[mlo]

An article illustrating common illogic and arguing for mental clarity is a fine thing. Unfortunately this article is no better than what it criticizes.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

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.

This seeming inconsistency vanishes once you add to the equation the ever-present death culture our current cultural mavens are foisting upon us.
Can't understand why the EU and the most leftist jerks in our country back the Islamist death worshippers? Same reason.

The paradigm has shifted. Why? Because the central thinkers and planning geniuses of our last few generations believe more in the bleak mathematics of Thomas Mathus than they do in our God-given ability to figure our way out of what they believe is the inevitable "population bomb."

So, no longer is innocent life to be cherished and protected.
Abortion is encouraged, because it promotes the reduction of the number of humans.
Common murder is no longer discouraged for the same reason, but also for the added bonus of terrorizing the weakest in society and justifying Draconian excesses as "the needs" arise.
Gee, I wonder why its becoming possitively dangerous to defend yourself? Defending yourself runs contrary to the new paradigm -- you're no longer innocent! You're guilty simply for existing. You're adding to the planet's human excess.

No. Once you start thinking like the enviro-wackos who get all the funding and the press, and help lay the groundwork for this megalomaniacal blood-lust, it all makes sense. Very grim, anti-JudeoChristian God, sense.

In short, don't ever forget what I've shortly laid out here, and a great deal that will happen in the next few years will no longer appear so contradictory.

[supercat]

What would the Supreme Court say if Congress were to pass a statute which stated that anything which looks like real child porn maybe legally presumed to be such, absent evidence that it wasn't? Given that I'm unaware of any challenge to the proof-of-age record-keeping required by makers of 'ordinary' porn, I would think such a statute could probably pass constitutional muster while nonetheless avoiding the law-enforcement problems about which Ashcroft is concerned.

[boris]

" How can you be against abortion, goes one charge, but be in favor of the death penalty?"

Offhand, I'd guess that it is because fetuses have committed no crime, where as felons who murder people have.

A small and subtle difference often overlooked by wanna-be logicians.

--Boris

[tpaine]

"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?"

-------------------------------------

Fallacies like these litter the field of public-policy discourse. Why are FR's states 'rights' advocates so zealous for the 10th Amendment, but so indifferent to states violating the Second Amendment? Aren't they in the same Constitution?

[watchin]

"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?"

Shout it from the rooftops.

[Always Right]

If schools effectively taught logic, the left would be in real trouble.

[mlo]

Keep in mind, this is an article about logic and "bad thinking". It is NOT about what *I* believe or what you believe or what the correct political position is. It is about the *process* of thinking about them.

The article very rightly criticizes what passes for thinking in the press. He is absolutely correct in pointing out that they engage in "bad thinking" and illogic, and they do it on a daily basis. Most of us here at FR would agree that liberals don't know how to think. The problem I pointed out was that the article then went on to use some examples and engaged in some of the very same "bad thinking" the press does!

Example 1: The author discusses the decision on virtual child pornography and relates that to CFR. He starts by pointing out that editorialists defended the decision, stating the reason that even offensive speech deserves protection. Then he points out that the same papers argued for CFR. But he omits the reasoning behind the papers position on CFR and claims they are hypocrital. They may be, but the accusation goes to motive and an honest analysis of their position that DOESN'T use "bad thinking" must take into account the reasoning behind the paper's position on CFR. Do they acknowledge that CFR violates the 1st Ammendment but support it anyway? Then he'd be right, they are hypocritcal. More likely, they don't think that at all and believe (rationalize if you prefer) CFR doesn't infringe on the 1st. In which case it would be wrong, but wouldn't be hypocritical. In refusing to deal with it and defining his opponents views in his own terms to make a point the author engages in "bad thinking".

Example 2: The author says the press is hypocritical for being on opposite sides of two 1st Ammendment issues. Yet the author himself is guilt of precisely the same offense. In a previous article, which he cited in this one, he argues against the Supreme Court's decision on virtual child porn, yet it is clear from the context of this article that he believes CFR is wrong because it is a 1st Ammendment violation. That is exactly the same hypocrisy he accuses the press of, he's just on the other side of each issue.

Example 3: He again falls in the same "bad thinking" trap on the cloning issue. He says people that think using cloning to produce a baby is wrong also think using cloning to produce embryos for stem cells is OK. These are in fact two different things, and it's easy to see that if such a person believed a cellular embryo did not equate to a baby, how they could come to these seperate conclusions (again, since I know this is a sensitive subject and some of you fly off the handle easily, this isn't about whether any embryo IS a baby, it's about the process of analyzing what people think). So how does he make his case for "bad thinking"? By redefining the terms and attributing beliefs to his opponents that they don't have. He says, "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." But nobody says it is right to kill a baby for parts. The people who support therapeutic cloning don't believe harvesting an embryo is "killing a baby". They could be wrong about that, but it's what they think, and the author dishonestly uses terms that distort their views in order to make his point. That is very "bad thinking".

Example 4: The last example I'll cite is so blatant I wonder that he couldn't see the irony of it when he wrote it. He says, "But clear, logical thinking requires the ability to make distinctions." Very true, and he goes on to make the distinction between being pro-life and pro-death penalty, "It is wrong to kill an innocent person. It may not be wrong for the state to kill someone who is guilty." Exactly so. And right after making that point he says, "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?" Where he ignores his own requirement to "make distinctions" and again uses loaded terms to describe his opponents views. Most pro-choicers probably don't consider abortion to be executing a baby, and they consider it a distinction that the baby exists inside another person. An honest analysis of their views deals with these facts directly, it doesn't distort them or ignore them.

Now he's entitled to his political views, as are all of us. This is a good piece of political persuasion. But it poses as a lesson on logic and good thinking and it is certainly NOT that.

[Jay W]

Logic seems to be a peculiarly Western invention, you know, Aristotle and all that. Much of the anti-logic appears to come, and actually does come, from people who are anti the West.

You know the crowd. They're the same ones who classify "patriarchy," "phallocentrism," and "logocentrism" as among the various proclaimed evils of the West.

So, not only is logic not taught to people anymore, but antilogic is the order of the day. People are taught to abhor logic, just as they are not taught to think for themselves.

It is amazing the number of mutually contradictory views people have now, and also amazing how many people have views and beliefs that are contradictory of one another, had they bothered to think it through (which they don't, since it isn't on TV).

[SkyPilot]

It is not a question of "LOGIC" at all. I could donate all of my old college textbooks on the subject, and it wouldn't help at all.

The answer is that people's hearts have been darkened, they have rejected God, and His laws.

All else is window dressing.

[connectthedots]

The problem most people have in using logic or attacking the 'logic' of another person is that they go about it in the wrong manner. Logic can be effectively used to reach just about any of the principles if logic. The point of attack should not usually be the conclusions of the opponents argument, but the PREMISES which are usually easily demonstrated to be false and therefore render their conclusions to be wrong.

CTD, professor of logicality.