MAGAs Revive "Love It Or Leave It," A Minor Musing About A Logical Fallacy

I was young when I first heard "America, love it or leave it." If I were to venture a guess, I probably first heard a Vietnam War supporter utter the phrase on radio or television when I was 9 or 10 years old.

During the past week, Trumpists of all ages and stations in life have trotted out the trite phrase as if were something original, witty, logical, or patriotic.

The phrase, is of course, a logical fallacy which can be succinctly defined:

When only two choices are presented yet more exist, or a spectrum of possible choices exists between two extremes.  False dilemmas are usually characterized by “either this or that” language, but can also be characterized by omissions of choices.

This afternoon, I was reminded of how everyone should know how unpatriotic that phrase is when this tweet came across my twitter feed.

I spent today with a man whose mom saved the July 21, 1969 Chicago Daily News for the moon landing coverage. (Column coming tomorrow.) It also contained this op-ed. 50 years ago. Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/iwH5KC5xKI

— Heidi Stevens (@HeidiStevens13) July 19, 2019

Because I don't trust Blogger to allow the picture in the tweet to be enlarged, I am uploading a copy as well.

The second column of this 50 year old editorial has two important paragraphs. Sydney J. Harris writes,

Those who want to leave have a right to, but those who want to stay and work for what they consider a better society must be protected in that right--for without it, our nation would sink into stagnation and the process of change would harden into repression by those who benefit by keeping things just as they are. . . . 

Somebody who truly didn't like what America stands for ought to be invited to leave; but there is a vast difference between such a person and those who dislike what we have allowed ourselves to become, through greed and prejudice and provincial indifference to the great problems we now face. No community can afford to lose these good "agitators."

Most recent political and policy discussions have devolved into each side calling the other names bereft of context that provides meaning: fascists, socialists, racist, anti-Semitic. Nearly every devolves into whataboutism and dueling charges of hypocrisy.

Since the nation seems to have lost all of its adults, can we perhaps listen to one from 50 years ago and develop new ways to facilitate the process of change which has stagnated and hardened into repression.

Certainly, we can all be better "agitators" and refrain from the illogical and unpatriotic "love it or leave it" fallacy.

Proof That Public Education Has Failed

Last night, I stayed up to watch the Mars Rover Curiosity land. I discovered a couple of things that led me to conclude that American public education has failed.

Education should remind one that limits exist. Some seem to have forgotten that fact

GUYS LOOK THERE IS WATER ON MARS. twitter.com/wilw/status/23…
— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) August 6, 2012

Public education probably deserves a pass for this faux pas. Last night was a  celebratory moment for the science geek crowd. I wouldn't have stayed up to watch a rover land on Mars if it weren't for a few talented science geeks who must have learned something in school.
 
On the other hand, some failures are damning. While waiting for the rover to land, I clicked on a couple of links that led me to the Florida Constitution Party's site where I "learned" that President Obama will fake his assassination to prevent the 2012 election from occurring.

The post admits that the possibility is based on rumor but tells readers that one must be vigilant:

What I’m going to report here is only a rumor that presently can’t be confirmed. But it is of such magnitude that it must be made known if only to prepare America for a possible terrible eventuality. And while it has not been confirmed, neither can it authoritatively and convincingly be denied, certainly not in a United States where our Constitutional rights are under constant attack.

The Florida Constitution Party quotes a Canada Free Press claim that the  Department of Homeland Security is conspiring with President Obama in order to start a racial civil war:

“The DHS is actively preparing for massive social unrest inside the United States . He then corrected himself, stating that ‘a civil war’ is the more appropriate term. Certain elements of the government are not only expecting and preparing for it, they are actually facilitating it.”

The DHS whistleblower mentioned a recent meeting at the Department of Homeland Security where plans were discussed to use pawns to simulate the rioting seen in the Arab Spring countries that would bring on a “controlled chaos” for the benefit of the Obama administration.

“Envisioned by these conspirators are riots starting in urban areas such as New York , followed by a disruption of business and commerce,” the DHS source added. “They want to restrict travel, if not through high energy prices, then by checkpoints and curfews mandated by the rioting and unrest…The whole purpose is to keep Obama in office for another term, no matter how unpopular he is, as he is not finished changing our country from a Constitutional Republic .”

I'm a bit shocked that the Florida Constitution Party didn't mention Marxist agitators with Alinsky leaning Masonic tendencies or New Age  Kenyan socialist colonialists who worship Thor on Wednesdays, but I digress.

The Constitution Party offers proof; there have been other rumors:

This certainly isn’t the first rumor to surface about Mr. Obama’s intention to subvert the U.S. Constitution, by manipulating economic, racial and social issues that would polarize Americans and bring on enormous conflict but the full measure of this contrived event, if true, involves total suspension of our democratic rights, and repression on a scale never thought possible in the America we’ve known and cherished all our lives.

The Florida Constitution Party must have stayed awake during a win/win class discussion. They have set up a classic win/win:

It’s a rumor that bears watching…and is worth spreading because the more people who know about it–and understand the high level of deceit and treachery that confronts us daily in Washington –the less likely it is for the rumor to become a reality.

They get to scream "I told you so!" or "We saved the Republic!"

I don't want to count the logical fallacies wrapped in racism that these people are perpetrating. I will point out that students graduating from any high school in the United States should know  being "updated several times a day" or claiming to have "more than 100 writers and columnists who file stories regularly to the newspaper from all corners of the globe" does not make a site reliable. The World Weekly News makes the same claim with they allege that Bat Boy will be Romney's running mate. More importantly they all should know that one doesn't use one unsubstantiated rumor to support another.

I need to make sure I add recognizing stupidity in all of its various forms to a few more lesson plans. For the members of the Florida Constitution Party, I'll offer the following: people put false claims on the Internet. This State Farm advertisement is using irony when the actress states otherwise. The character is gullible. By the way, the guy with the beard really isn't a French model.

And So It Starts....The Red Herring Slippery Slope Defense Of HB 1234

Bob Mercer issues a talking point that one will hear the Governor's supporters use to defend HB 1234: The Unions Will Come!!! The Unions Will Come!!! The Unions Will Come!!! Oh! The Horror!!! The Unions Will Come !!!!

The story will go something like this. HB 1234 is our sainted Governor's response to a uniquely South Dakota problem. (The fact that Republican governors Jindal, Walker, Christie et al. have proposed similar anti-teacher legislation will be conveniently ignored.)

This effort to save South Dakota schools from teachers is now going to be confounded by evil, vile out of state agitators who advocate terrible ideas like workers should be paid well. These heinous enemies of all that is right and good may even believe in evolution.

In this narrative, South Dakota teachers will be either the vanguard of a 5th column or witless dupes led astray by out of state agitators, the serpents in the South Dakota Eden. Focus group polling is likely taking place now to determine how to frame teachers in this debate.

Once the antagonists have been defined, the slippery slope will take shape. Unions will arrive in South Dakota; teachers will demand and receive more money; when teachers get paid more, other workers will demand hirer pay. When teachers get paid more, taxes will rise. When other workers get paid more, businesses will be less profitable. When taxes rise and businesses become less profitable, every business except McDonalds, which pays only minimum wage, will leave the state. When McDonalds is the only business left in a state, the citizens lives become nasty, brutish, and short.

The choice will be clear: either support "all of the . . . changes in the 65-section bill" or live in a state that allows outside agitators to provide "support for anti-1234 candidates for the Legislature and to campaign against the Republican incumbents who voted to pass 1234."

Governor Daugaard is likely negotiating right now to hire the person who created ads like this one for Direct TV to write ads for the save HB 1234 campaign.

Preempting Propaganda: Part I

Governor Daugaard will undoubtedly defend his horrendous merit pay and testing law that now faces a referendum effort.  If he follows the current Republican Governors' playbook, he will vehemently assert that those circulating petitions are "defending the status quo" or supporting the existing state of affairs which is less grand than it was in the halycon days of 1971.

A status quo does not magically spring up. Education policy is set by the governor and the legislature. Republicans have created South Dakota's education status quo.


Since 1971, South Dakota has had two Democrats serve as governor.  They both served in the 1970s.  Since 1980, Republicans have occupied the governor's mansion.  Since 1971, Democrats have had control of the House of Representatives from 1973-1976 and 1993-1994.

At the federal level, one must remember that testing became a good in and of itself when President George W. Bush, a Republican, implemented No Child Left Behind.

Governor Daugaard has not disavowed any of his predecessors; he is continuing increasing the testing regime put in place by a Republican.  In short his bill continues a status quo that he claims is failing.  (For now, we'll leave aside that little bit of propaganda that is asserted as fact but lacks evidence.)

Language matters and Daugaard should be held responsible for his Orwellian rhetoric as well as his disastrous legislation.

Related:  Dr. Newquist has a great post on how education used to deal with logical fallacies here.

Let's Meet Stephanie Strong And Look For Propaganda, Especially Glittering Generalities

I suppose one could look for alliteration too.

Stephanie Strong, the Rapid City businesswoman not the adult film star, is running for Congress.  Cory has covered her website here.  The Right Side Blog touts her candidacy with the following propaganda.

She believes in:

•limited Constitutional government;
•the vigorous defense of our Constitutional rights;
•debt reduction by reducing spending, not raising taxes;
•reduction in government interference in business through excessive regulation;
•a strong military;
•traditional Judeo-Christian values;
•US energy independence.

I use the term propaganda academically not pejoratively.  Every phrase fits the example of a glittering generality.

Glittering generalities are words that have different positive meaning for individual subjects, but are linked to highly valued concepts. When these words are used, they demand approval without thinking, simply because such an important concept is involved.

I think I'm going to have to stock up on some popcorn.  Between Kristi Noem's leather jacket glitz and Stephanie Strong's glitter, this race might be entertaining.  I would rather have substantive, but one takes what one can.

Monday Morning Debate Musing

I've spent a lot of each day during the few weeks muttering, yelling, shrieking, carefully enunciating, and just plain saying "claim, evidence, warrant."  This Diana Senechal post serves as useful reminder that evidence properly understood is not an end unto itself but a means to an end.  Senechal begins,

I have nothing against evidence but am wary of the ascendant “evidence state.” I have seen nonfiction vigilantes marching around, asking, “where’s your evidence? where’s your evidence?” Those who question its rule get sneered out of town, if not steeply fined. This is not right. Evidence has its place, but it cannot and should not dominate everything. Even in the best arguments, evidence (strictly defined) is only one way of substantiating a point.

The debate coach inside me cheers because it's important to remember that evidence must be put in context and there must be some warrant behind it.

The rest of her post, which is well worth the read, goes on to give examples of other forms of persuasion.  She uses Seneca to show how hyperbole can be effect; G.K. Chesterton to show reasoning, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to illustrate the power of fine rhetoric.

As Senechal points out, the new Common Core Standards will marginalize the latter forms of persuasion making it all the easier for demagogues to successfully use them in conjunction with warrantless evidence.

A Clever Use Of Logical Fallacies To Expose A Logical Fallacy.

At IO9.com Annalee Newitz exposes a logical fallacy in a Robert Boyce Wall Street Journal op ed.  (There's that paywall that makes linking useless.) Boyce writes,

Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might-repeat, might-travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein's theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth's atmosphere.

Newitz responds,

Another good point to make here might be, "If I can chew vegetables, there must be room for debate about whether I can chew steel too." Indeed. Also, who is to say that I can't control you with my mind? After all, I can control the Gojira action figure on my desk with my hands. I figure that opens up room for debate about a lot of things.

Nothing is better than using bad logic to illustrate really stupid logic. 

Why Political Problems Resist Common Sense Solutions

Duncan Watts concludes,

As it turns out, the key is common sense itself. Common sense is exquisitely adapted to handling the kind of complexity that arises in everyday situations, such as how to behave at work versus in front of your children versus in the pub with your mates. And because it works so well in these situations, we're inclined to trust it.

But situations involving corporations, cultures, markets, nations and global institutions exhibit a very different kind of complexity. Large-scale social problems necessarily involve anticipating or managing the behaviour of many individuals in diverse contexts over extended periods of time. Under these circumstances, the ability that Lazarsfeld highlighted of common sense to rationalise equally one behaviour and also its opposite causes us to commit all manner of prediction errors.

Yet because of the way we learn from experiences - even ones that are never repeated - the failings of common sense reasoning are rarely apparent to us. Rather, they manifest simply as "things we didn't know at the time" but which seem obvious in hindsight.

The paradox of common sense, then, is that even as it helps us make sense of the world, it can actively undermine our ability to understand it.

In short, common sense works in common situations but not in complex ones.  It also seems that common sense plays into people's preconceived notions in a way that makes people more stubborn.  In that way common sense may be part of the fabric that allows people to resist facts as Chris Mooney has documented.

Duncan's analysis indicates that one should be as skeptical of appeals to common sense as one is of facts used outside of context.

Of Facts and Arguments

I've posted about Chris Mooney's research on ideological blinders before.  Today's New York Times "The Stone" column by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, serves as useful reminder that facts alone do not create a successful argument.

Professor Gutting sums up current political debate quite well:  On side "put[s] forward a barrage of indisputable facts that show, with a very high probability, that [their] view is correct. But [the other side] construct[s] an equally impressive argument refuting [that] view."

Both sides have strong arguments for two reasons according to Gutting.  First,

Even a strong argument from purely factual premises is open to refutation unless we are assured that it has taken account of all relevant facts. Realistically, of course, we can never be sure that we have taken account of all relevant facts, especially with an issue as complex as a national budget.

Professor Gutting could have added education, Medicare, Social Security, nation building, war, and a host of other political dilemmas to the list. 

Second, Gutting points out that even if one succeeded in getting all of the relevant facts, one would "try to reinterpret the facts in light of fundamental convictions."

The whole article is worth reading, but Gutting makes two key statements worth remembering in any debate.  First,

Ignoring relevant facts can give us false confidence in the strength of our positions in political debates.

Second,

Each of us may conclude that the other is irrational or ignorant.  But we should beware of the sense of the inviolability of our own positions when what we really need is a serious effort to argue from all the relevant facts.

I will be bold enough to add two more suggestions to the Gutting's conclusions.  Know the ideological blinders of your sources and try to find out what facts they are ignoring.

Some Thoughts on Anger and Betrayal

Yesterday, conservative blogger David Frum opined,

Americans who feel robbed and duped by the series of financial and economic disappointments and disasters from the dot-com bubble onward are boiling with rage against their financial and political leadership. Conservative Americans express that rage in terms learned from talk radio and Fox News. But the fact that these conservative voters express their rage by talking about “debt” and “taxes” does not mean that they want what K Street wants: a Ryan budget that cuts spending on people like them to finance tax cuts for people much richer than them. They are just using familiar words to express a new and unfamiliar emotion of betrayal and resentment.[emphasis mine]

I want to examine the bolded sentence a bit.

First, if these feelings are "new and unfamiliar" what took these conservatives so long?  If they are social conservatives, Republicans have been using them with promises of overturning the Roe decision for decades.  For at least six years of the Bush administration, Republicans controlled all of the levers of government and they delivered nothing.  If these aggrieved people are libertarians, the alleged PATRIOT Act and its assault on civil liberties should have sent them over the edge nearly a decade ago.  The only conservatives who should be happy with the Republicans are the richest 1% represented by K street.

Second, why is the "betrayal and resentment" not being turned on those who betrayed them?  Ron Paul has been a more consistent deficit hawk and spokesperson for civil liberties than most.  Most Republicans who have served 3 or 4 terms in the House or 2 terms in the Senate have drunk deeply from the K Street Kool-Aid.  Yet the conservatives' anger seems to be turned against Democrats.  Let me add here that Democrats bear their share of blame.  The Plainsman wishes a pox on both houses.

Finally, and I admit that I should be a better person but I can't resist, the fact conservatives are expressing their "rage in terms learned from talk radio and Fox News" illustrates that one gets what one pays for.  Both Fox and talk radio choose to appeal to the lowest common denominator and enrage rather than enlighten.  Both reject nuance and logic while spreading propaganda and logical fallacies.

As one who thinks the Hulk is an acceptable role model,  I have nothing against anger.  Anger, however, must be directed at the proper target.  Even the Bible instructs one:  "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Ephesians 4:26 KJV).  The first step in avoiding sin probably is directing the anger at the proper target.

How Many Logical Fallacies Can You Find?

From Politico, Newt Gingrich offers an amazing bit of rhetoric.

"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

For those who haven't thought about logical fallacies since high school or college, a list is here and here.

Leave your homework in comments.  Write in complete sentences.

The comment box here claims that Gingrich inadvertently forgot to say "or" before "potentially dominated by radical Islamists. . . " so noting that Islamists probably aren't atheists won't count.