Bait and Switch

Suppose that, while walking down the street one day, you are approached by a man who asks you for a dollar. You decline - maybe you don't have any cash on you at the moment, or you are worried he will spend it on drugs, or you notice that, while claiming to be destitute, he can afford nicer shoes than you - the reason is irrelevant. The man then flags down a passing police officer, and you are arrested. The crime? You stole a dollar from the man on the street.

Most people reading this will instinctively understand the problem with this scenario: there is a clear difference between not giving something to someone and stealing something from someone. However, in our modern political discourse, this difference has been erased by those who wish to demonize their political opponents. See if you can catch this bait and switch in action in this quote from Nancy Pelosi:

"In one of the bills before us, six million seniors are deprived of meals -- homebound seniors are deprived of meals. People ask us to find our common ground, the middle ground. Is middle ground three million seniors not receiving meals? I don't think so. We've got to take this conversation from a debate about numbers and dollar figures and finding middle ground there to the higher ground of national values. I don't think the American people want any one of those six million people to lose their meals or the children who are being thrown off of Head Start and the rest of it."

 Or this one from Harry Reid:

“Republicans want to shut down the government because they think there’s nothing more important than keeping women from getting cancer screenings. This is indefensible and everyone should be outraged.”

In case you didn't catch it, Pelosi equates not giving seniors federally-funded in-home meals with depriving seniors of food. And in an even more blatant example, Reid states that not paying for cancer screenings is the same thing as keeping women from getting a cancer screening.

There are actually four formal fallacies at work here (that I could easily identify):

1. Fallacy of the false dilemma. This fallacy assumes that there are only two options. In Reid's statement, he implies that either the federal government pays for cancer screenings, or women cannot get cancer screenings. This is obviously false; private insurance, cash, and charitable organizations are all ways for women to pay for cancer screenings separate from federal funding. Likewise, Pelosi insinuates that either the government provide shut-ins hot meals, or they will go hungry. Again, private charity is a counter-example, as are neighbors who are willing to look out for the needy on their block.
2. The straw-man. This fallacy requires that the speaker deliberately misrepresent their opponent's views in order to easily tear them apart. Here, Reid changes the statement "Republicans do not want the federal government to pay for women's cancer screenings," to "Republicans want to keep women from getting cancer screenings." which is a much easier claim to make an argument against. After all, as a libertarian, I object to almost everything that the government actively prevents me from doing.
3. The red herring. This fallacy introduces a secondary topic as a way to distract attention from the real problem. The conversations that Pelosi and Reid were participating in was an argument regarding the federal budget. Neither Pelosi or Reid can effectively argue that the nation's fiscal house is in order (what with the $14 trillion in debt and all), so they introduce a hot-button issue in order to get people worked up about women's health issues and hungry old people instead of the government's financial health issues.
4. An appeal to fear. Reid's argument amounts to "if you support the Republicans, they will make sure you all die of cancer!" while Pelosi is effectively saying "Republicans want to starve old people!"

I'm far less interested in the specific arguments that these two idiots are making than the general points regarding identifying and rejecting logical fallacies. After all, if Americans were better at detecting bullshit, people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (and roughly 500 of their coworkers) would have to find honest work.

Right, but it doesn't prove the point you think it does...

After months of endless proclamations about how our economy is recovering, the first quarter GDP numbers are in, and they aren't good:

"The economy grew at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter, weaker than the 3.1 percent growth in the previous quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. It was the worst showing since last spring, when Europe's debt crisis slowed U.S. growth to a 1.7 "

There are a bunch of things that could be affecting the economy. Perhaps it's the sharp rise in food prices. Or maybe it's the 35% increase in gas prices over the past year. Across the board, Americans are paying more for the things they use everyday. That increase in cost results in less disposable income, meaning fewer goods and services are consumed.

According to the Obama Administration, though, the economic slowdown is attributable to one primary factor:

"It was an expected slowdown," Goolsbee said in an interview on Bloomberg television. "The biggest driver was a reduction in government spending at the federal level, a big negative from defense spending."

That's right - the reason that the entire economy is coming to a grinding halt is that the federal government spent less money. Which brings up two points:

1. The federal government spends too much money. If a reduction in federal spending of less than 1% results in the economy collapsing, then it has far too much control on what used to be a free market.
2. Since the federal government has such control over the economy, the sharp rise in food and gas prices are its fault, not that of shady 'speculators' as Obama puts it. 

Bottom line is that government control is bad for economies. Central control has failed every time that it has been tried, and it is failing in the U.S.

Nonsense

"Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable" - C.S. Lewis

I have a bad habit of getting involved in political and religious arguments on the internet. Rhetoric is like any other skill; the more it is practiced, the more it will develop. Of course, it also means that in order to become increasingly skillful, you must take on increasingly difficult arguments. A bodybuilder won't maintain his physique by doing 10 pushups, after all. That's not to say that engaging someone inept isn't enjoyable; it can be quite fun, because the plethora of logical fallacies makes it easy to identify, classify, and develop responses for them.

Most recently, I got involved in a debate on the propriety of celebrating Easter on Greg Kokul's Facebook page (link goes to Stand to Reason, since the Facebook exchange isn't public). For most of us that are followers of Christ, Easter is a time to reflect on God's sacrifice for us, and celebrate the liberation that we have in His son. However, there is a very small section of Christianity that rejects the celebration of Easter (and Christmas), because these celebrations coincide with ancient pagan festivals. As the Church expanded, frequently pagan festivals were converted to celebrations of Christian events, for a number of reasons. First, it was a way for pagan converts to maintain seasonal festivities and culture, while celebrating their new Christian beliefs. Second, it provided an alternative to the temptation of partaking in often offensive rituals. As Greg puts it (with regards to Christmas):

"The question of whether Christmas is pagan enters into the idea of cultural practices. Some have made the assertion that Christmas has pagan origins. Christmas does not have pagan origins, but there are winter celebrations that are pagan. There was, for example, a saturnal celebration around the time of Christmas that pagans celebrated, which was actually a temptation for Christians to participate in that had pagan content to it. So the church changed the day that they celebrated the birth of Christ. They used to celebrate it in the Spring. But the church said, "We can celebrate it any time we want. Let's celebrate it at the same time the pagans are celebrating their pagan festival. It'll act as a contrast to that pagan festival because our celebration is the birth of the God-man, Jesus Christ. It has Biblical content. Plus it will protect Christians from being wooed away by this other celebration to participate in what was a pagan celebration".

Not surprisingly, there are people who have a problem with this. I would attempt to explain why, but I really do not understand, hence the quote at the beginning of this post. When you spout self-righteous nonsense, sometimes not even God himself can answer it, because to do so would require making sense of senselessness. 


What I will say, is that to condemn Easter or Christmas because they coincide with pagan festivals is to commit the genetic fallacy. This fallacy, or failure of reason, is to accept or reject something based on its origins, rather than its merits. In this case, the critic rejects the celebration of Easter because it coincides with the pagan festival of Ishtar, while ignoring the fact that today, Christians celebrate it as the day of resurrection. This is similar to claiming that anyone who drives a modern Volkswagen is a supporter of Nazism, because Ferdinand Porsche, founder of Volkswagen, worked with the third reich.

Another Case Closed for the Department of PreCrime

Terry Jones, quran-burning attention-whore, has been found guilty in Michigan. The crime? Incitement to violence:

"He wanted to protest outside the Islamic center in Dearborn but the city refused him a permit, fearful that some local Muslim might go nuts as a result. So they put him on trial, with the jury asked to determine what they thought his intent would be in holding the protest. If they thought his aim was peaceful, he’d be found not guilty; if they thought he meant to incite violence, then guilty as charged."

The problem is, Jones never even held the protest. He was arrested before he even opened his mouth, and then prosecuted based on an assumed reaction to things he might say. Prosecutors based their case on incitement to violence, but there are two big problems with this charge:


First, incitement to violence has historically meant that the speaker is trying to get people on his side to commit an act of violence. See here for a good explanation of the historical context of incitement to violence. Bottom line:

"Incitement to violence can legitimately apply only to actual encouragement of violence against specific innocent parties by a speaker or writer. It cannot apply to a statement or image that prompts irrational reactions by others who hear or see it. If the author of some message can be blamed for the irrational reaction to the message by some other party, then there is no such thing as free speech, for the subjective whims of anyone can trump free speech on any occasion."

Second, incitement to violence requires that the guilty party actually, you know, said something. In this idiotic case, the man was put on trial and convicted for what the jury decided his intent was for something he never even did. This amounts to a prior restraint conviction, something that the First Amendment specifically prohibits.


If this conviction holds up, the only logical conclusion is that free speech is completely dead. After all, the only thing that you need to do to silence someone is to threaten to beat the shit out of them for saying something. At that point, if they say it, they have incited violence, which is a crime, and they will go to jail. At least, that would be the logical conclusion if the law applied equally to all people. Something tells me it is only those with politically inconvenient positions that will ever have to face this particular music.  

Deliverance

This past Monday, my wife and I attended our first Passover dinner, held by friends from Israel. If you aren't familiar with Passover, it is a celebration of the people of Israel's exodus from Egypt. The ritual meal takes the participant through Israel's slavery, the plagues, the death of the firstborn (where the 'Passover' gets its name, as the Lord 'passed over' the homes of those who painted their doors), and the flight from Egypt. God is acknowledged as the provider of liberation for His chosen people. As is the case with many Old Testament stories, God's treatment of His people is a foreshadowing of what He will do for humanity through His son.

Tonight, we attended Easter services and commemorated the resurrection of Jesus. This story is also one of liberation; for the follower of Christ, Easter is the day when humanity was liberated from bondage to sin. Having participated in both Passover and Easter celebrations this week, I noted a number of ways that the exodus is a metaphor for the larger story of the ultimate salvation for mankind:

1. Liberation comes from God alone. The people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt, which at the time was the most powerful empire on Earth. Alone, there was no way that they could achieve freedom. It takes God's intervention for them to be freed. Like Israel, we are enslaved to sin, and there is nothing that we can do to achieve righteousness in God's eyes. In Jesus' death and resurrection, He provides the path to freedom.
2. Liberation requires acknowledgement. The final plague in the exodus story is the death of every firstborn child in Egypt. God provides a way for his people to avoid this plague; Moses instructs them to paint a symbol in blood over the doors of their homes. When the Lord sees this symbol, he will pass over the home, and will not visit his judgement upon it. In the same way, salvation does not automatically apply to everyone. We must acknowledge and accept God's gift in order to receive it.
3. Liberation requires abandonment. One of the key components of the passover meal is the unleavened bread. In their rush to leave Egypt, the people of Israel left their homes and everything that they could not carry. During our passover meal, our Jewish friends explained that the bread was unleavened because, in their rush, no yeast was taken on the journey. In His parables, Jesus frequently tells potential followers that they will have to leave the things that they value most in order to truly follow Him. Christianity requires that we abandon worldly things.

On his final night before crucifixion, Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with his disciples. I do not believe that this is a coincidence. At the end of His life, right before He would do the work that He came to earth to do, the gospels take us back to the exodus, and show us that what God once did temporally for His chosen people, He was now doing eternally for all.

I'm against abortion, except when...

In an exchange with a Facebook friend today, the topic of abortion came up. I made the comment that I have a hard time with politicians who have a pro-abortion history, but who suddenly 'see the light' and become pro-life when they want to win a nationwide Republican primary. My particular beef was with Mitt Romney, who was pro-choice as governor of Massachusetts, a reliably leftist state, but who became pro-life when he decided to campaign for president.

The point of this post, however, is not to challenge Romney's hypocrisy, or even to argue the pro-life position. At some point in the future, I will do both, but my point this time is to address a serious logical inconsistency that Romney, as well as many nominally pro-life people, have vocalized. From an interview reported in the Boston Globe (and reprinted at prolifeblogs.com):

"I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother." (emphasis mine)

The bottom line is: you cannot be pro-life except. As Stand to Reason's Brett Kunkle puts it:

"If the unborn is not a human being, no justification for abortion is necessary.  But if the unborn is a human being, no justification for elective abortion is adequate."

And that, folks, is how you take a so-called 'complex' issue and make it very, very simple. It all boils down to a simple question: is the unborn in the womb a human being or not? If it is a human being, then there is no justification for killing it, even if it is the product of rape or incest. If it is not a human being, then why limit abortion to rape or incest? It's an intellectually lazy position - abortion is either wrong, or it isn't. Just because some situations make us uncomfortable or unpopular does not make it OK to capitulate, or to sacrifice our moral and logical integrity.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

Recount 'till you do:

"Refusing to concede defeat, Wisconsin Supreme Court challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg asked election officials Wednesday for a statewide recount in her flagging upset bid against Justice David Prosser."

How much do you want to bet that 8,000 ballots are suddenly 'found' in the trunk of a car? Remember, this is the same state that sent Al Franken to the Senate based on the votes of felons:

"That's the finding of an 18-month study conducted by Minnesota Majority, a conservative watchdog group, which found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman."

Or maybe it wasn't the felons. Maybe it was the 'misplaced' Franken ballots that kept turning up during the six-month recount. Either way, congratulations to future State Supreme Court Justice Kloppenburg! Here's hoping you rule your subjects with all of the integrity with which you worked the election!

Liberty Requires Responsibility

My U.S. History professor in college was a big Thomas Jefferson fan. He was also the first person who really got me to understand what a citizen government really meant, and why the founders favored a representative republic over a pure democracy. He spent the first several weeks of the course describing in detail why the libertarian ideals of Jefferson were virtuous and beautiful.

Then he spent the rest of the course describing how they don't work because people are stupid, lazy, greedy, and always looking for short-term gratification. Talk about a big letdown. But unfortunately, he may be right, and I think that the reason is that liberty requires responsibility.


The idea of freedom is very popular. From a young age, we say things like "it's a free country" and appeal to freedom of speech and expression. There is, however, a catch. In most of our shallow appeals to liberty, we focus on what liberty gives us - things like the ability to say what we want, or wear the clothes we want, or practice the religion that we want (or even none at all). Yet what we fail to recognize is that true liberty means that there is no safety net. If I fall, I must rely on my family, friends, and community for support, instead of an intrusive government. It means that if I cannot feed my family, I must ask for help from people I know, instead of hiding behind a faceless bureaucracy. It also means that I must give freely, and without compulsion, to those truly in need.  


In my frequent debates with friends and family, they can't believe that I really support the abolishment of the EPA, FDA, Department of Education, TSA, DHS, etc. There seems to be an understanding ingrained in our psyche that the government exists to keep us safe, and with every fiber in my being, I reject this, because I believe that I am grown-up enough to decide what I should eat, the kind of products I should buy, what I should study, and how best to safeguard my home and family (a pair of .45's and a 12ga. should do the trick).  It also requires full faith in a free-market system, because the only regulation on business is their vested interest in doing right by the public, so that the public continues its patronage. I have that faith, because in my mind, the airline has much more at stake in keeping me safe than the TSA. 


So, liberty requires responsibility. It means that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves. Like Jefferson, I believe that the benefits are worth the responsibility.

If you pay yourself with money you already had, is it really income?

Mr. McEnroe comes up with something I hadn't thought of. Are federal employees included in the 45% of Americans that actually pay income tax? If so, aren't we counting government money twice?

Three Beers Later...: Number of Tax-Paying Households in America Wildly Overstated...

Donald Trump is a Bad Idea

If I were to write a list of things I never thought I'd have to argue, 'Why Donald Trump shouldn't be President' would not be on that list. It wouldn't be on the list, because while I am familiar with each word in that sentence, any collection of English words that includes 'Donald Trump' and 'President' makes about as much sense in a sane world as 'pumpernickel jock strap'. The fact that he is being considered as an actual viable presidential candidate shows how unserious we have become as a society.

Among the reasons I have seen from conservatives for supporting a Trump candidacy are that, as a successful businessman, he has the skills necessary to deal with our fiscal crisis; he is willing to tell it like it is; and he is not Barack Obama. Not only do I not believe that these are sufficient reasons for supporting Trump; I believe that there are a multitude of other liabilities that make him untenable.

First of all, we do not need a businessman as a President. The reason that we are drowning in debt is not that we don't know how to crunch the numbers; it's that the government has grossly exceeded its Constitutional mandate, and as a people we have become addicted to giveaways and endless war. The President does not have the power to single-handedly eliminate the agencies and legislation that result in our debt, and as I have pointed out before, Americans don't really want the cuts that solvency will require.

I think that the real reason that conservatives like Trump is that he has been very vocal in his criticism of Obama, even bringing up the silly claim that he was really born in Kenya. However, while people eat political red-meat like, well, red meat, the fact is that Trump's bulldog act is really more about promoting Trump than attacking the issues (see his very public feud with Rosie O'Donnell as proof).

These silly issues aside, there are a number of reasons why conservatives and libertarians should reject a Trump presidency. Among them:

• He supports abortion rights, which I believe is contrary to both conservatism and libertarianism.
• He has proposed a one-time 14.25% tax on the net worth (not just income) of 'rich' Americans. This alone should make him a non-starter. The income tax is immoral enough, but now we are talking about stealing 14.25% from people who have already paid taxes on that money.
• He is for an assault weapons ban and waiting periods.
• He supports single-payer health care.
• He supports our current, immoral progressive income-tax system.

Now, most of these statements were made a decade ago, but before you try to defend him by saying his viewpoints have changed, I would ask why? Is it because the big-government candidate position is already taken for 2012?

Bottom line, if this country is going to survive, we need to get back to Constitutional government, and Trump isn't going to take us there.

Only the Future Is Certain, the Past is Always Changing

Back in 2005, the United Nations predicted that Global Warming would create 50 million climate refugees by the end of that decade. From the October 12, 2005 edition of the Guardian:

"Rising sea levels, desertification and shrinking freshwater supplies will create up to 50 million environmental refugees by the end of the decade, experts warn today. Janos Bogardi, director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn, said creeping environmental deterioration already displaced up to 10 million people a year, and the situation would get worse."

The UN even provided a handy map to show where these refugees would come from. Unfortunately, when incorrect predictions are made, someone is bound to notice:

"far from being places where people are fleeing, no fewer than the top six of the very fastest growing cities in China, Shenzzen, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhuhai, Puning and Jinjiang, are absolutely smack bang within the shaded areas identified as being likely sources of climate refugees.

Similarly, many of the fastest growing cities in the United States also appear within or close to the areas identified by the UNEP as at risk of having climate refugees.

So, did the UN issue a retraction, or even attempt to defend its claim? Of course not, they did what all liars and snake-oil salesmen do; they covered it up:

"You might remember the other day I pointed out how the UN predicted 50 million climate refugees by 2010, a prediction that came up laughably short of the mark by only around 50 million.  Well, if you go to that post and click on the link to the UN page making that claim… something funny happens."

The "something funny" is a 404 page error, meaning that the map has disappeared down the memory hole.

Here is the bottom line: Global Warming is a sham; it's just another attempt by Marxists to consolidate power and redistribute wealth. Honest scientists admit when they make a failed prediction, but liars and thieves always try to cover up their crimes.

 

AP Buries the Lede Yet Again

So I open up my browser, and the headline on the Yahoo! frontpage says:

"Super rich see federal taxes drop dramatically"

 Now, the AP has a habit of writing headlines to fit the narrative (in this case, the old red herring that the rich don't pay their share, regardless of the fact that the top 10% of income earners pay more than 50% of income taxes), not the content of the story, so I decide to click. And, indeed, from the article I find out that the wealthiest Americans have seen their tax burden drop from 26% to 17% since 1992. However, read the first paragraph, and tell me what the real story is:

"WASHINGTON – As millions of procrastinators scramble to meet Monday's tax filing deadline, ponder this: The super rich pay a lot less taxes than they did a couple of decades ago, and nearly half of U.S. households pay no income taxes at all." (emphasis mine)

That's right: nearly half (45%) of all Americans pay absolutely no income tax, and yet are eligible to vote. Those votes put people in office. People who decide how the money is spent. Money that doesn't come from the people who put them there. Are you beginning to see the problem? The result of zero-liability voters ends up being something like this:

Now aren't you glad you worked your ass off last year?

Sunday Links

A few links for your Sunday evening reading pleasure:

• Rand Paul references Ayn Rand in Senate committee hearing on energy. Regardless of what my last post says, if Paul runs for president, not only will I vote for the Republican, I'll actively campaign for him.
• A caller to Mike Church's excellent Sirius/XM morning show 'goes Galt' and shuts his business down, saying that he's tired of being the government's tax collector. I'm sure that this is all part of that recovery that Obama keeps promising.
• Indoor pot farms account for 1% of all U.S. electricity usage. But aren't UV lamps fluorescent? I thought incandescent bulbs were the enemy.
• The always excellent Mark Steyn on why we as a country are totally boned. Hint: it has something to do with spending a shitload of money we don't have on stuff we don't need.
• AAA reports on average gas prices around the country. If only we had some huge, unexploited reserves of oil lying around here somewhere...

The Lesser of Two Evils

In many cases, I believe that it is acceptable, and even preferable, to go with the lesser of two evils. As Greg Kokul, one of my favorite modern Christian apologists and philosophers frequently points out, choosing the lesser of two evils is our moral obligation, because to do otherwise will implicitly allow the greater evil to go forward. Frequently this standpoint is put forth during election season, when we seem to be forced to choose between two candidates that we do not like, and it is in this context that I would like to offer a rebuttal.

We are about to head into presidential campaign season again. As is always the case with our lame two-party system, we will be forced to choose between Obama in the 'D' corner, and whatever limp-wristed progressivist-lite the 'R' team decides to run against him. The fact is, while I believe that Obama is a dangerous man, I also believe that he is merely a product of our current political system, and whoever Team R decides to run next year will make no appreciable difference in the direction we are headed. Therefore, choosing Team R really does not represent the selection of the lesser of two evils.

Why do I believe this? As a libertarian, I believe that the two greatest threats to this nation are government overreach and debt (it's really one thing because the government overreach causes the debt). How does the party of small government rate these days? We really need look no further than the GOP capitulation regarding the budget. We are currently over $14,000,000,000,000.00 in debt, and are projecting a $1,600,000,000,000.00 deficit this year alone. However, when it came down to the wire, House Republicans, led by John Boehner, couldn't even find the spine to eliminate federal funding for a cowboy poetry festival in Nevada. Scott Brown, who a year ago was seen to be the GOP's savior after winning the MA Senate seat formerly held by homicidal alcoholic Ted Kennedy, refused to back $300 million in funding cuts for Planned Parenthood, an organization that was shown earlier this year will gladly facilitate child prostitution if the price is right. The fact is, the GOP, just like the Democrats, are big-government politicians; the only difference between the two parties seems to be who exactly they want to regulate and who gets the pork.

Of course, the politicians really aren't the ones to blame. As George Carlin pointed out:

"Maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks."

I'd have to agree considering that recent polls show that 74% of Americans want the federal government to spend more on education, and 60% want more spent on health care. And to top it off, 46.2% of Americans are now receiving some form of federal public assistance. When nearly half the country is now on the dole, how can we expect politicians to cut it off?

So we have a public full of good little socialists who suckle at the federal teat, and like to be coddled like children, and a political class who exploits that to their advantage, throwing out goodies with one hand and stealing ever-larger chunks of our liberties with the other, all in the name of the 'greater good'. So what is the fix? At some point, like a junkie who finds himself giving sexual favors behind the 7-11 for smack money, we will hit rock bottom. The economy will collapse, and we will have to rebuild. Until then, I have no hope that either team will pull us out of our nose-dive. A vote for either is a vote for evil, which is why I will be checking the (L) box next November.