1 Boring Old Man

Rush Limbaugh’s response to the exposure of his Viagra enhanced romp in the Dominican Republic was a couple of jokes and nothing more. When Vice President Cheney shot a hunting companion, he said a bit days later, and that was that. In situation after situation, there seems to be a standard response to criticism or damning information – ignore it; attack someone for making the information available in the first place; make a lot of noise about something else. In response to the new revelations of another form of domestic spying without "probable cause" or "due process," Bush, Cheney, and Snow attacked the New York Times for revealing it.

They’re pros at responding to any criticism. Oh yeah, when Joe Wilson attacks their distortion [invention] of prewar intelligence, disgrace him by outing his wife, Valerie Plame. While we’re better able to identify and counter these obfuscation techniques, there are several points that get lost in the constant cover-up, spin, and distortion – maybe the biggest points of all. They simply don’t want us to know what’s going on. Our current government and pundits are masters of non-information. What they say is never straight. It’s always polished to have us believe what they want us to believe – not what is.

Another point: These people have a huge constituency that is apparently okay with all of this mumbo-jumbo. They are so eager to hear this one-sided simplistic message, filled with key one-liners [untrue one-liners],  that they overlook all the malarky that fills their leaders’ rhetoric. Why? Why would anyone listen to this kind of stuff and accept it, even be glad to hear it?

And what about trolls? On a recent comment board about Rush’s Viagra bust,  a commenter said something like, "You liberals just don’t want to hear Rush’s brilliant arguments against liberalism." In essence he was saying, "You liberals are attacking Rush Limbaugh because he’s so right about your being so wrong. You’re not really upset about his morality."  I thought what people were saying was that Mr. Limbaugh didn’t practice what he preached. But, at least to that commenter, I don’t think it mattered. And that’s the general form of troll comments – some disdainful version of "you liberals."

I’m kind of tired of being part of comments like "you liberals think…"

• The first thing that ticks me off is that it’s usually something like what this commenter said. I’m just not upset about Rush Limbaugh’s "brilliant arguments." I’m absolutely sure about that. And most of the things that follow "you liberals think" are almost that absurd – Ann Coulter’s books and T.V. interviews, Karl Rove’s speeches., etc
• On another front, the "liberal" in "you liberals think" doesn’t slightly describe my current political thoughts. Right now, my only political thoughts are about this illegal war and the current attempt to alter our form of government by decree. I’d feel better if they called me a "patriot" or a "Constitutionalist."
• And another thing… I don’t think of this Administration as either Republican or Conservative. I think of them as a Fascist Cabal who has taken over our government under the cover of darkness, and spent the last six months trying to redefine it in their own image. Here, I use the term "Fascist" as it is used in Political Science textbooks, not as a cheap invective.

Stripped of the Communists to rale about, they’ve settled on "you liberals." Sounds like Hitler’s "you jews" or Bin Laden’s "you infidels" – terms used to invalidate and depersonalize whole populations as immaterial.

For review, this is called the Straw Man Fallacy:

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.

The current Administration, the Religious Right, and the Right Wing Pundits are experts in the use of logical fallacies. Their two favorites are the Ad Hominem Argument and the Straw Man Fallacy, however, they also throw in a number of others for seasoning. The lowest forms are from the intellectually challenged like Tom Delay ["Valerie Plame was not a C.I.A. Agent."] or Bill Frist [Frist Blames CNN For Sinking Republican Poll Numbers]. Those aren’t logical fallacies. They’re flights into fantasy disconnected from reality – called in Psychiatric Circles Primitive Denial. The best resource for understanding the invalid forms of logical arguments is the Nizkor Project – a site about the Holocaust. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to research these fallacies because they were the kinds of arguments used by Hitler in his rise to power.

But the point of this rambling post is three-fold:

• First: You don’t use fallacious arguments if you have a valid logical argument. Why would you?
• Second: It’s very tempting to respond to logical fallacies with another fallacy. The only effective counter to a fallacious argument is to deconstruct the argument, or to walk away [because you’re not in a serious debate, and the only thing you can do is step in potholes].
• Third: Where are the real Conservatives and the traditional Republicans? I never thought that I’d feel this, but I miss them – a lot.