Monthly Archive

The Brookings Institution has posted the Iraq Index, a compilation of statistics about Iraq, useful for determining the quantitative impact of the US occupation.

The Iraq Index is a statistical compilation of economic, public opinion, and security data. This resource will provide updated information on various criteria, including crime, telephone and water service, troop fatalities, unemployment, Iraqi security forces, oil production, and coalition troop strength.

The index is designed to quantify the rebuilding efforts and offer an objective set of criteria for benchmarking performance. It is the first in-depth, non-partisan assessment of American efforts in Iraq, and is based primarily on U.S. government information. Although measurements of progress in any nation-building effort can never be reduced to purely quantitative data, a comprehensive compilation of such information can provide a clearer picture and contribute to a healthier and better informed debate.

Oooooo…. informed debate. How will the ultra right cope with such a thing?

Hat tip: MetaFilter.

Russ Kick at The Memory Hole proves once again the value of the Freedom of Information Act. Using its provisions, he has obtained copies of reports from the State Department describing detailed plans for rebuilding Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein—plans which the Bush Administration has almost completely ignored. Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Stephenson at StoptheACLU again demonstrates why the radical right-wingers have to be watched so closely, and why their claims of holding the moral high ground ring so hollow. He’s posted a graphic advocating the murder of ACLU lawyers. Clearly visible in the graphic is the phrase “rope + tree + ACLU lawyer = pinata”. (I’ve mirrored the page, in the event Jay decides to take the graphic down and claim he never had it on his site.) Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have noticed, I have criticized a great many of the arguments made by radical right-wingers on the basis of mistakes in reasoning. The topic of critical thinking is an interest of mine, and along those line, I commend to you the list of logical fallacies compiled and explained by Dr. Michael C. Labossiere.

A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. This differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong about the facts. To be more specific, a fallacy is an “argument” in which the premises given for the conclusion do not provide the needed degree of support. A deductive fallacy is a deductive argument that is invalid (it is such that it could have all true premises and still have a false conclusion). An inductive fallacy is less formal than a deductive fallacy. They are simply “arguments” which appear to be inductive arguments, but the premises do not provided enough support for the conclusion. In such cases, even if the premises were true, the conclusion would not be more likely to be true.

It’s always useful to know what logical fallacies are, and how to recognize them in arguments made by others — or yourself.

ADDEMDUM: The resources listed in the Wikipedia article on critical thinking look to be most helpful. I am slogging through them, slowly.

"The Dread Pundit Bluto" provides us with another example of how radical rightwingers use selective quotations to deceive:

Glenn Greenwald has joined the slavering ranks of Feingold’s Censure Army. Writing today in Unclaimed Territory, and cross-posted at the disgraced Huffington Post, Greenwald, whose masthead claims he is a lawyer, argues for censuring President Bush over NSA surveillance – without the bother of an investigation:

Therefore, while an investigation into Issue 2 is imperative, all of the facts relevant to the question of whether the President broke the law (the only issue raised by the Feingold Resolution) are already known, and for that reason it is illogical to claim that an investigation is needed before that question can be answered.

Well, my goodness. Why on earth would Mr. Greenwald want to forego an investigation into whether the President broke the law? Well, had Bluto had the honesty to put the quote in context, it would have been obvious:

But in stark contrast to Issue 2, all the facts necessary to know the answer to Issue 1 are already disclosed, are publicly available, and have been admitted by the Administration. Therefore, while an investigation into Issue 2 is imperative, all of the facts relevant to the question of whether the President broke the law (the only issue raised by the Feingold Resolution) are already known, and for that reason it is illogical to claim that an investigation is needed before that question can be answered. Put simply, we don’t know the scope and extent of the President’s illegal eavesdropping, but we do know that the eavesdropping he ordered was illegal.

(Emphasis mine.)

Simple, really. There’s no need to investigate whether the President broke the law, because he admits he broke the law:

Secondly, the FISA law was written in 1978. We’re having this discussion in 2006. It’s a different world. And FISA is still an important tool. It’s an important tool. And we still use that tool. But also—and we—look—I said, look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law? And people said, it doesn’t work in order to be able to do the job we expect us to do.

Bluto’s clumsy attempt to paint Glenn Greenwald as unreasonable falls apart the instant one looks at the facts.

Juan Cole has produced a series of excellent posts on the views of Islam as explicated in the Quran (or Koran), and he makes an excellent point about the right-winger tactic of bashing Islam with quotes from the Quran:

Readers asked me about the long list of militant verses collected by polemicists against Islam. The answer is that those verses refer to the Meccan power elite in the 620s AD, who were waging a determined military, political and economic war to defeat the Muslims holed up in nearby Medina, and wipe them and the new religion out. It is frankly dishonest to take a verse about, say, the battle of Badr against the militant Meccan pagans (“unbelievers”) and imply that it refers to contemporary American Christians or American atheists for that matter. What was objectionable to the Quran in practical terms about the Meccan unbelievers was their murderousness toward Muslims, not their attachment to their star goddesses. Muslims are instructed to be nice to unbelievers who don’t share that murderousness.

Read the rest of this entry »

Can religion be an addiction? In some cases, I suspect that it can. There are many millions of well-adjusted, intelligent people of integrity who have deeply held religious beliefs, and I respect their right to those beliefs. But in some cases, as Dr. Bob Minor points out, religious belief can become something more toxic:

[I]f we’re going to think clearly about the right-wing juggernaut’s use of religion, and not function as its enablers, we must realize that we’re dealing with an addict. Right-wing political-religious fundamentalism can destroy us too if we’re like the dependent spouse who protects, defends, and covers-up for the family drunk.

So, what can we do to protect ourselves, maintain our sanity, promote a healthy alternative, and confront religious addiction? What’s the closest thing to an intervention when we’re dealing with the advanced, destructive form of religious addiction that’s become culturally dominant?

...Don’t let the addict get you off topic. Addicts love to confuse the issues, get you talking about things that don’t challenge their problem. When you do, you further the addiction.

...Get your message on target and repeat it. Get support for your message from others so that they’re on the same page. Make it short, simple, to the point, and consistent.

The article is short and concise. Go read it.

Hat tip to PZ Myers at Pharyngula.

The great thing about humans is that there is no situation so terrible that it can’t be made fun of:

Patriot Act: The Home Version [is] the board game that brings the thrill of trampling the Constitution right into your home… newly updated for 2006 to include NSA wiretaps and renewal of provisions! [The game is] inspired by the historic abuse of governmental powers of the same name. Many of the hypothetical situations in the game are based on real-life events. Either as a game to be played or as a statement to be read, Patriot Act: The Home Version educates the user to the current erosion of our civil rights by the government while claiming to be protecting our freedoms. John Ashcroft may no longer be Attorney General, but his legacy lives on in the anti-freedom legislation that this game is a tribute to.

The game board, rules, and cards can all be downloaded as Acrobat PDF files and printed out.

Thanks to Daily Kos for the tip.

PZ Myers:

Waldman also wants to know the roots of our hostility towards “religion and spirituality”. That one is easy: it’s because guessing games, revealed knowledge, irrational prejudice, inappropriate traditions, and unthinking obedience to dogma are not sensible ways to run a country, especially not one with a plurality of religious beliefs. That is the real stumbling block here, not that a minority of the Democratic party demands a rational foundation for our policies.

Right on, brother!

It turns out that radical right-wing pundits and bloggers aren’t the only ones who like to set up straw men just to knock them down. Our Sainted President is quite willing to use that dishonest rhetorical tactic as well:

When the president starts a sentence with “some say” or offers up what “some in Washington” believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he “strongly disagrees” — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

...A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as “a bizarre kind of double talk” that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.

“It’s such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people,” Fields said. “All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What’s striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff.”

It’s easy and tempting to create a caricature of an opponent’s position to argue against, but a dsicerning mind knows that the tactic is essentially dishonest. It relies on a lie, explicit or otherwise, about what the opponent has said. Those who use it — and its use is by no means limited to the right — expose their own inability to engage in truthful, meaningful debate.

Hat tip to MyDD.

UPDATE 3/21/06 16:25: Media Matters notes that, for years, “many AP writers… have simply reported Bush’s misrepresentations of his opponents’ arguments without challenging them.”

Real Teen seems to have a real talent for making shit up out of thin air:

New riots have erupted in France, with the Muslim minority spear-heading the charge. While these riots haven’t reached the level of damage or violence seen before, FOX News just showed pictures of several cars burning. Is this the beginning of a new string of riots that will only escalate racial violence and Islamic radicalism in France?

He cites a Reuters news article about the riots as his source. Guess what? Read the article, and you will find not one mention of Muslims. None. Go and check today’s Fox News article about the riots, and you’ll find it also does not mention Muslims at all.

Where’s the evidence that “the Muslim minority” is “spear-heading the charge”? Where’s the evidence that the riots will “escalate racial violence and Islamic radicalism in France”? If Real Teen has any, he is certainly keeping it well hidden. Frankly, I think this is just another example of the radical right’s tactic of demonizing all Muslims. But maybe Real Teen will surprise us and produce some real facts to support his claims about the riots.

Maybe. But I’m not holding my breath.

UPDATE 3/18/06 18:15: It seem that like many of his kind, Real Teen prefers to pretend he cannot be criticized. He’s deleted the trackback from this post to his. I’m waiting for him to invent an excuse, like my use of the word "shit". Heh.

UPDATE 3/18/06 22:24: Real Teen claimed in chat that he had not deleted the trackback — yet he almost immediately deleted a second one. Then he deleted the chat. He’s not much interested in owning up to his own actions, is he?

UPDATE 3/19/06 06:50: A new post at The Wide Awakes is headed More riots in France, but this time it isn’t the Muslim community rioting. I wonder if Real Teen will reconsider his claims in light of this.

UPDATE 3/20/06 08:20: And now RT backpedals, claiming that he “somewhat misreported this story”, and that “the Muslim minority only seems to be spear-heading the violence”. He provides no factual support for this new claim.

In February 2006, the popular weblog BoingBoing was banned from the computer screens of hundreds of US companies and schools, as well as in many repressive countries, by an asinine decision made by a single purveyor of web-filtering software:

At fault in most of these cases is a US-based censorware company called Secure Computing, which makes a web-rating product called SmartFilter. But SmartFilter isn’t very smart. Secure Computing classifies any site with any nudity—even Michaelangelo’s David appearing on a single page out of thousands—as a “nudity” site, which means that customers who block “nudity” can’t get through.

Last week, Secure Computing updated their software to classify Boing Boing as a “nudity” site. Last month, we had two posts with nudity in them, out of 692—that’s 0.29 percent of our posts, but SmartFilter blocks 100 percent of them. This month, there were four posts with nudity (including the Abu Ghraib photos), out of 618—0.65 percent.

In fact, out of the 25,000 Boing Boing posts classed as “nudity” by SmartFilter, more that 99.5 percent have no nudity at all. They’re stories about Hurricane Katrina, kidnapped journalists in Iraq, book reviews, ukelele casemods, phonecam video of Bigfoot sightings (come to think of it, he doesn’t wear clothes either), or pictures of astonishing Lego constructions.

In response, Mark Christian created Distributed BoingBoing, which allows users who browse the web from behind the so-called SmartFilter to access BoingBoing via alternate sites. I’ve just set up DBB on this site, and it is accessible at http://dbb.thinkingmeat.net. Enjoy.

And Secure Computing… bite me.

Not sure how I missed this, but Jay Stephenson has again destroyed his credibility. Noting that the ACLU has called for stronger protection for government whistleblowers, he quotes a part of the ACLU press release and then lies outright:

Without the disclosure from that whistleblower, Congress and the public would continue to be unaware of the warrantless surveillance by the NSA.

Yes, that is because the program was “secret”! What does the ACLU not understand about the word secret?

What does Jay Stephenson not understand about the facts? The wiretapping of al Qaeda phone conversations hasn’t been secret for many months. Read the rest of this entry »

Jack Cluth chews up the "poor persecuted Christians" meme, and spits it out for the dishonest demagoguery it truly is:

If Jesus were to come back to Earth today, I seriously doubt he would recognize the religion being “practiced” by His “followers”. Too many of those narrow, judgemental trolls who call themselves “Christians” are nothing more than intolerant zealots using their beliefs as a ruler to evaluate and judge the worthiness of others by. These folks know nothing of the true meaning of Christ’s teachings and even less about Christian charity. They will take their families to their megachurches in their SUVs festooned with magnetic ribbons and leave feeling righteous and self-superior. The problem is that the religion they are “practicing” has nothing at all to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. No, their religion is all about intolerance, xenophobia, and self-righteous acquisitiveness. ‘Course, this isn’t about to stop them from playing the “persecution” card.

...I respect Christianity and those who actually endeavor to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ. The problem, though, is that far too many Christians have forgotten, if indeed they ever knew, what those teachings are about. Modern Christianity seems to have little to do with Christ and His teachings. It seems to be heavily infused with acquisitiveness, Conservative politics, and narrow, judgemental xenophobia. Those who follow this interpretation of Christianity see the world as a battle between the forces of Good and Evil, with themselves of course on the side of Good and America as the last bastion of Good in this world. It’s an amazingly self-absorbed, self-congratulatory view of their place in the world, but when you believe that God is on your side it would seem that all things really ARE possible, eh?

If the faux-Christians that Jack is referring to really wanted to spread their word, they would be spending their time emulating Christ instead of trying to force-feed their “gospel” in every public forum they could find. It’s easy (and for many, lucrative) to find imaginary enemies to mobilize against. It’s much, much harder to look into one’s own soul, find the flaws there, and work to correct them.

Matt McIntosh makes some very cogent and worthwhile observations on the “Islam vs. everybody else” meme so popular these days. I’ve picked out some especially salient points below, but I urge you to go and read the whole thing.

[T]he “Muslim problem” is just a special case of the “human problem.” Human psychology is pretty constant across cultures and has remained pretty much the same throughout history, and anyone who believes for a second that Westerners are intrinsically above these sorts of shenanigans is kidding themselves. Every age and every society has always had its peculiar heresies. And there is no better way to disabuse oneself of the notion that Muslims are somehow special in their capacity for savagery than to simply study history—life through much of human history has been nasty, brutish and short, and it is only in the last few centuries that we have begun to pull ourselves out of the proverbial muck. The past century alone has witnessed enough bloody wars and shameful predations against minorities even among “civilized” nations that it renders risible the very notion that “those people” are somehow intrinsically different from us.

...[W]hile the behavior exhibited by many Muslims today is unacceptable by our civilized standards, the psychological substrate that governs these behaviors is fairly uniform across cultures. Chalking their behaviour up to some sort of essential Islamicness and viewing them as barbarians at the gates may well be gratifying to some, but isn’t helpful. Psychologically, “we” are not half so different from “them” as many of us would like to believe, and we have barbarians in our own midst. We are not monkeys anymore, but our neanderthal legacy lingers beneath the cognitive surface and can be seen poking through every now and again. It’s our system of rules (both implicit and explicit), evolved painstakingly over many centuries to co-opt and restrain our baser aspects, that makes all the difference.

...[C]asting this as Islam versus modernity works against that goal by polarizing the field, in addition to missing the point—the continual struggle between the open society and the closed encompasses all of humanity, and is lost or won within the human brain. We’re in a race to connect the rest of the world up to our level before the bin Ladens of the world can bring us back down to theirs. That was the purpose of Iraq, and no matter how one felt about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the Bush administration’s choices, we can all hope that the Iraqis will succeed, insh’allah. The future bodes ill if they don’t.

Too often in political discourse, the cheap ploy takes the place of the carefully reasoned argument. One good example of this is the tendency for one or another debater to exaggerate an opponent’s position in order to ridicule it. It’s much easier to demolish an extremist argument than a moderate one, and so the tactic of caricaturing one’s opponent’s arguments as extreme versions of themselves becomes a tempting gambit — especially if one’s own positions are difficult to defend.

My good friend Ogre provides a ready example of this slothful practice:

Since the left/Democrats/media (one and the same) keep giving their solutions and ideas, let’s implement them. It would be a 3-step approach.

1. Immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq. Complete and total withdrawal. After all, those people can fend for themselves, right? If Saddam’s people free him and he takes power again, that’s fine—it’s none of our business, right?

2. Free all prisoners at Gitmo. They keep complaining about Gitmo prisoners, right? So we should do as they suggest—just completely free all enemy combatants, all dangerous people who are bent on destroying America—let them go free.

3. Cancel the Patriot Act and restore the “wall” between all the departments in the government—no sharing of information between the CIA and FBI or anyone else. That’s what the left wants, right?

That’s the current, stated agenda of the left (media, Democrat Party, etc) in this country.

Ogre’s arguments, of course, are nearly textbook examples of the well-known "straw man" fallacy. Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Stark writes a blog entitled Calling All Wingnuts, in which he chronicles his adventures calling right-wing radio talk shows. He has provided a guide to calling such shows and getting your point across quickly and effectively. Well, as effectively as one can under such circumstances.

[B]e sure you know what you want to say and that you are prepared for any challenges. Unless you are confident in your ability to think quickly on your feet while speaking publicly to thousands of people, the easiest way to prepare is to develop one talking point to hammer over and over again. Rehearse it. Make it short and snappy (I’ll return to this crucial piece of advice later), and don’t stray from it – no matter how hard you are pushed.

...Almost as important as knowing what you want to say is anticipating what the host is likely to come back at you with. If you are a political junkie, you probably watch enough “debate” programs on CNN, MSNBC or Fox to have a general idea of common winger retorts. Other good sources are wingnut blogs and administration talking points.

Finally, you never know when the host will cut you off, so, like I said earlier, it’s important to make your statement short. Don’t go beyond five or six sentences. The purpose of the statement is to set the call up on terms that are favorable to you – so try not to be deliberately incendiary or controversial. Instead frame your argument in such a way as to make even the wingiest of the wingnuts sound unreasonable if they disagree with you.

• Do stick to your topic: don’t let them change the subject on you. Whether or not you hate George Bush has got nothing to do with the rule of law. So blow the question off by asking your own: “Are we a nation of laws?”
• Do restate your most powerful premise as often as you can – and use right-wing frames as often as possible.
• Don’t lose your cool. Think of this as a debate – the minute you begin to sweat, the other guy has won.
• Don’t ever give an inch – don’t go week-kneed in an attempt to curry favor.

I’m fairly certain that calling these shows isn’t going to change any minds — not the host’s, certainly, and likely damn few if any of his listeners. But it will get across the point that there are other ways of looking at the issues of the day. Plus, it can be one hell of a lot of fun.