POLITICAL LYING FOR DUMMIES----or, Learning to make shit float

This post is for all of us who rage when we listen to what politicians are saying regarding the confirmation of an as yet to be named Supreme Court Justice. We respond to the skanky dialogue with even worse responses; fuck you, kiss my ass, you goddam liar and so on. We do this out of frustration. Our heads boil over because we don’t know exactly how these scumbags are fooling everyone. What tactics are being used? We know their arguments are phony, but we can't put our fingers on the pulse of them.

Don't worry about it. It's just that we don’t know the techniques of political mendacity. And it’s no wonder. These clever methods are taught to these slimeballs at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Arizona State and all the usual places. Not only that, the smart guys all take debating classes where these deceptive techniques are honed under the supervision of some of the best Left Wing minds in academia. What emerges are the best liars on the planet, adept at conning their way through courts, arrests, election campaigns, TV appearances and talk shows. They plant their clever statements in all the right places with the help of an always compliant media.

Academia trains the liars among us. You don't graduate til you have learned to manipulate others through lies and devices.

So here’s the real deal, explained here for all of you who didn’t go to Yale, who couldn’t get into Harvard with a hall pass, and think Michigan has good football teams because all the high schools in Michigan have a secret way to turn out really smart big guys who are fast. Ready?

Premise: Bush says he wants a Supreme Court Justice who will interpret the Constitution, not invent new law (legislate).

Period.

The Democrats will attempt to “Bork” the unknown nominee; the Republicans will attempt to cover the Democrats with as much raw sewage as possible as their way to de-Bork “debate.” As Drudge reported this morning, the Democrats are going to war over whomever is selected. They will go to war and trick us into believing that they are behaving for "the good of the country."

Aassume that there will not be a single argument against whomever Bush selects that will be legitimate. The bogus “arguments” (smears, debates, accusations) will fall into the following proven debate categories: The Straw Man fallacy, the False Dilemma Fallacy, the Circular Dilemma Fallacy, and less effective devices such as Post Hoc Reasoning, the “loaded question,” Burden of Proof Fallacy, and the always popular Unfair Fallacy. I leave out smear, reputation destruction, personal attacks and stuff because we all know what they are and they don’t work anyway, or at least they don't work since the attempted lynching of Clarence Thomas.

First, the Straw Man Fallacy, the educated slimeball method of choice and the one already in use by the Democrats. The problem with any Straw Man argument is that they almost always work. The elite rodent element uses this device in order to get opponents away from the central argument and turn the debate to an invented argument. When using this one it is necessary to get the stupid voters focus off of an appointment of a Supreme Court Justice who will interpret the Constitution, and onto something else.

This tactic simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. Used correctly, it forces an opponent to deal with a phantom argument. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern, and note how diabolical it can be:

Example 1: "Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program.
But I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

In the above, Senator Jones says that we shouldn’t fund the submarine program. Instead of saying something about the funding itself, the responder invents a new subject, a Straw Man called Defense. The purpose is to switch the debate to Defense and not discuss the funding of an individual program. Listen carefully to every political slug on TV; all of them use this tactic and they are good at it.

Many times we launch a straw man argument unconsciously. Let’s say that you and your wife are arguing about cleaning out the closets:
Wife: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy." (Premise)
You: "Why? We just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?"
Wife: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."

In the above example you sucked your wife into a completely different argument that you hope will work so you don’t have to help cleaning out the closet.

Currently, the Democrats have put up at least one Straw Man before anyone has been so much as nominated to the Court. This allows us to know what the Democrats want to pretend the argument will be about: Roe v Wade. The hope is that the “waters” will become so clouded with nasty side issues that the nomination will fall without ever debating the actual nominee. Some Conservatives (Christian groups) have put up the same Straw Man. This absolutely guarantees that the argument will be about Roe v Wade and not about appointing someone to the court who will interpret the Constitution, and not legislate from the bench.

Unless we wise up and stop it, the focus will be on choosing between a child murderer or a man who will not allow a woman the simple right to take care of her own body. Two fallacious statements. You smart guys out there will also note that this particular Straw Man contains something else: The False Dilemma Fallacy, which is covered below.

It is important to note that you cannot build a Straw Man out of actions, only out of statements or invented statements. The entire purpose of the Straw Man Fallacy is to invent a series of arguments that have nothing to do with the candidate and everything to do with inventing a monster. The current question becomes, how do we deal with the Straw Man argument of Roe v Wade and other subjects that most of the liberal population may want to argue in order to hide the fact that they don’t want a Conservative on the Court? Right now we are not doing a great job of dealing with The Straw Man. The fake argument. The Democrats will not allow the debate to be about anything else.

Next let’s look at the False Dilemma Fallacy. It is tried and true and it almost always works. The False Dilemma is always recognized because we are offered a "black and white-either or proposition," both of which present a total disaster possibility. In this tactic we are presented two options as if they were contradictions or contraries, when in fact they are not. The purpose is to stop you from thinking about alternative solutions to a problem. Telling you it is “life or death” when in fact you have a ton of choices available like delaying, running away, getting pals to help you out, and so on works because it scares you. The purpose of the False Dilemma Fallacy is to get you to think you only have two choices available.

“Better Red than Dead,” the favorite False Dilemma Fallacy of the 50s and 60s Left in America, is a great example. “Sign this or you’ll be broke in a month,” might be another. My all time favorite is “if you don’t put out right now it means you don’t love me.” This works more times than I can count. Put in today’s debate we can see the awful Kennedy example below which presented to America a destroyed country if Bork was allowed on the court. Currently both sides are presenting the “false dilemma” fallacy. The country will be destroyed if we don’t xxxxxxx.

Next we have a clever little thing called the Circular Reasoning Fallacy, perhaps the most devious of all the tactics because it pretends to be deductive argument when nothing could be further from the truth. Circular Reasoning means you assume to be true what you are supposed to be proving.

Here is honest Deductive Argument:

Baseball Fan: “What makes you say that football is the most exciting sport in the world?
Football Fan: “Because it has everything. Physical toughness, speed, diversity of tactics, and lots of scoring by long runs and long passes, and the sport that contains all those things must be the most exciting sport in the world.”

The preceding is honest deductive reasoning from available facts. Fan 2 “proves” his premise with facts. Next is a basic example of Circular Reasoning Fallacy:

Baseball Fan: What makes you say football is the most exciting sport in the world?
Football Fan: Because it is.

That fallacious argument is obvious. It can be stated as, "A is B, therefore A is B."

But in the real world people are more clever. We almost never recognize the fallacy of Circular Reasoning. The most famous example is one which we have all used as fact; Descartes famous statement: “I think, therefore I am.” We have been taught to accept it without thinking about it. The statement is fallacious. The famous statement begs the question, because when he said "I think," he'd already implied "I am" (or how else could he think?). Yet his fallacy continues to persuade people, over three hundred years later. Circular Reasoning depends on an assumption not stated, but assumed. This does not mean the statement is false, it just means the reasoning is false and must be challenged. Try this one:

“The charges of physical abuse at Abu Grahib are absolutely untrue, because our soldiers would never do something like that.”

The word “because” introduces a statement that makes no sense. How does the speaker know the soldiers didn't do it? Because they "would never do something like that?" Sounds like begging the question. Perhaps the soldiers didn't do it; perhaps they are innocent of the charges; but using circular reasoning like this will not help to defend them.

Another: ”Alberto Gonzales is the best candidate for Supreme Court Justice because he is totally better than any of the others.”

The assumption here ("because") is that Gonzales is better than the other candidates, AND the conclusion is that Gonzales is the best. Unless there is a claim made about why he is the best, which we don't have here, this assumes what the statement is supposed to be proving. This is another example of the Circular Reasoning Fallacy.

This fallacious reasoning is used a lot by Barbara Boxer, the studio heads, and all politicians. Always watch the word “because.”

Next is the The Unfair Fallacy—actually this is too easy except.....it is being used right now so let’s pop the bubble real quick. In the Unfair Fallacy,

equality is used to create falsehoods.

Equal treatment of good and bad arguments makes no sense. Just because there are two sides to every dispute doesn't mean that there is always something worthwhile to say on both sides.

In effect, to require someone to be "fair" by presenting both sides of a dispute, or by splitting the difference between two sides, is to make a judgment about the dispute before evaluating the validity and soundness of the arguments being made--and that, by definition, is a fallacy. "Murder is very bad, but it can also be very good" is LA Times reporting. "The Muslim culture is every bit as good as our own" is now taught as fact in all the wrong places..

Equality of both sides of an argument is also covered under compromise, or giving both sides equal weight. Dick says the Spurs won the game by seven and Jack says they won by ten; it is not correct to compromise and say that the Spurs won by eight and a half. Lots of compromise is made on this basis of giving "equal weight" to both statements. That is why so many compromises blow up. The recently formed Gang of Fourteen in the Senate compromised something that cannot be compromised. It will blow up.

Those are the most oft used tactics. When listening to debate or reading about a subject check to see if Fallacious Reasoning of any kind is being used. Keeps you from going out of your mind.

So relax and watch the tactics, taught to the worst among us by the worst above us. Supply enough hot air and shit can be made to float, sometimes.