Posted on 05/03/2002 9:35:57 PM PDT by Caleb1411
"'Logic!' said the Professor half to himself. 'Why don't they teach logic at these schools?'" Professor Digory in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was complaining about the fatuous reasoning of the children in the novel who did not believe in the existence of Narnia.
Today the problem is not just that logic is untaught. Many people, including some of the most well-schooled, do not believe in logic. How else to explain the almost comically bad thinking that passes for policy analysis of some of the most important issues of our day?
When the Supreme Court legalized "virtual" child pornography (see "Images have consequences," May 4), many of the nation's most prominent newspapers defended the decision. Portraying themselves as First Amendment fundamentalists, they editorialized that even the most offensive speech deserves protection; otherwise, all of our freedoms are in jeopardy.
And yet, nearly every newspaper that took this position also pushed for a campaign-restrictions bill that would limit political speech.
Do they believe the founders of the nation, when they drew up the Bill of Rights, intended to protect computer simulations of adults having sex with little children—and not protect American citizens expressing their political opinions in the course of electing their representatives?
And even if liberal journalists reject the "original intent" approach to constitutional interpretation, if we need to protect all speech no matter how offensive, then shouldn't this apply to speech that they find offensive, namely that of special-interest groups, lobbyists, and grassroots activists?
Or consider the cloning debate. Most everyone agrees that using cloning to produce a human baby is wrong and should be banned by law. But many people, including influential scientific groups, believe that "therapeutic" cloning, producing embryos whose stem cells and other genetic material can be used to treat disease, should be allowed.
In other words, it is wrong to use cloning technology to produce a living baby. But it is right to use cloning technology to produce a baby that is killed for its spare parts.
Surely, therapeutic cloning is more of a moral problem than reproductive cloning. The latter is wrong too, since it violates God's design in the natural order, which ordains reproduction by means of sex, an arrangement that results in the family, the offices of husband and wife, father and mother. But a cloned child would not be a soulless monster, just the twin of some adult, and would be entitled to all the rights and value of any other human being.
But to clone a child and to deny his rights and value by not letting him grow up, instead using him as a macabre medicine for sick adults—surely this is even more problematic morally. Indeed, a major reason why reproductive cloning is immoral is that it requires the production of scores of embryos before one actually "takes," with the other embryos then being destroyed.
Of course, conservatives are often accused of being similarly contradictory. How can you be against abortion, goes one charge, but be in favor of the death penalty?
But clear, logical thinking requires the ability to make distinctions. It is wrong to kill an innocent person. It may not be wrong for the state to kill someone who is guilty. A baby in the womb is not the moral equivalent of a convicted serial killer or an al-Queda terrorist.
The contradiction is really on the other side. How can you oppose the death penalty, but be in favor of abortion? How can you be against executing Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who murdered 168 innocent men, women, and little children, but be for executing, without trial, a baby who isn't even born yet and who hasn't hurt anybody?
Fallacies like these litter the field of public-policy discourse. Why is the American Civil Liberties Union so zealous for the First Amendment, but so indifferent to the Second Amendment? Aren't they in the same Constitution?
How can public-school teachers get away with saying that standardized tests encourage rote memorization and "teaching to the test" when the tests they are complaining about involve reading paragraphs, answering questions about them, and doing math problems, measuring reading and math comprehension, but not rote memory at all? And why is the ability to memorize a bad thing? Why do those who believe in euthanasia think suffering merits the death penalty? Hasn't it always been more despicable to kill a sick, helpless person than someone who can fight back? Don't sick people need to be cared for, not exterminated?
Mental clarity is generally a prerequisite for moral clarity. And being able to recognize bad thinking is necessary for citizens in a free society—otherwise, they will not remain free very much longer, but be at the mercy of the spin doctors and the demagogues.
It's like they decided to go to a gun fight with a knife - and forgot the knife.
The "cite" is all over this thread. Not one of you wannabe chief justices have backed up your "august " opinions and vast knowledge of constitutional law with anything beyond, "yeah and so are you". Then you fall back on the tried and true, "yeah and the courts upheld Jim Crow laws too". Hey idiot, a few of the founders that wrote that constitution went even further, they "owned" human beings. The Constitution was written for one and only one purpose, to restrict the federal government, NOT the States. Get it genius? It wasn't until that damned 14th amendment was ratified at "gun point" I might add, that the federal government could force states to bend to its will.
You flatter yourself, Roscoe. Some lame posts of court cases with no context prove little. But if you don't work for Brady, you should. Same slimey tacticts.
Begging the question on your knees. Several of the best known United States Supreme Court decisions ever rendered.
Read a book.
Where? So laws that were passed to keep blacks down are good law to you? Cool. My point stands and you have made yours. Maybe that is why Texas wasn't forever. Morons like you, boy.
Violates the 14th.
Read a book.
Says you? Not a very good reference.
Read a book.
Hey, if you have an argumet, why not back it up with a fact or two?
You mean like you have, boy?
FreepMail me if he comes up with one.
If you go back on the thread, I have posted my sources. Have you? BTW, "boy" is just a compliment to me at my age so don't bother.
Deal!
I, Woahhs, fully and freely retract the baseless assertions, which I cannot support, that I have made against Roscoe. I humbly and sincerely apologize for my baseless accusations.
Source please.
Federal circuit court decisions have uniformly cited Cruikshank, Presser, and Miller as upholding the propositions that the second amendment is a limitation only on the power of the federal government as a protection for the states in the maintenance of their militia organizations against possible encroachments by the federal power, is not applicable to the states and thus is not a limitation on the power of the states, and is a guarantee of a collective right of the people to keep and bear arms rather than an individual right. See Cases v. United States, 131 F.2d 916 (1st Cir. 1942); United States v. Kozerski, 518 F.Supp. 1082 (D. N.H. 1982), aff'd 740 F.2d 952 (1st Cir. 1984); United States v. Tot, 131 F.2d 548 (3rd Cir. 1942); Eckert v. City of Philadelphia, 329 F.Supp. 845 (E.D. Pa. 1971), aff'd 477 F.2d 610 (3rd Cir. 1973); United States v. Johnson, 497 F.2d 548 (4th Cir. 1974); Love v. Peppersack, 47 F.3d 120 (4th Cir. 1995); United States v. Johnson, 441 F.2d 1134 (5th Cir. 1971); United States v. Warin, 530 F.2d 103 (6th Cir. 1976); Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove, 532 F. Supp. 1169 (N.D. Ill., E.D. 1981), aff'd 695 F.2d 261 (7th Cir. 1982); United States v. Hale, 976 F.2d 1016 (8th Cir. 1992); Fresno Rifle and Pistol Club, Inc. v. Van de Kamp, 746 F. Supp. 1415 (E.d. Ca. 1990), aff'd 965 F.2d 723 (9th Cir. 1992); United States v. Oakes, 564 F.2d 384 (10th Cir. 1977).
These guys seemto think that anything they don't like just has to be unconstitutional.
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