A thoughtful leftist friend of mine posted a series of "rebuttals" from a Progressive website called "So Informed" to their own caricature of Conservative talking points on recent current events. It's worth thinking through each of them in turn, especially since I haven't posted in a long stretch, as a way to engage with the current state of our national culture's slide into centralized authoritarianism. This friend gets full points for speaking her mind, engaging with compassion, and standing up for what she believes. My concern here is to correct improper frames for debates, inaccurate and/or beside-the-point facts, and logical fallacies. All of this is centered on the ideas in question, not impugning the motives of the holders of such ideas. It's done in the spirit of believing in the other's freedom and intelligence strongly enough to offer sincere chances for them to change their mind. The ideas themselves, however, come from somewhere and have implications. So at points I may need to accurately describe beliefs that a sub-group of those who believe them may not be fully admitting to themselves the abhorrent nature of. People with good intentions can still be: a. wrong; b. mean; c. unaware of their meanness.
Let's get started...
1. Fallacies include: causation/correlation, straw man, hasty generalization
A. What's the context when a Conservative uses the quoted phrase? I've only ever heard it to suggest that guns are inanimate objects and that it takes an agent choosing to use them, for good or ill, to fire them. It's incontrovertible that guns are inanimate objects, isn't it? That it takes a human agent to fire them, no? The implication, when Conservatives deploy this phrase, is that measures to restrict availability and use of firearms are mistargeted, and our political efforts would be less wasted on external controls if we, instead, educated individuals to make good choices, to value life, to value good behavior, to value controlling negative emotions, and to behave responsibly in general. In other words, for Conservatives, choices matter. In none of these implications is there the hint of the suggestion mental illness as the core cause of most gun violence. Assuming that Conservative mean "mentally ill" people when they say "people" amounts to a straw man fallacy. Certainly people with mental health issues may not always make balanced choices on what is good behavior, and may struggle more than others to restrain harmful emotions. But no Conservative claims what they claim we claim.
B. So Informed "rebuts" the Conservative claim that the gun control issue should be about people, not guns, is the morally relativist position that lots of people elsewhere in the world struggle with the common struggles of humanity to which Americans are not the exception, and that therefore the main difference we see at scale is that Americans resort to guns more frequently than non-Americans because of the ubiquity of firearms in the American landscape. It's a position worth examining.
How does the US stack up in the worldwide landscape when comparing apples to apples? Certainly the statistics So Informed cites on ownership don't seem wrong. But they don't even ask the question of comparison. They just move quickly to the ownership stats and a context-free history on what kinds of weapons are allowed in the US. Their rhetorical purpose is to scare you into believing that mere ownership is equivalent to violent use, that the types of weapons allowed automatically and inevitably leads to greater violence. It's a hasty generalization fallacy. In truth, comparing mass public shootings around the world, the US isn't disproportionately affected, especially not to the degree expected if association could determine causation in the way the So Informed folks want you to believe. Based on research from roughly the past 2 decades, the US share of mass shooters has been 1.3%--far lower than the nearly 5% of the world's population touted by their own statistics. (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3671740) The question the rest of the world should be asking, is how is America so successful at maintaining a climate of peace with so many guns in the environment. Every serious answer needs to consider the possibility that it might be because of the guns, not in spite of them.
I'm leaving unaddressed for the moment the tacit poke here that lack of access to mental health is a big part of the problem.
2. Logical fallacies include: straw man, correlation/causation, inaccurate facts
A. No Conservative who says "don't make shootings political" is unaware that gun control/rights is a political topic, or that it is up to politicians to legislate according to the popular will on such matters. In context, when Conservatives deploy phrases like this, it's against the knee-jerk reaction of do-something leftists who immediately, before even knowing the facts of the cases, clamor for blanket bans, gun-free zones, and restrictions to unrelated weapons without thought to the actual, logical, pro-con analysis of the facts at hand. Be this straw man as it may, So Informed is not wrong: gun control is a political question.
B. On political spending: two quick points: a. $16M is barely a spitwad compared to the ocean of lobby spending in the US, which Statista estimates at $3.73B (https://www.statista.com/statistics/257337/total-lobbying-spending-in-the-us/). If the gun rights lobbyists are "buying off" cynical politicians, as the So Informed scare stat wants you to believe, that are willing to vote something they know is wrong because of the money they get, they're doing so on the cheap. b. A more balanced view of lobbying begins from the opposite premise, that contributing money to a politician's campaign is a sign that they want to help someone who already believes like they do to advance their ideas. It's up to counterbalancing interests to contribute to the campaigns of voices they would like elevated, and it's up to the electorate which voice to choose to represent them. There's nothing untoward, or automatic about $16M of contributions to politicians, since this IS a political issue and there IS significant opposition to gun rights seeking to influence public opinion on these important matters. Correlation is not causation. This is essentially a guilt-by-association fallacy.
C. The most logically substantial element of this page is their evaluation of the results of the 10-year "assault" weapons ban. It's worth considering. After a look at the data, it appears that the numbers of mass shooting didn't actually go down over the period claimed, and rose thereafter. Analysis is mixed on the rise thereafter, but the claim that the rise in "assault" weapon shootings after the law sunsetted is statistically insignificant has merit (https://crimeresearch.org/2022/05/biden-on-assault-weapons/).
3. Logical fallacies include: guilt by association, false dilemma, apples to orange comparisons, slothful induction, the Texas sharpshooter
A. I have nothing but my personal experience to cite, but I could swear that I'd heard this quote long before Wayne Lapierre uttered it in 2012. There are so many hits on it in google that tracking it down to a source of origin would take more time than I have for this, so I'll leave no other than my own word.
B. In any case, the remainder of the page is a giant self-own. First of all, a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, but this does not entail that every good guy with a gun can: a. stop any bad guy with any gun; b. be present at every occasion a bad guy with a gun attempts a crime with it. Their evidence? The delay in police action at Uvalde. To be fair, assuming the police are the good guys, the So Informed analysis is not wrong that while there are some crime prevention measures they can take, their role necessarily brings them to the presence of crime scenes after the crimes have occurred. But isn't there an apples and oranges comparison being drawn here? The police aren't merely average citizens with the right to self defense and to the adequate tools for the job. They are charged with public defense in a way average citizens aren't, and are bound by training, rules, and structures of accountability that give them expertise and extra responsibility to meet threats to public safety in ways private citizens aren't. But they also, by necessity, can't be everywhere all the time. Having a critical mass of average citizens armed to meet deadly threats with equal force is much more likely to create, in any given instant, conditions of rational hesitation on the part of anyone seeking to do harm with firearms than the current state of delay for "experts" with guns and responsibilities to protect us causes. In other words, the fact that police didn't in Uvalde and can't in other scenarios be present as the "good guys with a gun" allowing other folks to be that good guy is what Conservatives support. So Informed is making our point for us. They give a one-sided, but essentially correct analysis, but draw the wrong conclusion, out of a mix of fallacies: the false dilemma (this isn't only cops or nothing), the lazy induction (because cops failed doesn't mean no "good guys" all failed), and the--please excuse the term--Texas Sharpshooter fallacies (they aim at police as the "good guys" but don't take into account that "good guys" includes a broader category). All of which shift the rhetorical goalposts in their favor. when framed properly, comparing apples to apples, average citizens with guns logically stand a better chance to be present to prevent violence than the police alone, and at the end of the day, even if it is on ly the police with guns, they do tend to eventually stop further killing--Uvalde even with its delay, Dayton and others with a much shorter delay. Reality is not actually on the side of the So Informed talking points as evidenced by this compilation of news reports about defensive uses of guns, specifically the prevention of potential mass shootings: https://crimeresearch.org/2022/05/uber-driver-in-chicago-stops-mass-public-shooting/
4. Fallacies include: straw man, no true Scot
red" states are that cause such universal burdens upon teachers, but let's grant that teachers are hired and trained to teach, and should be allowed to concentrate on their job and not duties of defense of self and classroom. And let's grant that the 2018 Gallup poll stands as accurate and is telling the complete picture. No Conservative wants to force all teachers to arm themselves. This is entirely a straw man argument. Every proposal to allow firearms in the classroom was designed as a voluntary measure, ostensibly for the 27% of teachers that do not oppose being armed. Having even a fraction of those teachers come strapped would provide a massive deterrent to anyone seeking to do harm in the entire school, simply because the existence of a new threat to the criminal imposes a higher risk to their carrying out of the crime.
A. I call straw man. I don't know anyone who would say this, and will apologize immediately if I see one, but until then, let's simply correct the statement and see if it still holds logically: "There would be fewer unplanned and/or unwanted pregnancies if contraceptive measures were more frequently deployed." Not seeing how this corrected statement has any weakness.
B. What we can fairly evaluate, though, is the implications and assumptions surrounding the original. It's fair to assume that some abortions are sought because pregnancies happen but aren't wanted, isn't it? So Informed gets that core assumption right, but deals with it in an odd way: first it implies that abortions should remain available to handle the non-zero possibility that pregnancy prevention measures fail, and then it makes the moral claims that unless the cost of all such measures were zero, the availability of abortion is the only viable solution. This argument amounts to a false dilemma, but really just seems to be deeply condescending. First of all, the implications surrounding the presence or accuracy of sex-ed courses seems to be trying to dig at Conservative communities who believe that failing to teach that abstinence from sex works 100% of the time it's tried (which some sex-ed programs do actually fail to teach) leaves the sex education incomplete. But even the heart of the argument--that widely available, low-cost contraceptives within reach of the poorest of the poor are insufficient to prevent unwanted pregnancies--seems to imply that people who end up with unwanted pregnancies either do so only because they couldn't budget $1 per encounter for an act whose consequences include the potential for the lifelong set of responsibilities included in parenthood or only because they were unaware that those acts include the potential for the lifelong responsibilities included in parenthood as their consequences. In both cases, So Informed seems to imply that their readers are spectacularly uninformed.
6. Fallacies include: straw man
A. Not sure who said this, ever. So I'm calling straw man, again.
B. Taking the assertion as it stands, I don't think any informed Conservative would disagree that it's ludicrous to call for breastfeeding alone as a solution to the baby formula shortage. The grounds on which So Informed builds its case against the statement aren't solid--breastfeeding does not require worksite lactation programs, storage supplies, special environments, and doesn't always include extra costs or pumping--but not fundamentally wrong. I find it odd, however, that they don't include the most salient argument against moving from formula feeding to lactation: mammary glands can't be started at will. With that said, my only real hesitation on this point is that its context implies that Conservatives (the political opponents of the entire thread) somehow oppose a woman's choice to formula feed.
7. Fallacies include: tu quoque, rank credulity (this isn't present in the Aristotelian delineation of logical fallacies, but deserves to be--it's when people believe a politician for what he says. People should be appropriately critical in general, and especially skeptical of political claims)
A. This one is so nebulous and partisan that it's hard to nail down on which fallacies it fails the test of logic. It seems to be mistaking opinions for facts, falsely claiming relative things are absolutes, and engaging in lots of tu quoque (the "you did it too" idea that doesn't turn the second wrong into a right). Let's just begin with the question of how to judge a politician. Is it on what they claim (especially about themselves!) or on their record? Biden may not fancy himself a socialist, and he may not vote for the entire socialist enchilada of full state control of all means of production (which, as the So Informed page fails to do, actually defines full socialism), but is it fair to ask where his voting record leads? Of course. And as a proponent of gun control, national control of the healthcare and health insurance systems, cradle-to-grave welfare that expands its purview into the creation of dependency on government largesse, massive deficit spending, etc. isn't it fair to describe the direction of his policies as being toward centralized control of the nation's resources?
B. The dripping condescension evident in the ad hominem of claiming that those who oppose specific tax and minimum wage policies are ignorant of true socialism deserves a little clapback: it's they who don't understand socialism and how societies march toward it unless liberty is defended afresh at every generation.
8. Fallacies include slothful induction, apples to oranges comparisons, out of context facts that beg the question
A. When Conservatives blame Joe Biden for gas prices, it should be obvious that they don't believe Biden has a gas price button that he presses to inflate the price at whim. Of course there's not direct control of the entire industry, let alone its globally traded nature. So while this page gets the essential narrative of a global consequence of the shut down compounded by Ukrainian conflict effects right, it's committing a fallacy of lazy induction or selective whitewashing to conveniently forget that Biden was critical of Trump's response to COVID and wanted earlier, longer, stricter, and more federalized lockdown protocols than were implemented by his predecessor--at least while on campaign against him. It's obvious that his policy preferences on lockdowns were informed almost exclusively by narrow-scope epidemiologists, not by balanced advisors who could assess the broader system of risks, health and otherwise, to locking down the country during COVID, and that they therefore contributed to the consequences of a rebooting economy--high gas demand, coupled with supply shortages.
B. It's also hard to seriously dispute the impact of leadership styles on Putin. Trump took out an Iranian general on Iranian soil with a missile despite threats of retaliation. Biden, by contrast, offered a sternly worded rebuke and promised not to let American troops get directly involved when Putin amassed troops on the Ukrainian border, claiming it was merely for a routine training exercise. Strongarm dictators like Putin aren't likely to think twice about angering the US president unless they have legitimate fears about being on the receiving end of a real threat if they cross a line. Ask Syria's Assad what he thinks of Biden's involvement in "red lines. It's hard to imagine Putin invading any countries with NATO membership applications pending under Trump, so it's logical to assert that Biden's role in enabling the conditions for the Ukrainian effect on gas prices is a factor.
C. Not sure how to parse the apples to oranges of comparing Trump's first year of drilling permits versus Biden's first year other than to insist on more context. Here's a fuller picture: https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/03/09/biden-claimed-his-climate-agenda-isnt-hurting-domestic-oil-production-here-are-the-facts-n2604276. Let's not pretend that Biden is pro-energy independence, and let's not pretend that we don't pay a cost in blood for dealing with Russian oil when we shut down pipeline construction to free and fair countries like Canada.
9. Finally. Fallacies include: hasty (vague) generalization,
A. This one barely deserves a response. It's obviously taking something way too seriously, and So Informed is therefore unintentionally making a parody of itself. However, it's a schtick I also like to employ when Progressives say ridiculous things, so let's let them have this one and see where turnabout can become fair play. In context, this expression implies that there are some core, essential components of life as an American that freedom dictates that you either show your acceptance of or be consistent with your own voice on, and vote with your feet to leave a place you can't support the essential characteristics of. In all cases, it's a call to confirm words through actions, not an actual demand that anyone abandon their place of living. The problem is that So Informed took a toss-away expression seriously enough to investigate whether the average American had the means to pull up stakes, make like a tree, and leave, but not seriously enough to actually define what "it" might constitute a take-it-or-leave-it issue. So we're left with the emotionally charged accusation that anything a Conservative might defend is somehow "deeply flawed", but without any rational basis for evaluating the accusation. Par for the course, Progressives.
B. Regardless of how much a move costs, or whether Americans have debt (which constitutes a non sequitur fallacy, technically), the deeper question of first amendment import here is worth upholding. Conservatives hold the freedoms of thought and expression sacrosanct. We defend the rights of even our most ardent and ridiculous opponents to say the most ridiculous things because we recognize that our own liberty to argue back depends on the same freedoms. However, only a moral relativist can seriously advance the notion that criticism of a country is--with no reference to the direction of the criticism--"healthy" for the country. Just because there is value in considering a diversity of opinions on a given subject does not make all opinions on that subject equally right, equally solid, equally based in accurate and properly-framed facts, or equally participating in a broader project to shake out the best ideas and support them. Telling a person who dissents on the principle of freedom of speech that they should leave if they don't like the freedom here isn't unhealthy, it's logical.
Comments