, and perspectives of a great multiplicity of "cultures" that in other places of the world are more or less bound by their geographies.
The French can hardly be blamed, though, for failing to see the saving core of individual freedom as a possibility, and therefore for looking to populist figures to be their champions--their economy has been more than 50% controlled by the public sector for at least two generations. Many have no idea what liberty really looks like.

Charges and Evidence

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 16:17:00 +0000

Democrats and the Left are up in arms over the silencing of Senator Elizabeth Warren. She read from a 1986 Coretta Scott King letter which was opposed to Jeff Sessions who was then before the Senate Judiciary Committee as a candidate for a federal judgeship. In the letter, King focuses on conduct and her own opinion of its consequences, by saying that Sessions had used his power as a prosecuting attorney to "intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot" and furthermore, to "intimidate and frighten elderly black voters" (full letter here). Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, invoked rule 19 prohibiting the direct or indirect maligning of a fellow Senator's character to stop Warren's speech.

I personally don't think Warren's recent use of Coretta Scott King's words rises to the level of impugning character. People are allowed to have opinions, even wrong ones.

What strikes me, however, is the media and the Left's reaction. A representative example comes from King's alma mater, Antioch College, whose VP for Diversity and Inclusion, who is also the director of the campus's Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom issued a statement the day after, objecting to the invocation of rule 19 (which is fair) on the grounds that no woman should ever be silenced for any reason.

We rebuke any and all attempts to silence women. And we encourage all women to continue to use their voices to demand equality and justice.

The charge that Sessions is a racist actively attempting to suppress the black vote is a serious one, to be sure. By extension, the charge that McConnell and the entire GOP establishment is sexist is also a serious one. The demonization of the political opposition seems the standard modus operandi of the Left, who are quick to believe every evidence of their own assumptions of political opponents' motives, without seemingly ever entertaining the thought that the weight of the evidence should count more than the seriousness of the charge, or that their own assumptions about what motivates others might itself be the root cause of ill-will, calumny, and divisiveness. It's striking then, but not surprising, that in the CSKC denunciation of the Senate's silencing of both Warren and King, no questioning of the substance of the charges, no investigation of the truth at issue, and no balance whatsoever in presenting facts is the order of the day.

The questions never asked, but only concluded upon, include these:

Is it true that Sessions is a racist black vote suppressor? On what grounds can we call him that? Is there merit to that characterization?
Is it true that Warren is being silenced because of her gender, or is it because of the content of her words going beyond the bounds of the rules? On what grounds can we judge that? Is there merit to the accusations of sexism?

In the Media's rush to keep the silencing of Warren and of a Civil Rights icon on the front page, they have multiplied the angles of attack, but at each turn, if you ask the pertinent questions about the merits of the charges, and the evidence, there's always something missing from the Media narrative:

Rule 19 was created to prevent fisticuffs, and is rarely invoked ERGO McConnell and the GOP are whiny sexist bigots, snuffing out a woman's speech under false pretenses that it rises to violence-inciting personal insult.
EXCEPT that Senator Warren has been allowed to speak within the exact same time and decorum limits as all her male Senator counterparts since her admission to the Senate, as has ever other female Senator. There's no evidence to the contrary anywhere else in the Senate record. If they were really sexist women silencers from the beginning, their record is remarkably ineffective, since they take almost no occasion to silence either her or any other female co-legislator.
Sessions prosecuted a voter fraud case in 1984 that he lost, in which a black defendant was found not guilty of tampering with absentee ballots ERGO he and the GOP are racists and serial abusers of power.
EXCEPT that the accusing party was ALSO black, and BOTH parties were Democrat, and a majority black Grand Jury impaneled based on similar complaints of fraud against the same defendant in a previous Democrat primary election found grounds to move the case forward.

Even in more in-depth "serious" media investigations into the reasoning behind King's letter, like that of the NYT, conveniently elide the fact that the case was black on black, Democrat on Democrat, and that Sessions' role was to prosecute against voter fraud to PREVENT voter suppression, not the opposite, as they claim.

King wrote a letter, yes, but a balanced study of its content reveals that it too was a partisan charge with no merit--she was merely a partisan for the defendant in the case, finding common cause with him on Civil Rights issues, but having no personal knowledge of whether or not he had committed the frauds alleged against him. Her letter amounts to 9 pages of guilt-by-association, with copious amounts of her own credential stroking, name-dropping, Civil rights history re-telling, and barely a scant 2 paragraphs on the fact that Sessions was the prosecuting attorney on the opposite side of her chosen champion as the only logical grounds on which she felt he should be disqualified from further federal service.

There's no there there.

The CSKC statement only confirms its own assumptions with its own assumptions when it finds the link between silencing women and suppressing votes symptomatic of a nonexistent desire of all Republicans everywhere to deny basic freedoms to women and minorities, when it points out that:

What happened on the Senate floor yesterday eerily resembles the sentiments expressed in Mrs. King’s letter.

Instead, what's really eerie, is how deeply the Left believes spurious charges just because they fit its own narrative with zero critical reflection on the weight of the evidence. What happened in the reaction to what happened on the Senate floor demonstrates that this facile demonizing, conclusion-leaping, judgmental Left must deny or distort truth in order to hold onto its beliefs.

Luckily for the Right, some of us still seek truth, still don't believe charges until firm and trustworthy evidence is before our eyes, and still question assumptions, even our own.

The Irony of a "Fix" for "Fake News"

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Sat, 28 Jan 2017 05:02:00 +0000

Without any sense whatsoever of his own irony, Imgur user WildYucatanMan wanted to do the world a service and make a handy dandy infographic to "help" people distinguish between the various editorial orientations of popular online sources. Here's his take on the media outlet scene:

If you get lost in the weeds of his content, you might be tempted to note the ostensible effort toward balance and some kind of rationale for placing outlets along spectra according to ideology and journalistic depth. And while arguing with WildYucatanMan's judgment about which outlets are obviously in the wrong place is certainly also fair game, it's missing the ironic point entirely.

This infographic is not the ANTIDOTE for fake news, it's the PRIME EXAMPLE of why fake news is a problem to begin with!

Did you notice that there's no one signing his/her actual name to the grid? An anonymous source is by definition disreputable until vetted, is it not? Even if the anonymous source claims to want to help you navigate the reputability of your sources. If reputation is the key currency of journalism, shouldn't it begin with signing your own name to what you claim is objective truth you stand behind? Isn't that a minimum requirement for the kind of accountability to corroborating OR debunking voices we need in public discourse? No dialog is possible with Mr. Anonymous, and therefore neither is there trust possible in his credibility.

And about sources: did you notice that there were none offered to substantiate any claims to any placement of any of the outlets along any of the purportedly rational axes? Even journalists know better than to make a claim without at least some kind of reference to a judgment beyond their own, and that's giving most journalists too much credit toward their pretenses to objectivity.

Finally, and this one's the kicker, whether or not you're staking your own reputation on your claims to truth, and whether or not you're seeking independent confirmation of your judgment before publishing, there's still the biggest issue underlying the infographic: the real question isn't whether media outlets reputable or not, the real question is WHO DECIDES? If you trust someone else to define for you which outlets are not to be trusted, you've already given up both your objectivity AND your freedom to judge for yourself. It takes exposure to multiple perspectives to form a balanced opinion. It takes personal skill at reading deeply and effectively, both for the main content and for what's between the lines, to learn the truth in its proper context. Strong readers aren't undermined by the existence of alternative narratives, even when there's disagreement on basic facts, because it only strengthens their understanding.

Bottom line: if you need someone (read: a "helpful" condescending elitist) to label your news sources for you, you're the kind of reader that's susceptible to the manipulation of "fake news".

Addendum: after a little digging, I found the source and a reasoning behind the placement in the infographic. It originated from a patent lawyer named Vanessa Otero. She reasons well, and writes even better, but skews left and either seems unaware of her slant, or seems not to mind that such a slant doesn't serve objectivity. With that said, even she admits she's no media watchdog expert and she's done no actual research and therefore her reasoning amounts to summary judgment--based on detailed criteria, but summary and subjective nonetheless.

Here's her post explaining her "methodology": http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/?p=65

Women's Rights and Imagined Slights

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 05:35:00 +0000

President Trump has said some inexcusable things about women and has bragged about doing some inexcusable things to/with women. I roundly condemn his words and actions for the repulsive and deeply offensive things they are. I teach my girls not to give the time of day to any boys with such attitudes about women, and I teach my son never to indulge such attitudes himself.

This post isn't about that.

Instead, it's about why (mostly Democrat) women are protesting in massive numbers in the streets around the country today. Do they have a right to speak their mind and protest whatever they choose? Absolutely! And just what is it they're upset enough to travel and march together about?

Here's a short video outlining their reasons, from their own publicity materials (sorry, Blogger won't let me embed video directly from a non Youtube url...grr):

https://www.facebook.com/womensmarchonwash/videos/1407285932618015/

1. I want to feel safe at school - I can't tell where the emphasis should be here: on the physical safety or on the feeling of safety. No one, not even a president of the US, can change your feelings one way or another, because those are yours alone to manage, even as a child. But if it's BEING physically safe at school that you'd like, what about a Trump presidency would threaten that? Do you honestly believe Trump wants children not to be safe at school? I get that your irrational fear of a tool that deserves respect for its ability to kill instantaneously at a range might make you worry about Trump's stance on guns in schools, but when you can allow rationality to govern your thinking on the topic, you'll find that you're much safer with trained officers and teachers defending you armed with the same ranged weapon of instaneous death as the would-be perpetrators of such violence are. For those concerned about reducing gun violence in schools, you should applaud his inauguration, because his policy is likely to do just that.

2. Because I'm a feminist and that's not a dirty word - For many women it is, but even if you define feminism broadly as a movement supporting equality of opportunity under the law for women, what about a Trump presidency would threaten that? Do you honestly believe Trump wants to take America's women rights to self-determinacy away? On equality of pay as an example issue, you should applaud his inauguration, because he agrees with you.

3. Because my life matters (black woman), and my life matters (black woman with British accent), and so does hers (East Asian woman pointing to her unborn child) - First of all, it's curiously hypocritical of them to insist an unborn child's life matters when the march specifically excluded pro-life groups who have been saying that for at least 44 years now. Secondly, what about a Trump presidency would threaten that? Do you honestly believe Trump intends to enforce the law differently or deny your constitutional rights based on your race? If you want your visible minority group to gain in prosperity and opportunity in an environment of peace and security, you should be applauding Trump's inauguration, because he agrees with you.

4. Because a bathroom doesn't define me (a transgender male) - If the bathroom wasn't important to how you define yourself or how you want to be defined by others, why did you so carefully and expensively recraft your body and have doctors perform extensive operations to alter your body to fit the physical norms you think correspond to those very same bathrooms? There would be no fight to open up access to bathrooms to any new class of people if the definition implied by access to that bathroom weren't of CENTRAL importance to your desired projection of identity. Because bathrooms define you, you fight tooth and nail to claim access to your preferred bathroom as a fundamental human right. But aside from the baldfaced distortion in the assertion, I ask again: what about a Trump presidency would threaten that? Do you honestly believe Trump wants to dictate bathroom policy? You should be applauding his inauguration, not protesting, because he agrees with you.

5. Because diversity is beautiful - Who disagrees with that? Not Trump, whose inaugural address you should applaud for at least these lines:

It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.

And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty Creator.

6. Because my grandmother fought for the right to vote (black woman) - I'm going to let the above quote stand and just assert that Trump seeks to deny no woman or person of any color the right to vote, except in cases where a court has stripped a felon of that right in consequence of their proven criminal actions.

7. Because I came from a family of immigrants. I don't know where I would be if they weren't afforded that opportunity - So did Trump! And if you want to preserve opportunities for immigrants to thrive in this nation because they've come through the front door in compliance with our laws, ready to integrate into our society and contribute as full partners with American citizens, having a pathway to citizenship for themselves and their children, then you should applaud the inauguration of Trump because he agrees with you.

8. Because women deserve equal pay for equal work, duh. - Already dealt with. Your protest movement is not looking like its substance is very contrary to Trump's positions, at this point.

9. Because of my moms - Again, key question: what about a Trump presidency do you think would threaten that? Do you honestly believe Trump wishes to deny consenting adults of their right to cohabitate, and to care for children with full legal protection under family law? If that's what you want, you should be applauding the inauguration of Trump, because he agrees with you.

10. This country has always been about freedom (muslim woman in hijab) - While a worry about the ban on new muslim immigration and registry for Muslims he proposed during the campaign is rational, it is no longer substantial, and comes from a place of confusion on his ideas in the first place. Trump's focus is not on Islam, but on RADICAL Islam, is not on law-abiding citizens of any religion, but about security screening for terrorists potentially infiltrating the US under cover of asylum seeking, as they publicly stated they would do. On the other hand, if what you're after is a place where citizens of all religions and backgrounds can enjoy freedom and prosperity together, you should applaud the inauguration of Trump, who agrees with you in the following words:

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.

11. Because no means no - I have no personal love for Trump. I've done work in this post to undo the irrational romanticization of imagined threats he poses to human rights, women's rights especially, but Trump's heinous remarks about touching private parts without permission are despicable. To the extent this man normalizes a machismo that promotes sexual assault in any degree, I join WITH the protesters to decry him. I wish a woman who has been assaulted in this way, if any were, would come forward with proof and formally charge him so that he can face justice, as we all should for similar crimes. At the moment, however, he is as yet uncharged with any such crimes, and we must proceed as if his braggadocio was baseless, since he is innocent until proven guilty as are we all, even if the charges are serious.

12. Because I want to smash the glass ceiling - By all means go even further than KellyAnn Conway!

13. 'Cause I want to be president one day - You go girl! No one, least of all Trump, is stopping you! (Although, if recent history serves, I'd suggest running as a Republican. Democrats don't seem to elect their women to such high office.)

14. Because I want to march forward, not backward (actress, non historian) - Don't worry, Trump can't reverse chronology. You're safe in that regard. However, if by that you mean that you want him to endorse your interpretation of how history progresses, you may be in for a few disappointments, but no substantial reversals of civil rights.

15. Because I want my voice to be heard (another celebrity, I think) - I hear you! And while it's not a constitutional right to be HEARD, you can rest assured that your right to SPEAK and express protest (or anything else) in any way you choose as long as it doesn't deny others their similar rights is AOK with Trump, as evidenced by the fact that he didn't stop your march.

16. Because I'm not scared of bullies (Chelsea Handler, potty-mouthed nude selfie instagrammer who regularly verbally bullies people who don't think like her because she's a brash comedian) - and long may both you and your haters exercise your right to verbally abuse whoever you please, in all its glorious crassness and obscenity for whatever fee your cable channel wishes to charge for as long as subscribers will freely pay for it. Trump certainly won't stand in your way. I won't subscribe, but I won't stand in your way either.

17. Because I can't breathe - You should definitely see a doctor about that, not Trump.

18. Because love wins - Wait. Are you citing Trump? Sounds similar in sentiment to his inaugural speech's closing paragraphs, among which the following (emphasis mine):

Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.

19. If I can march, so can you (handicapped person, chronologically enhanced) - Yes, but I choose not to. Of 19 points you promote as reasons to march, only 1 or 2 have a truthful leg to stand on against what Trump actually promotes as policy. In reality, you're not protesting substance, you're a symptom of the media's scary power to make you believe the illusions it thinks will serve the kind of division it needs, not just for the sale of its services, but for the Liberalism it promotes. Your critique is all sound and fury, signifying nothing, but serving a divisive, centralizing, authoritarian, elitist agenda.

If you want power back, people, then conservativism--and to the extent Trump supports that, then Trump's presidency--is your best bet.

Malliteracy: when literate people willfully read poorly

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 03:48:00 +0000

I remember having to sit in a required course taught by an English professor, on the theory and history of Empire. As a first reading, he assigned a post-911 State of the Union speech by Bush, and then had us listen to the most recent one for comparison, since it was right about that time in January. He was right to note that these kinds of inauguration and SOTU speeches for a sort of genre unto themselves that historians and scholars of rhetoric like to review and appreciate the nuances of. Genres are funny things--over time and by weight of example they gather sets of conventional rules that each instance variously obeys and flouts, thereby growing and redefining the genre itself.

However, as he was asking us what we thought about the most recent one, I kept my comments to myself for fear I'd have to defend them publicly (which I wasn't fully prepared for a the time). I've always suffered from Voltaire's famous "esprit d'escalier" where the steaming retort or the brilliant rejoinder doesn't occur to me until I'm halfway down the stairs on my way out of the party--I should have blurted out "It was a great speech, if you believed it." That way, everyone could have had a good laugh thinking I was speaking in solidarity with their critical stance on the speech's content, because the hypothetical framing would have broadcast an ironic tone, even though, on the face of the words themselves, the word "if" could lend support to either interpretation. In truth, I was leaving them to their own assumptions, and carefully concealing my own opinion on the matter--I, in fact, believed the speech and therefore found it quite compelling.

The problem is that to "believe" the speech, you had to take the words in context for what they actually meant, and not assume everything was code for something else. This is a dangerous position to take, both in academic and in conspiracy-theory circles (which, in my experience, are very often very hard to distinguish!), because if you publicly call for it, everyone in the room immediately mistakes your call for a surface literalism, and you wind up cast as the dummy unable to see the deep structure underneath the surface, like they all can. There's something psychologically satisfying about thinking of yourself as more informed/smarter than someone else, I suppose, since pride is such a pervasive part of the human condition. However, it's not superficial literalism at all to insist that words mean things, and that their context is important. It's not uncritical to suspend judgment until AFTER you've made an honest attempt at objectivity. In fact, it's the ONLY interpretive move that actually uncovers truth--you have to temporarily disable your value judgment faculties DURING a time of study so that your own biases don't distort the truth of the text. Re-engage them after the study is complete, by all means, but now at least you'll do so in an informed manner.

I get that this principle is difficult to apply, because human beings all come with their own biases. And sometimes those biases are subconscious, and therefore cannot be consciously disengaged before interpreting language (or other signs). What's worse is that with Trump it seems triply hard--his public immorality, brashly personal aggressiveness, and ill-speaking of anyone who paints him in an unflattering light have earned him many personal critics, and the personal forms another layer to penetrate before objectivity can have its sway.

However, truth is still left unserved when opinion columnists pronounce upon his inauguration speech with these prejudicial blinders of personal animus on.

George Will, for example, apparently unaware of his own conceit, declares the speech dreadful. His evidence? Trump referenced the challenges in America that he'd like the people to overcome during his presidency in hyperbolic terms like "American carnage" and "rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape". Never mind that the "American carnage" phrase came in the context of the devastating trap of poverty which prevents too many, despite all the opportunities in this great nation, from benefiting to their potential--to which loss of potential, the word "carnage" seems quite apt, as hyperbolic metaphors go. Never mind that Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Dayton, and Indianapolis--just to mention a representative few--have been referring to the steady loss of the steel-related industrial backbone of their broad economic swath as a "rust belt" for at least 30 years--making "rusted out factories" like economic "tombstones" quite apt, as hyperbolic imagery goes.

Will decries the lost chance to "serve national unity and confidence" in a speech whose introductory sentence (directly after the personal thanks to the oath of office administrators) objectively and directly does just that:

We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people.

In fact, for one oft criticized as an ego-driven megalomaniac, the speech was remarkably self-effacing, with a much higher ratio of "we" to "I" references than any president in recent memory.
Perhaps Will, in his insufferable elitism (he did win a Pulitzer once, you know), was just disappointed because Trump didn't make the prescribed genuflections Will thought he should. But that's no excuse to distort, or completely mishear the message in the words.

Bender does the same, although with less personal pomposity, essentially claiming the ideas and their framing, which were very much objectively unifying, were the opposite. To bolster his own claim, weakened as it is by his recent adherence to the Bloomberg editorial line, rather than the Wall Street Journal's, where he currently writes, he resorts to trotting out a litany of historians and former presidential speech writers, including some never-Trumpers from conservative camps to give an air of legitimacy. But the critique, no matter its agents, can only do so in the absence of the speech itself, which puts the lie to all of it.

For example, Bender cites historian Dallek complaining that Trump's speech had no "hint" of a "sense of shared purpose and national reconciliation" in the paragraph immediately following this citation from the inaugural itself:

We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny. The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.

Even if their own bias renders them blind to their own internal contradictions, do these people not have editors able to point this out before they go to print? No hinting required--the sense of shared purpose and reconciliation involved in affirming an oath to represent ALL Americans is the very core of the message.

But it's only a speech of national unity and shared purpose if you believe it--that is to say, if you turn off your negative assumptions before beginning the process of interpreting the message for what it is.

And look, please criticize, read between the lines, and speak truth to power with all the force of your informed intellect. But don't insult the intelligence of those reading the meaning of the words for what they are with your prejudicial and contradictory claptrap. Will and Bender, and a great many others of the leftist persuasion, are suffering from an ideological ailment that prevents truth from penetrating otherwise brilliantly literate minds. They can read the words, but their understanding refuses delivery.

I coin it: malliteracy

Here's the full text. Read neutrally, it begins and ends with a hopeful tone, labels challenges starkly, but offers hope through them, gives deference to God, and appeals to all Americans to take power back to themselves, to whom it constitutionally belongs in this great experiment in republican rule of law, and to work together, with unity in purpose and shared benefit, toward a brighter future. See for yourself.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-inaugural-address/index.html

Reversing Reich Rhetoric

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 02:14:00 +0000

An FB post from a friend claiming this video as an Econ and Politics 101 primer prompts my point-by-point rebuttal below:

Reich is the king of cherry-picked half-truth and the twice-spun straw-man argument, even when he's accurate on his facts (which he's not always--that part often turns out to be "selective" too, and usually missing proper contextualization).  Conservatives think that leaving more earnings in the hands of the earners makes sense, so yes, low taxes.  Conservatives think that regulation should be done from the local level up, not from the federal level down, so yes, fewer regulations.  But low wages has NEVER been part of the Conservative economic argument, instead the argument is that when employers are free to let the market choose the wages, wages tend to settle HIGHER.

TX and KS are 25 and 26 for average income in 2014, CA was 3, that much is true (although 25-26 are NOT bottom of the barrel, by any stretch).  But, now ask how that translates into cost of living: TX is 13th and KS 15th for purchasing power, CA ranks 40th for 2015.  In other words, Reich is starting his argument upside down--the high wages in CA are overbalanced by low purchasing power, and TX and KS give their citizens, on balance, more bang for the buck.

KS economic growth has been slow, he's not wrong, but it's a non sequitur, because economic growth has many other factors, and because even in lower economic growth conditions, purchasing power is still higher there, as shown earlier.  Also, by cherry-picking growth as his sole indicator he ignores that the unemployment rate has dwindled to nearly half the national average.

And for the conservative answer to CA's supposed growth spurt, another National Review article, where context paints a fuller picture, provides the answer: CA did well, but TX and other red states still have good indicators.

Now, from there is where he gets really bizarre: states invest? Certainly they spend tax money on education, but let's ask my grad school buddy in a CA publicly funded institution how hers compares with the nation: she'll tell you that it's CHRONICALLY underfunded.  States DO invest, but they invest much more POORLY than private parties do, because it's not their own skin in the game they're risking.  And the worst of the poppycock is this: why is it assumed that just because Conservatives don't want GOVT to be the investing party, that somehow Reich can conclude that conservatives don't want the investment in people AT ALL??  In KS and TX, the investments ARE made--small business growth in KS, for example, in a previously cited article, is evidence that Kansans invest in projects that THEY think will be productive and worthwhile to others.  How is that NOT an investment in people?

On protecting the beauty of the state, Reich is overstepping yet again, on two levels: 1. KS and TX both have strict environmental protection laws in place, and are homes for high concentrations of staunch conservationists--it's a longtime liberal lark that conservatives somehow want to live with dirty air, water, and land, and don't appreciate nature; 2. CA has gone so far off the deep end with overly protective environmentalist rules that they create real man-made disasters for humans--the recent drought is cyclical, and population growth was predictable, but environmentalists obstructed every proposals for new reservoirs for 30+ years, so when the drought hit, there wasn't enough water for the human beings.

CA doesn't invest in people, it invests in govt programs which often aren't interested in the people they're supposed to care about at all.

Now as every good rhetorician does, Reich throws in a "in fairness" statement to make a show of his own objectivity before he attempts to blow even the fair point out of the water, to make you think his argument is even more bullet-proof.  But he's not counting on you to stop and think about the rhetorical sleight of hand he's pulled: he claims TX hasn't diversified enough because its govt doesn't make "adequate investments", but it's not TX that makes investments at ALL, but rather TEXANS.  Why should a state govt be deciding for anyone which part of private industry to support with tax money?  Govt's role is NOT to invest in a private business, or even in a private industry, but rather to promote investment by others by ensuring a level economic playing field, and by getting out of the way.  If the economy is a competition, govt is the ref, NOT the coach, despite Reich's illegitimate and unconstitutional wish to see the ref pick a side.

Happy to see, though, that Reich seems to finally agree with Conservatives that federated union of states allows them to function as a laboratory for experiments in administration.  I know it's disingenuous (Reich is a solid socialist who doesn't actually believe states should function separately at all, but instead should be controlled by a managed economy run from a central location), but he demonstrates the effectiveness of that conservative idea even when attempting an (ill-formed) argument against others.

Southern Poverty Hypocrisy Cecity

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 13:44:00 +0000

Quick post today. A friend with good intentions posted a list of 10 things we can do to combat hate published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC here. It's got some good suggestions for empowering people when something truly racist or bigoted happens in their communities. However, while failing miserably to maintain a veneer of objective neutrality, it let slip the following belly-laugh-inspiring list of criteria exposing its massive leftist leaning, apparently with complete blindness to its own hypocrisy:

Though their views may be couched in code words, members of hate groups typically share these extremist views:

• They want to limit the rights of certain groups.

• They want to divide society along racial, ethnic or religious lines.

• They believe in conspiracies.

• They try to silence any opposition.

• They are antigovernment and fundamentalist.

By their own definition, even with the most charitable reading of the criteria, the SPLC hits on 4/5 of its own criteria for classification as a hate group.

Swing State Sophistry - Hillary's Play to Short Memories and Slipshod Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 15:45:00 +0000

Living in a swing state has its ups and downs--no pun intended. But swings work best when the ropes aren't twisted. Here's how to untwist the latest national ads targeted to Ohio and the like.

The children! Hillary cares about the children! Children are our future. They're innocent. They need protection, and if you're on the fence about who to vote for, this is Clinton's play to make you think she's the person to do it. She's been working at it her whole life, apparently. We have footage of her talking about making sure the future's bright for all children, all the while implying that her political opponent is not. Well, if he's not anti-children, then at least he's a racist xenophobe who doesn't want success in life for "all" children like Hillary does.

Does this stuff actually convince anybody? There's no content in this ad, only branding. There's no concrete ideas on how to protect children and give them their best chances in life, just footage of her asserting that it's important.

What are Mrs. Clinton's ideas on how to protect children and give them there best chances in life? Well, for those interested, she wrote an entire book on the subject: It Takes a Village. Although she makes many points that family-values conservatives would find familiar, their purpose is carefully distorted. The main premises of the book are that families are important to a child's development (sound good so far?); that families are not isolated, but embedded into communities which help in areas where individual families are not sufficient for the needs of the children (still sound okay?); and that the federal government's role is to provide for the needs of all the families who don't fit its norm and enforce its own standards within communities because families can't do it all, and because the children's future doesn't really belong to the parents anyway, but to society, which the federal government represents (woah! If she had come out and said that in the ad, there'd be little support!).

Hillary Clinton's main political philosophy--her ideas--are inverted. Rather than conceiving of a limited government that provides a guarantee of the basic human rights of everyone so that parents are free to pursue their childrens' welfare and their own definition of happiness, Clinton wants to expand government so that it limits parental freedom to do so. She cleverly does it in the name of "standards" for the children, but its true focus is the concentration of power in federal hands.

Maybe that doesn't strike you as particularly dangerous. It should, but if you're on the fence and thinking "isn't supporting family leave, early intervention, welfare, and equality for all children, especially those who haven't had a great start to life or have a rough home situation a good thing?" the idea of a government stepping in for this kind of thing might sound good to you. And therein lies the big lie--you've been rooked into thinking her political opponents are against such. They're not, and never have been. The big difference is not in the debate on how to best support children and families, it's in who decides. Hillary wants the "standards" to be federally imposed. Conservatives support safety nets for those that have no other options, but we understand that no outside agency can remove responsibility for children's growth from the home. We understand that when the feds impose a "standard" it always at the cost of imposing an upper limit on opportunity. We want people to be free and prosperous so that they have the means to be charitable and support their communities. We want the government to support the prosperity by getting out of its way, and by allowing us to keep our earnings so we can support our local causes. Just because we don't think the feds should be the ones in charge of everything doesn't mean we don't support more local efforts and somehow don't think we should organize as a society for the support of the less fortunate. One of the underlying lies in this Hillary ad is that the federal government doesn't just represent society, but it is society, and has the right to make everyone's decisions for them.

Most importantly, conservatives are results-oriented, not utopian. We understand that progressivism produces the opposite of its stated intent. For example, Hilary touts 8 million children being added to health insurance rolls because of her Health Care reforms in the 90s. Do you remember how that was accomplished? It was the only success she could salvage from her bigger ask of universal health care. Congress wouldn't bite for that whole rotten enchilada, but they did submit to an incremental move: they would allow a law requiring health insurance companies to cover "children" of up to age 26 under their parents' policies. And what has been the result of this new law? Partly because more people were required to be covered, prices for insurance premiums have skyrocketed since the 90s, eventually creating part of the crisis into which disastrous and failing Obamacare stepped as a "solution". She may have helped cover 8 million people, but within a decade many times that number of children people were priced out of the health insurance market because of her policy of central imposition of "standards".

If instead you allow states, and more local forms of community decide on their own standards, you allow those closest to the problems, most aware of the needs, and most responsible and accountable to use the resources wisely to handle the issue. States that allow, for example, for competition between out-of-state insurance companies have lower premiums, and more poeple are insured for health care. Also, states which allow more choices in minimum coverage have lower premiums. When you let the people closest to the problem decide, rather than attempt to impose a federal "standard", the higher standards you are after get met better and faster. Get the government out of our families' way, let them keep more of their earnings to invest in their children as they will, and the children are better educated, better prepared for adult life, and make better citizens than where liberal collectivist threats of force bear sway.

Also, speaking of Health Care. This next ad touts Obamacare, among other things, as a triumph of bipartisan diplomacy and compromise. It's the perfect solution found by working together, which Trump, as a bombastic troglodyte of intransigence is, by implication, simply incapable of.

Here's the full ad:

First of all, does she really expect people to believe that a businessman with a $4B+ fortune to his name has no negotiation skill? Has no acumen for finding the best compromise among factions with competing interests so that their cooperative work can produce hotels, casinos, or bigger projects? If she's casting herself as a better deal-maker than Trump, she's got an uphill battle there.

But leaving that aside, she's simply factually wrong about how we got Obamacare passed. Democrats used a parliamentary trick to ram it through the Senate, which they controlled but still couldn't get through normal procedures with for lack of support. Then, they bought off the last senator or two, and voilà: a behemoth of epic failing proportions. Hilary expects us to believe this was an example of working together with the other side?

And how about her other examples: were we all together after 911? For the few weeks it took for Congress to get a resolution on war powers to the President, yes. And from that point on--after supporting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq--Hillary and the Democrats opposed Republicans with every tool in their arsenal and rode to power on the public amnesia about their cooperative "working together" with the GOP on support for the wars.

Finally, of course she wants to claim a treaty reducing Russia's nuclear arsenal as a personal success, because it was signed during her tenure as Secretary of State. But she's counting on us forgetting the details of the deal: we reduced double the amount Russia did, and Russia wasn't bound to any confirmation that they actually held up their end. In other words, the deal was binding on us, not on them. The deal was raw, and conservatives opposed it as such, but didn't have the votes to stop it.

Ultimately, we have to trust that ads like these will be seen for what they are, and that people will make wise choices about their leaders. I just wish Clinton would come out straight with her ideas, stop twisting her opponents' ideas as well as her own record, and just let the best ideas win. One thing is positive: our country needs and deserves better governing ideas.

Trump as the Moral Choice

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 02:59:00 +0000

A couple of articles I've read recently, as well as a number of "conservative" friends vowing to go third party on the grounds that Trump is an immoral candidate unworthy of support, or on the grounds that "voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil" have pushed me more toward full support of Trump's candidacy than ever.

I can't, of course, endorse the man. Final judgment doesn't belong to me, but I also can't turn off what I observe. If what he claims about himself is true, his moral compass is nowhere near aligned with mine, and his dubious sense of right makes me fear what he would do when it got coupled with the unmitigated might of the executive branch.

I can't, of course, endorse the political ideals. His positions on all the conservative ideals I hold dear and essential to the maintenance of liberty in this great land and upon the whole earth are nowhere near solid enough in substance, grounded enough in principle, or consistent enough in his own communications to warrant my support. He flipflops, goes back on promises, and re-negotiates elements of his positions that his rhetoric the day before made the world think were already settled. And where he has been consistent, he's either misguided or flat out wrong about: protectionism hurts the entire economy more than it helps the protected industries (we've known this since the failure of mercantilism); prioritizing border security and national security is correct, but to threaten a religious test, or a blanket purge without regard to the ways in which real people, who happen to also be illegal immigrants, are integrated into broader communities are both completely wrongheaded. The best I can hope for is that he'll be true to his nature as a deal-maker, and that his acumen at staring down competitors will lend a strength to international relations and force the hand of domestic policy opponents, and that this will allow his more even-headed and right-minded GOP advisors to make conservatism "his team". He's shown that he's able to take on the media and win, so if his methods can be applied to the right directions, there's hope for the country's and liberty's future.

But my inability to positively endorse the man or his ideological underpinnings doesn't mean I'd be a hypocrite for supporting his candidacy for 3 main reasons:

1. A vote in the general election is NOT a personal endorsement, nor is it an endorsement of a given agenda. Instead, it is the only tool whereby a single BINARY choice is affected: does the Democrat win, or the Republican? If I don't vote for Trump, my use of my solitary vote is going to contribute either to the failure of a third party candidate (sorry, all, they've simply NEVER won--the history is best fleshed out here in Michael Medved's inimitable style), or will contribute, by neglect, to the success of a known progressive whose net effect on liberty is certain to be worse. Sorry, "lesser of two evils is still evil" people, but that's just faulty logic. Working to minimize the damage of an impending wreck is work in a positive direction even if the wreck still happens.

2. Katie Kieffer is spectacularly correct in her opening sentence here: you are not responsible for your candidates personal choices--or even for her or his leadership choices. The only thing you're responsible for is making the best choice with what you have. She overstates Cruz's line of voting your conscience--following her own logic, one's conscience SHOULD be what drives one to vote for Trump--but her overall point is solid: not voting for Trump is tantamount to making the perfect the enemy of the good and mistaking a pragmatic vote for a personal endorsement.

3. On the issues, even though his principles aren't 100% driven by conservative ideology, he's simply not wrong: lower taxes on individuals and businesses will help everyone; he's more likely to advance conservative judges to the Supreme Court; national security is a national imperative whereas immigration is a privilege the nation should extend according to common-sense criteria to an assimilable number; and his support for the rights and freedoms already in the constitution, rather than trying to change the constitution to favor this-or-that special interest group, seems more solid than his opponent. Although Grudem, a Christian ethicist, speculates perhaps too far on matters of abortion and religious liberty, he's simply spot on that Trump is the most ethical choice on all of Trump's own platform issues, as analyzed here.

Dislike him all you want, and critique his lack of principled conservatism all you want, he's now the candidate and the choice is no longer theoretical. The rubber is on the road, and either we support the election of the better candidate, or we promote the worse destruction that the other will effectuate.

Why the second bomb?

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 15:48:00 +0000

Short post today.
Visits from supposedly anti-war Secretary John Kerry, and President Barack Obama to the Hiroshima memorial brought up a question I've entertained in my mind on different occasions over the years--one that others had posed for me: it's easy to understand that an overwhelming show of extreme superiority was necessary to prevent Emperor Hirohito from forcing his citizens to fight to the last even in a losing war, but why Nagasaki? Why the second bomb? Why did the US have to kill dozens of thousands of civilians AGAIN?
Beyond the explanation that cultural ideals of honor under which the society was operating at the time dictated that a warrior not submit even after the first devastatingly superior blow, I'm at a loss to understand why the Emperor didn't capitulate immediately. Maybe it's even simpler than that: he was a tyrant dictator and was quite comfortable asking his citizens to commit suicide for him. After all that is where we get the term kamikaze from.
Whatever the Emperor's thought process was, what's important to remember is the full context of the American decision. The most concise and well argued summary I've ever come across comes from the Hoover Institute's Victor Davis Hansen. It's well worth the read. The long and the short of it is this: the victims didn't deserve to die, and didn't deserve to die the way they did, and those lives lost deserve to be remembered--and let's also celebrate the possibly hundreds of millions they saved, as they were needlessly sacrificed to the stubborn evil of a brutal dictator in denial of both his ignominy and his impotency. America made a tough call, but ultimately the right one. Lest we forget...

Wait, Religion Makes Kids LESS Altruistic?

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 03:08:00 +0000

O sociologists of fractal iterations of unmeasurable categories and of clever designs of dubious methodologies, you have inspired post #2 today. Apparently it takes a "scientist" to turn the obvious on its ear and use a "study" to show that up is down. This is easily accomplished when a gaggle of atheist PhDs put their heads together to design a way to disprove God. Wait, that's not actually a scientific question, and they'd be flouting the fundamental boundaries of their own discipline to do so, making their credentials fairly worthless, so I guess they'll have to disprove the benefits of religiosity then--that's quantifiable, right? Yes, religiosity! It's something people have or they don't. It's something that motivates some people, and not others. It's something we can test--doesn't matter that some religious beliefs are more founded than others, that some religious beliefs produce behaviors that others don't, that some religious beliefs demand sacrifices, conclusions, hierarchies, and/or altruistic deeds to more of a degree of compulsion than others. It doesn't even matter than some religious beliefs start from a baseline assumption of equality of human potential that others don't. It doesn't matter what direction the faith is pointing, we'll just measure magnitude, call it "religiosity", and claim its effect is nefarious, no matter the results of the experiment--in fact, we'll design an "experiment" so it comes out that way.

Haha. I actually just mis-typed AXperiment. Pretty apt, though: an experiment designed as a hatchet job, rather than as a means to reveal a truth.

But apparently, a 7-author study just "proved" that religiosity doesn't produce more altruistic children, but rather actually dampens the natural altruism to which children with no religious influence are predisposed--if you believe these "scientists", religions make kids behave immorally. Here's the report on the study, and here's the study itself.

And here's what's wrong with it:

1. Religiosity is not a thing. It's not a category with any kind of rigor whatsoever. It presupposes a relativistic equality between religions that doesn't exist in the real world, uses that as a basis to presume that all religions produce the same result, and therefore measures nothing. Look, religions are systems of belief, no? Yeah, there's a social component to them, and they have varying institutions, but they only affect behavior insofar as they are the source of beliefs which people act upon. Beliefs aren't all equal. They have a magnitude and a direction. I can believe strongly in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, but since the FSM religion doesn't compel me to believe anything about how I should behave to earn his favor, that religion isn't equal to the one that compels me to treat my neighbor as myself, and to do good deeds to the least of my brethren, among other things. I may have a weak faith in Christian ethics, but since the baseline requires I believe in the brotherhood of man, and the saveability and infinite worth of all humanity, my likelihood of causing gratuitous pain and suffering is minimal, since I'd have to go against my own beliefs to produce such an act. On the other hand, there exist religious beliefs which compel categorization of humans into groups with differing rights and worth. And don't start with the tripe that "Christians used the Bible to justify slavery", that justification was always only and ever a distortion to forestall guilt over an abuse, both of power and of doctrine. The Bible produced the belief system that overthrew slavery wherever Christians lived. But then again, even that proves my point: if you're going to study the effect of religion on behavior, you have to begin with some kind of rigor about what beliefs lead to what behaviors--otherwise you're melting into a meaningless morass of a rather baseless and ignorant relativism.

2. Why study kids? I suppose we can expect that children who are taught to go to church/mosque regularly would gain some insight and socialization into the particular religious morality of their parents, and that since all of them ostensibly claim altruism as a value, the children would produce more altruism than the child with a neutral non-religious baseline, right? But aren't children, by definition, still learning, and immature in their development, even of "religiosity"? And doesn't this "study" obviate the most salient questions then? What are the processes by which children learn altruism? How do they internalize the beliefs of their religion? At what age can we safely say they're behaving on their own as their religion taught them, as opposed to behaving as their parents teach that their religion teaches them? In other words, finding that non-religious children behave more altruistically tells us nothing about whether religion fails or whether it's the institutions of religion, or religious parents that are to blame for the results. And I actually question the results, even, because the study flattens into a single average, not only all religions, but all developmental stages between age 5 and 12. We know, for example, that a cognitive shift occurs around age 8 at which children begin to develop a sense of right and wrong at all. Isn't it skewing the results to include ages 5-7? We also know that pre-adolescents develop identity crises that younger children do not--is it fair to include the 11-12 year olds who may be more prone to questioning who they are, if we're out to "measure" those who identify as "religious"

3. The "test" for altruism consisted of an elaborate sort of "musical chairs" where kids got to choose a number of stickers, and were told specifically to go ahead and choose their favorite ones (such permission predisposed them to choose selfishly), but that there were not going to be enough for others in their school. That's it. Some came up with the idea to not pick their allotted number so others could have some on their own, others didn't. In other words, the test cued up selfishness as "ok", then penalized kids for not, of their own initiative, coming up with the idea of sharing that wasn't part of the game as explained to them. Furthermore, since there wasn't an actual person in need, or even a real non-anonymous person at all to whom to be altruistic, the limits of applicability of this test should be obvious. Maybe the scale of the study gives a broad enough average that it's harder to explain how non-religious kids could consistently share, while religious kids consistently didn't. But the data don't show a causative, significant link. The study claims the difference is significant, but the "significance" barely qualifies as such statistically.

There are other questions to entertain: do non-religious parents not teach their kids to be altruistic? Are the kids more altruistic because they aren't taught, and therefore haven't had some natural altruism cooked out of them? Or are they taught, but the method and beliefs are more successful at inculcating a sense of altruism at an earlier age? Do religious kids approach altruism differently. The "study" also claimed to find the religious upbringing increased the rate of judgmentalism (judging more harshly) in kids of this age. Are the two connected in such a way that one naturally develops before the other?

In all cases, bias in the question, lack of rigor in the categories under study, and flawed methodology are often what sinks "scientific" studies, and this one fails on all three. How do I know? I've tested it! I have 5 little experiments at home, all in the same age range as this "study", all of whom attend church weekly, read scriptures and pray daily, and receive frequent teachings on their parents' chosen system of morality. They are imperfect, as are their parents, but are also quite generous with what little they have, and delight in doing nice things for others when they get the chance. Ask the retired neighbor down the street with the invalid wife if he's in any doubt what belief system motivated them to clear his driveway of snow last winter. When kids learn that service comes with its own reward, play, fun, and altruism are all synonymous. Because Jesus told them, and showed them.

As a final note, this "study" seems to give weight to the idea that teaching religion to children is counterproductive at best, dangerous indoctrination at worst. But it requires a complete misunderstanding of faith at all to come to that conclusion. It's true that adults can use their minds, hearts, and spirits, to learn things and acquire a religious faith that children don't have the mature brain to process on the level of conscious choice that adults can. But if you take that truth to mean that it's worthless, or damaging to teach a child before maturity, you're missing how much faith is not merely about a conscious identifiably punctual choice to believe, but is also about a million tiny experiments in behaving as if something is true, and maintaining a--dare I say it--scientific openness to the evidence confirming the spiritual growth that happens after the experiment is made. Truth confirms itself. Empirical truth and spiritual truth. And depriving a child of a life of early and often experiments to reinforce, with experimentation, the things the parents already know to be true, leaves a later choice without its proper preparation. What balance is there in an experiment in which you ask an adult to make a choice whether or not to believe in something s/he can't see, but you haven't allowed them to develop the skills and habits of prayer, meditation, altruism, ritual, etc. that it takes to make a truly informed choice as to whether that's all worthwhile or it's all hooey? Faith is hard. It takes so much effort to maintain. The child whose parents didn't want her/him to be biased all childhood long, and then make a choice as a mature adult, have actually biased their child so greatly against faith that the conclusion seems almost foregone--in truth, the choice was made for the child long before.

I guess that's what I'm really after. Some choices are made in an instant. Others are of a nature so subtle and durative that it's hard to know when the decision was actually made. Religious faith, and the altruism it most certainly produces, are not like choosing which pizza you want, and more like choosing whether you'll be a sportsmanlike athlete--only hundreds of losses will tell.

Apostates Excommunicate LDS Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 00:14:00 +0000

My Facebook has been a tour de force of twisted logic, leaping to conclusions, extreme aversion to context and rigor in comparison, and ignorance over the last few days. Sin is still sin, the definition of nothing changed, but in response to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the US, the LDS Church was now in the position of having to clarify a policy on how to deal with "families" and individuals from those families in a new edit to their leadership handbook. The edits drew skewed headlines ranging from insinuations of homophobia (NYT: "Mormons Sharpen Stand Against Same-Sex Marriage" - no, they didn't--the stand is the same: it's sinful, and the LGBT is still welcome and invited to join and participate fully as long as they repent, just like with every other sin) to open accusations of homophobia, with a dash of xenophobia and even a little pedophobia thrown in just for good measure (WaPo: "Mormon Church to exclude children of same-sex couples from getting blessed and baptized until they are 18" - total distortion of context), to gleeful flogging of church leadership as backward, insensitive, mean-spirited, oh, and did I mention homophobic? (Salt Lake Trib: "New Mormon policy makes apostates of married same-sexcouples, bars children from rites") The sensationalized coverage is as fallacious as it is predictable: first of all, the Trib makes no money unless they convert a local interest story into a national one by framing it into an attack on the LDS church; but the other thing these headlines all have in common is a facile context-free depiction of religious belief as inherently divisive, judgmental, and blindly exclusionary to the point of unabashed victimization of the categorically innocent. The emotional thrust of the mainstream media outlets is obvious: How dare they attack innocent kids! It's not their fault if their parents happen to choose an SSM relationship! Isn't it already bigoted enough of you to hate gays, now you have to hate their kids too?! If only we did away with this silly religious freedom thing and everyone was made to be open and tolerant...

Twisted logic, hasty conclusions, aversion to context and rigor in comparing apples to apples, and ignorance.

What is the purpose of a baby blessing in LDS doctrine? It's not a saving ordinance. It's a chance for a father to experience the spirit of prophecy as he channels the Spirit's ideas into his own words in a reflection on what blessings the child may obtain through obedience and faith in Christ at later points in its life. It's even permissible to record such a father's blessing, although few exercise that option, and it would be a huge missed opportunity for the father if the blessing didn't take place, but there's no call to romanticize the function into some grandiose christening akin to a Catholic infant baptism. The cost of missing a baby blessing is social and emotional, not eternal.

What is the purpose of an 8-year-old baptism in LDS doctrine? It is a saving ordinance, and because a child has developed sufficiently to understand basic moral distinctions on her/his own by age 8, s/he begins to become responsible for his/her own moral agency and continues to grow in that responsibility until some age of full moral autonomy that I'll call adulthood. As a father of several children beyond the age of 8, I can assure you that they don't have a full mastery of the skill of anticipating enough of the consequences of their choices on themselves or others to be considered truly responsible. They still need plenty of guidance to ensure that they can predict how a choice will affect their spirit negatively or positively, and also how their choice will affect others. But they do have the beginnings of a sense of right and wrong, and can therefore be expected to choose the right according to that sense. When children at this age are part of a faithful, active LDS family, the Church is right to expect that they will continue to grow in faith and in the ability to exercise that moral agency for good. However, the Church has never dogmatically insisted that non-members, part-member families, or less active LDS families baptize their children at age 8 or at any age thereafter. Even with active member families, the encouragement exists, but it's always a matter of individual choice, even for the child. Why? Because that would be logically inconsistent with the more basic and primary responsibility of parents to their children. It would be imposing itself as the party responsible for the spiritual and moral growth of the child from age 8 on, necessarily replacing the parent--this it cannot do. Not only are the Primary (Sunday school for ages 3-12), and Young Men's, Young Women's auxiliaries only ever structured as support for the family, the Church as a whole is only ever conceived of as a social institution supporting the eternal units of society (the family) in their responsibilities to raise Christian sons and daughters. In other words, it's romanticization, again, to suggest that missionaries and other members of the church should target any 8 year olds that aren't in stable, active member families for baptism. Everyone will have an equal opportunity to receive all of the saving ordinances. It's better for each individual if it can be done closer to the ideal--at 8 in an active family--because there are advantages to being able to begin strong and continue firmly supported, especially through the adolescent years. But in the end, a baptism at age 18 is no less spiritually and eternally valuable than a baptism at age 8. In fact, the opposite worry is more likely: that baptizing an 8 year old no matter the activity-level or testimony/sin status of the parents is morally confusing. God alone is able to sort out who is responsible, but as far as his earthly instruments are concerned, asking an agent with only the very beginnings of responsibility for moral behavior to go it alone throughout late childhood and adolescence, knowing the support of their parents is questionable, would be an irresponsible act in and of itself that the Church would be guilty of were it to be common practice. The Church can't, in good conscience, usurp a family's role, condemn a child to a life of breaking a sacred covenant s/he wasn't in a good position to keep, and therefore should not be in the business of baptizing children of apostate parents.

I've seen this work in a number of ways, especially from my contact with African cultures where polygamy was part of the traditions. Polygamous parents are also living in a sinful condition, but even if they were to renounce polygamy, they're in the double bind of not being able to divorce their partners without running afoul of another deadly sin: dereliction of family duties. Their children are as innocent as the children of SSM couples, but must also wait until the age of legal majority before their candidacy to baptism can be considered. It's not an indictment of the children, but a recognition that the parents' sinful condition is preventing a closer association with the Church.

Look, no one is excluding any moral agent from any blessing the church offers, they're just asking some of them to wait until their moral agency has matured to a state of autonomy sufficient not to require the permission of parents. In fact, the LDS happen to be the only church I know of that actually stays consistent on this point feeling so strongly that the blessing of baptism is eternally important that no length of patiently waiting for the chance to be baptized is considered too long. They do baptisms by proxy for the dead!

What is the purpose of excommunication? Is it for LDS faithful who make a mistake? No, it's for the unrepentant whose sins are so public that the body of the Church must distance itself , for fear of having its good name--the name of the deity they revere, that they've taken upon themselves by covenant--altered and to keep clear off accusations of "you let those kind of people join you?". No one is ever barred from attending regular meetings, and no one is ever barred from repenting and then participating in all of the blessings of membership. Paul makes clear that Church leadership must make clear distinctions between who is and who isn't within membership, and that certain offenses against God must be grounds for disassociation in 1 Corinthians 5 (v. 9-13 is the most salient passage, but the whole chapter is instructive). But this exact same injunction to disassociate from certain kinds of sinners also affirms the institutional right of self-discipline as the only method of discipline for the people involved--once outside the Church, God only is allowed to judge them, such that if they repent and restore themselves to the conditions of membership, they will be welcomed again with open arms. The sinner is loved. Similarly, Alma the Elder, in a time when there was no precedent for the excommunication-worthy cases that were coming before him as an authority, received a revelation affirming that repentance is always a trump card, that church members who condemn the repentant are guilty of their own condemnation, and that secular and spiritual authority are separate matters, the latter being limited to the Church and unsuitable to application beyond the sphere of the Church itself.

So let's ask the simple and relevant questions then: who is that agent responsible when two adults commit the sin of living in a homosexual relationship, then unrepentantly commit to their partner in a legal marital relationship? The adults, right? OK, now who is responsible if a child is adopted into such a relationship or is included into that relationship from a prior marriage of one of the conjoints? The adults right? Therefore the policy of not allowing children of SSM arrangements to be baptized quite properly holds the adults accountable for their apostate decision and condition. Once a child in such a union can be held accountable for his/her own, the choice can be theirs, and no sooner.

So what are the critics upset about? There's no homophobic intent. There's no punishing children for their parents' sins (quite the opposite, in fact, it protects them). There's no hateful desire to exclude, to offend, to rigidly enforce boundaries (every single case is negotiable with a local ecclesiastical authority). In fact, there's not even any change, really--homosexual behavior is and always has been an excommunicable sin, and homosexual attraction orientations without the behavior never have been. There's no treating SSM couples as less or more guilty than hetero couples living in sin, no exclusion of anyone on anything other than purely temporary grounds (since anyone can repent for any sin) and there's most certainly no condemnation of any children.

Considered in a straightforward way, assuming good intentions, keeping categories rigorous, and with appropriate context, the critics of these policies have no legs to stand on. In fact, the fact that they have to conveniently elide critical context (my two favorites are the charge that the LDS have broken their own Article of Faith #2 on this, since it states that "We believe that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgression"--it's not condemning kids, just their parents; and the charge that it homophobically singles out the LGBT community for whom SSM is salient, leaving out, by ignorance or malice, that children of other verboten family relationships, i.e polygamy, have been under the same consistent policies for decades), or twist logic (my favorite is that it makes innocent children into apostates by fiat--a completely nonsensical statement for anyone who understands what innocence is, and what apostasy is), or mix apples and oranges (my favorite is that it puts children in the same category with murderers, rapists, and polygamists--again, complete nonsense), or otherwise dishonestly conflate the unconflatable (my favorite is claiming the children have to denounce their parents--no, the grown up children who become adults will have to denounce the sin and practice of SSM, but never their parents, and never as minors).

Apostates have their own association of those oriented and aligned against the Church. They take comfort with like-minded fellows who can leave the Church, but can't seem to leave it alone. They look for reasons to project the same ill will and dishonesty with which they self-justify their sin, and look to their condemning body as an oppressor rather than as the anchor protecting them from a raging sea of worldly forces driving them away from the plan of happiness. They feel inwardly miserable, no matter how much they try to hide it, and like the master they (hopefully temporarily!) list to obey, are seeking that others may be miserable like unto themselves. It oozes out of them despite themselves, and the distortions they resort to as a means of counter-attack to make themselves feel justified in their dissociation from the Church is evidence of their inner rage, as well as of its unfoundedness. The problem is that, ultimately, their logic is circular. The hypothesis of ill-will seems to confirm itself at every turn, because when all you've got is a "The Church is judgmental and oppressive" hammer, every new policy or reason for doubt looks like a "they're the ones that should be excommunicated" nail. The hypocrisy is instructive: by taking every opportunity to twist the truth to attempt to condemn followers of Christ as un-Christian, apostates demonstrate a truly proud, holier-than-thou condescension. The irony, however, is that the true love and happiness they are missing out on is found among those who demonstrate, through a willingness to forgive and forget, that fellowship with those called to be "saints" is only an act of repentance away--which is the same condition Christ's salvation is predicated upon for us all.

p.s. My wife just read this over, and I'm inclined to make a final remark based on her astuteness, on which I place great confidence. Here's the remark: I've written all this from a pretty odd perspective. I've been writing as if my audience is both inside and outside, as if they understand that I'm looking at institutional policy issues as such, and leaving aside the elephant-in-the-room doctrinal issue that this is not a mere social club, and not a mere committee of leaders making choices. This is the Church of Jesus Christ. I believe the Lord leads it. His laws are eternal, and our rewards can be just as eternal when we live up to them and become more like Him. His Church is not only designed by Him, but led by Him through revelation to prophets. In other words, although society may shift underneath, and draw concerns to the surface that weren't there before, the concerns are not pressures that the Church responds to, but rather the impetus for asking more specific questions of the Lord. When policy like this comes down, it literally comes down--from an infallible heavenly communication link. He's not responding to pressure, he's answering a prayer for guidance. If it's unclear in the previous paragraphs, let me make it so here: I know God guides His Church by speaking through a prophet. He has spoken in this instance.

Science, Sophistry, and Logic on Abortion

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 04:49:00 +0000

Bill Nye's a science guy, right? Well, I mean, an electrical engineer entertainer familiar enough with science to produce a popular kid's show and get all kinds of speaking appointments to discuss scientific principles and knowledge counts, right? Sure! Why not?
Well, it turns out that while he may be accurate on his science, what he does next with the facts runs counter to the pursuit of truth science is aimed for in the first place. It's a tactic he's used to. He's used it in global warming and against young earth creationism. But it's still sophistry to carefully move the goalposts to make your debate opponent seem like he's missing the target when he's spot on.
Here's what I mean:
1. This video begins with the truth that the union of sperm and ova is a necessary but insufficient condition for the development of a fetus. Fair point, right? That's a question of science, and science has answered it, so he's in-bounds at this point. But then, he proceeds to conclude that because there's another necessary condition for the production of human embryos (implantation into the uterine lining) that anyone who believes that life begins at conception is irrational and non-scientific. He's moved from scientific question to a question of ethics, politics, and, indeed, morality all while hoping his audience doesn't notice the sleight of hand, and falls into the trap.
Here's the corrective: What is the beginning point of a new child if it's not conception? When an egg and a sperm are united, is a new entity not created? Is that new entity not human? Just because other conditions exist doesn't make it any less true that conception is the beginning of new human life. To argue otherwise is not only counterfactual, in a strict scientific sense, but also transgresses the first law of scientific inquiry: some questions are not scientific, but belong to some other category (moral, political, etc.).
Shame on you, Mr. Nye. You of all people should know better than to present a political opinion as if it were scientific truth.
2. There are some that argue that since life begins at conception, any kind of birth control that does not protect this life from that point on, or prevents implantation (or other sine qua non conditions of pregnancy) are de facto abortifacients, and are therefore murderous. Mr. Nye is quite right to point out that many fertilized eggs do not reach full development into human beings, but he, again, moves the goalposts and hopes you're not paying attention as he quickly shifts from a scientific fact to a question of morality, ethics, and the politics of the judicial system.
Here's the corrective: If adult humans purposely cause fertilized eggs to fail other conditions that would have allowed them to become viable embryos, does that make them guilty of murder? Not at all, because murders are specific things, and birth control methods are general. Look, this might not satisfy the strictest biomedical ethicist in the world, but even though the life is new and is human at conception, there's no way to know which eggs are viable--a mechanism is in play which is beyond the capacity of any adult to guarantee its advancement--so even though we can guarantee the failure of all eggs, there's no positive responsibility for the failure of any specific egg that we otherwise could guarantee the full development of. The point is that it's a straw man setup to claim your opponents believe in criminalizing birth control just because they believe that conception is the beginning of life, because it cleverly conflates a positive responsibility for a specific failure with a general responsibility for preventing an unknowable success.
3. From here, Mr. Nye attacks biblical-based opposition to abortion, as if the only argument against abortion is Bible based. This one moves the goalposts in two ways: first it falsely assumes that an argument based on faith has no logical merit; then it conflates a logical argument with a moral one.
Here's the corrective: The biology of human beings hasn't changed in the 50 centuries since the first written traces of the Bible, and neither has the morality it teaches. Just because our understanding of how the miracle of life happens has increased makes it no less miraculous, nor does the fact that science understands the processes better justify a doctor, a pregnant woman, or anyone else deciding that a human life has no value. Whether the question was posed 50 centuries ago or not, the answer remains the same: if we don't believe that human beings have infinite potential to love, to progress, and to contribute to society, then why don't we kill the handicapped ones, or those with lesser capacity, or the elderly, for example? That would be intellectually honest and consistent with a logic that convenience of the living should dictate the value of life, wouldn't it? Mr. Nye, shame on you for not believing in human potential. Of all people, I would expect scientists who know the history of scientific progress would wonder at the lives of the scientists who brought it to pass, many of whose potential wasn't obviously predictable from their beginnings, as with any fetus.
4. Another goalpost Mr. Nye moves is the one that begins by framing abortion as a question of science, then does a sideways jig to make it a question of "European" male control over women's bodies.
Here's the corrective: Abortion opponents don't want to control anyone, they just correctly note that ending a human life before it has a chance to fulfill its potential is, in fact, the ultimate abuse of control. The same people (conservatives, for the sake of labeling them) who call for the murder of the unborn to end are the ones who out-contribute others, even when they're from poor states themselves, in charitable donations, and who spend countless volunteer hours organizing and serving directly to help adoption agencies, women's shelters, food pantries, and other forms of aid to help children who might otherwise have been aborted, and their families, broken as they may be. No one wants to make a woman suffer the full consequences of the abuse of a man's procreative power, but instead stand ready to assist in making sure the negative consequences are as minimal as possible--because we believe in the potential of the child (who is clearly not to blame for any of the adults' choices) and that therefore the sacrifice that all children require--some more than others--is always worth it for everyone involved.
5. Finally, Mr. Nye is simply factually wrong, and frankly quite hypocritical about the effectiveness of abstinence. As a scientist he should be the first to admit that abstinence works every time it's tried. But even here, he's moving goalposts. He wants us to believe that because some people make the choice to engage in sex, that no one is capable of abstaining. The goalposts move because he's again claiming that sociological statistics on how many choose to engage in sex despite understanding that not abstaining carries the risk of pregnancy are all that should be considered when making public policy on how to educate people against that risk, when really the question is more than a biological or sociological one, because human beings have agency, and the question is therefore also a moral one.
Here's the corrective: no one thinks that children shouldn't be educated about the risks involved in sexual contact, but to pretend that sex ed is merely a question of biology and health ignores the more essential moral risks sexual behavior poses. When one leaves out the morality of the question, thinking of sex as satisfaction of self distorts the very real consequences of self-perception, objectification, and identity that intersect its practice--and that's even before we consider the effects on a partner. Choosing when and how to engage in sex is, ultimately, up to each individual, and therefore only an ultimate distrust of an individual's power to choose wisely can produce the false assumption that abstinence doesn't work. Would Mr. Nye be intellectually honest and consistent with his applying such logic to any other domain of choice? Can we trust that human beings won't choose violence? Maybe Mr. Nye would like to propose we stop teaching children not to bully others because bullying still happens and it's apparently inevitable. Maybe instead we should teach them to bully safely? To wear the proper protection while bullying? Or make sure to obtain consent before bullying--yes, that should work, right?
Mr. Nye, you're a sophist, not a scientist. and your ideas on abortion, birth control, and religion are neither objective, nor scientific, nor even very accurate. They are, instead, based on intellectual dishonesty, ad hominem prejudicial anger, and, ultimately, immorality.

Ferguson Truth and Reconciliation

noreply@blogger.com (HappyStretchedThin) — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 05:02:00 +0000

I can't hold it in any longer. There has to be an outlet for what's been bottled up too long. I've waited and waited to liberate the words. The waiting required some discipline and strength, but now that I have the facts, the need to withhold judgment is past. I kept an open mind, keeping suspicions carefully labeled as suspicions, and treating contrary opinions as possible. But now, there's no more I can learn than the truth, so I must engage and I must submit to it. It compels me to share, to address the fence-sitters in my audience to choose a side--the one the truth is on. The one I'm on.

There's a reason we have Grand Juries. It's a system that evolved over time. It doesn't guarantee that mistakes don't happen or that rigging the game doesn't occur. But it does offer some structural guarantee that a filter passes between law enforcement and the judicial system. It empowers ordinary citizens to review evidence and decide if charges are warranted. And I'm glad Missouri law makes those proceedings public and that the authorities were swift to publish them. Anyone interested in viewing the same facts placed before the only 12 people authorized to decide whether charges were appropriate on officer Darren Williams for his clean shoot of unarmed, but menacing Mike Brown--anyone interested in judging for themselves based on the facts--can do so. They are here. And they exonerate the officer. His killing was ruled self-defense and therefore lawful and un-prosecutable.

No his hands weren't up (two coroner's reports show entry and exit wounds don't support hands up). No he wasn't harmlessly standing still (blood trail 20 feet behind him shows he had a bleeding wound and had turned back and was advancing on the officer in a linebacker-esque charge). No he wasn't some innocent kid whose only crime was jaywalking (this 18 year old 6'5" 275+ lb. bruiser had strong-arm robbed a store earlier in the day, had marijuana in his bloodstream, and had assaulted the officer in question, and grabbed for the latter's gun). The facts are the facts are the facts. Do I wish he died? No. But the shoot was clean, and we can't take back what justifiable action the officer took. It's tragic that the death occurred not because the officer should have chosen a different course of defensive actions, but because this young man might otherwise have repented and become a productive member of society.

But beyond the facts, there is a great, growing, and increasingly mediatized angst that must be properly contextualized and analyzed so as to eradicate it through reason, truth, and compassion. And I'm afraid that I don't know how to bring peace to this angst unless those protesting Mike Brown's death and what they call systematic police mistreatment of Blacks take off their ideological blinders for themselves. If you truly want Justice--for Mike Brown, for Trayvon Martin, for whoever--then you have to do it honestly. You have to know what justice is. You can't redefine the term, then redefine the associate terms so that it matches your predetermined idea of what the verdict should be. You can't puff yourself up to place yourself in judgment when the decision doesn't rightly belong to you. You can't listen willy nilly to commentators who themselves weren't there, who aren't in full possession of all the facts, and who have every bit as much a right to decide the officer's fate as you do--none. I don't care how expert they claim to be, only 12 people had all the facts and all the responsibility to judge whether charges should be brought. And we limit it to 12 because it more or less gives us a minimum number of peers whose personal self-interests are likely to cancel each other out and a limited number of fellow community members so that independent thinking is more likely and mob mentality is less so.

What I'm afraid the protesters will never learn is that their anger, outrage, and aggression is not righteous, as they see it, but is ignorant, baseless, profoundly undemocratic, and ultimately counterproductive.

There are two blogosphere reactions I would like to address here, each for the disagreements I have with them

The first hails from Matt Walsh, who hits the nail right on the head for the most part. In summary, he artfully details the falseness of the charges against the officer in question, the thuggishness of the protesters' response, the fecklessness of the media feeding the lies and fomenting the revolt, and the predictable pandering of the politicians throwing an innocent man under the public bus for profit in the polls. Matt systematically lays bare the hypocrisy behind every facet of the protester's claims to seek justice while rejecting it out of hand in favor of its opposite: prejudice.

Where Matt misses the mark is that he fails to connect it symbolically to the broader leftist narrative from the Southern Strategy, through Rigoberta Menchu, through Katrina's parking lot full of washed out school buses, through Trayvon Martin. And he could have extended his argument so easily. The reason protesters seize upon cases like this is not and never has been about the facts. The facts are uninteresting except the ones cherry-picked to advance the broader ideological narrative that there is a system of oppression perpetrated by whites in power to keep Blacks in poverty and in prison--to take away their choices until the only ones left are understandable bad ones which they deserve to be punished for which further justifies the oppression. The problem with Matt's thinking isn't his thinking, it's that he fails to deal with the powerful symbolism Brown's case implies whether or not it turns out to be true. The left can't see straight or be honest if it wanted to on this, because its entire craft would be undone if it waited for the facts first. It's much more politically and socially galvanizing as an emotional argument to draw out the pride of the underdogs who want to be more than they are, and have more than they have to sell them the story that their wishes can come true, and have been kept from them by forces beyond their control. You can remove the blame, the self-judgment, and the responsibility from any group if you can sell them the idea that it's a system repressing them. And if it's an unjust system manipulated for the profit of a tiny minority, then the majority is justified in taking up a revolt against it. It's especially handy for leaders well placed to promote the solutions that this story implies: let us, the experts--the people that truly care about you and your people--take care of you with increased taxes on the others, and increased government programs to benefit you. The outrage of these protesters is genuine even if the story is wrong because pride is more powerful a motivator than truth--at least in the immediate and short term. They hold up Brown as a symbol of oppression even if he's objectively not because the flattery that their problems aren't their fault provides a convenient illusion to cover their continued misuse of their own freedoms. That's what pride does: it fools you into using your agency to undermine your own agency--it gives immoral acts cover; it pretends justification for an abuse; it falsely claims you need to break a rule in order to get out from under it; it tells you licentiousness is freedom; it says "You know better than God what your fair circumstances and challenges should be"--in short, it lies.

Dennis Prager outlines a great argument for the more basic nature of the problem of protests in Ferguson when he claims there's not a racial divide there so much as there is a moral one.

The other piece I'd like to array my disagreement with is from former attorney turned "racial equality" activist Janee Woods, whose article turned up on my Facebook today (I believe in a diversity of friends, so many of mine support her opinions). She outlines 12 Things White People Can Do Now Because Ferguson. As a white academic whose work and livelihood depends on expert and informed exposing of true racism, and promoting racial and intercultural understanding and harmony, I only find myself utterly opposed to only 10 of them.

1. Learn about the racialized history of Ferguson and how it reflects the racialized history of America.

Janee may know a string of facts concerning the history of race relations in America, but she understands very little of it if she thinks Ferguson any but the most superficial connections tot he Civil Rights movement. There were instances of civil unrest that spilled over into the kind of looting and rioting we're seeing in Ferguson, and race riots in Watts and Detroit, for example, but the movement's core idea was something quite different, and won allies over because of this difference. Martin Luther King was basically saying "Blacks deserve the same freedom of opportunity and the federal government must protect us right now as it always should have from unconstitutional state and local laws which prevent us from having an equal footing". Ferguson protesters are basically saying "Blacks deserve exemption from laws and Black communities are right to demand the sacrifice of an innocent white policeman's freedom from time to time to appease us because of oppression from our history."

2. Reject the “he was a good kid” narrative and lift up the “black lives matter” narrative.

Does Janee and do my former colleagues and liberal friends honestly believe that Black lives do not matter to their political opponents? To the officer in question? Of course Black lives matter, as do all lives. My conservative friends will actually go even further than my liberal ones on that point, because they'll even fight to protect the unborn Black lives that are disproportionately discarded for the convenience of the living. But I digress...On point, how is that even a question? Seriously. Do you honestly believe white officers go out of their way to stop Black jaywalkers in order to execute them in broad daylight in front of witnesses, with no regard to consequences because Black lives are somehow worthless in their minds? If their lives didn't matter, officers would abandon the streets they lived in, not patrol them. Because their lives do matter, a Grand Jury was convened just as it would have for any homicide. Black lives have intrinsic worth, and infinite potential, so the tragedy of Mike Brown is that he was wasting his, not that he was Black and had the misfortune of being shot by a white cop.

3. Use words that speak the truth about the disempowerment, oppression, disinvestment and racism that are rampant in our communities.

Sorry Janee, but looting and rioting is what's going on in Ferguson. In "honor" of Mike Brown, the store from which he stole his infamous cigarillos was trashed and pillaged. But even then, Walsh has it right: it doesn't matter if some of the protests are peaceful, they're all based on a lie. Listen more to the Mia Loves and Ben Carsons of the Black community and less to the Al Sharptons and you'll see that the way to rise out of disempowerment, oppression, disinvestment, and racism--all of which can have real-world impact even if ultimately imaginary--is to stop allowing others to define you, to get educated, to get married and stay married, to have kids only after marriage, and to make caring families the cornerstone of caring communities. None of the ways of escaping from poverty, oppression, and violence have any basis in race, so we should speak words of truth that the problems aren't based in race either. We should especially stop giving power to politicians who take away our freedoms under the guise of solving our problems for us, or providing solutions we've been assigned by virtue of our skin color.

4. Understand the modern forms of race oppression and slavery and how they are intertwined with policing, the courts and the prison industrial complex.

Statistics on the proportion of white to Black incarceration rates are not instructive without the accompanying context of the proportion of white and Black crime rates as a bare minimum for fair discussion. Incarceration rates are blunt instruments for measuring behaviors in a community as if there were a baseline for the behaviors. A loaded term like "prison industrial complex" doesn't suggest fair-minded evaluation, but let's go there: do you understand the first thing about slavery? Do you have any clue how hard it was to be a Black in the antebellum South? How could you honestly compare ownership of a human being and forced labor under threat of life and limb to the proper punitive exercise of reducing freedoms as a penalty for behaviors the community must deem intolerable under pain of dissolving the very underpinnings of order and freedom?

5. Examine the interplay between poverty and racial equity.

Okay, let's go there: but first examine poverty on its own as if it were not connected to anything inherently racial. Does that analysis seem to explain all the phenomena? Let me affirm to you, as a shortcut, that it does. So race isn't a salient variable. Look, it's possible for Blacks to perceive an oppression that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy--just as it's possible for other races to feel like they can't break free from the stigmas that their history has burdened them with. The brilliance of America is that liberty can trump tradition, and we're diverse enough that it historically has. Moving on...

6. Diversify your media.

I would totally agree with this one if it weren't a twisting of the very principle it's attempting to trigger. Let me modify it slightly: get informed from a variety of sources but always with critical evaluation of the sources tehmselves. And I'm sorry, Ms. Woods, but Colorlines, the Root, and This Week in Blackness don't actually count as "diverse" media, unless you're being completely morally relativistic as to their objectivity. Critically evaluating sources means there's some places you don't go, just in the name of diversity, because it's the truth that should matter, not the color of the author. Reading for differing viewpoints and perspectives is a wonderful idea, but there's a huge difference between entertaining principled opponents of your argument, and entertaining propaganda.

7. Adhere to the philosophy of nonviolence as you resist racism and oppression.

100% in agreement.

8. Find support from fellow white allies.

This idea that there is a single cause behind which all Blacks can rally (or insert your identity politics group here), with allies and advocates from outside the group is really very counterproductive. It stifles the individuality within the Black community, and divides the non-Black world into various degrees of helper in a special interest versus various degrees of impediment to "progress". How about letting individuals and communities decide for themselves how they want to define themselves and let outsiders be individuals and communities too? How about we just enjoy our diversity how it is, instead of having to adopt your issues if we want to be friends? Do you know where else the language of "ally" is used? Hint: it's not peace.

9. If you are a person of faith, look to your scriptures or holy texts for guidance.

I am a person of faith. And I love this advice. The Bible is where I first learned that all humankind was created equal--not in result, but in opportunity--and that laws were God's way of showing us He loved us enough to tell us when our behaviors would lead us away from peace and happiness. I learned of a Final Judgment day, and of a process of repentance made possible by a Savior who satisfied the demands of justice for us all, thereby enabling mercy and justice to coexist and offer us the chance for forgiveness. I learned that we've all sinned, and all need to be patient and loving with our fellow human beings because we may struggle with different sins, but we all struggle. Also relevant to this case is the idea that we should render to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and that robbery, lying, and coveting are wrong.

10. Don’t be afraid to be unpopular.

That's what I'm doing right now. With virtually all the media on the side of "understanding" the protesters, I'm afraid the courageous position is the one on the side of the Grand Jury.

11. Be proactive in your own community.

Do be proactive. But swallowing whole the concept of white guilt, or blame America, or showing propaganda "documentaries" and calling for representatives to discuss racial problems is probably going to prove more divisive than inclusive, more one-sided than dialogue-promoting, and more inflammatory than resolution-oriented. Besides the fact that you'd only attract as an audience the choir that you need not preach to, the problems of race already have a clear solution that only needs to be practiced by all sides involved: judge by the content of character, not the color of skin.

12. Don’t give up.

Here again 100% agreement. Do I pretend that there's no racism in America? Of course not. Do I pretend that institutions and systems have no traditions of unfairness that are still in the process of undoing? Of course not. Do I pretend that all race issues would just go away if we stopped making such a big deal of them in the media? Of course not. Instead, what I'm trying to point out is that there are so many unfair biases in the base assumptions of people who sympathize with Ferguson protesters that almost none of their "solutions" should be accepted and would be counterproductive if accepted. When you compare apples to apples, and ideas to ideas, America has always had in its founding conceptions the key to the overcoming of slavery and to the full acceptance of brothers and sisters of all races, nations, creeds, and tongues for their equal and infinite potential. Can perceptions of oppression stunt one's fulfillment of that potential? Obviously, and understandably. However, the potential itself remains, and the best way to approach it is to set a goal to achieve it, and plan the steps to overcoming obstacles to it. Successful happy lives are possible for people of every color and background in the USA.