Three Degrees of Suppuration

Link thanks to our friends at The Moderate Voice

el dumbasso Glen Beck

Suppuration, as defined by Merriam Webster:

sup·pu·ra·tion - noun

Etymology: Latin suppuratus, past participle of suppurare, from sub- + pur-, pus pus — more at FOUL
Date: 1656
: to form or discharge pus

Today, we’ll be dealing with three foul, pustulent fallacies that have been making the rounds of the political moronosphere™ in dimwitopia™ (and yes, I coined the term) ….

1. The Fallacy of Medium Mistreatments Proven by Hypothetical Realities

First, there is a CLASS of arguments that we ought, rightly to laugh off the national stage. You might recognize it in its generic form:

If _______ had been a ________ (man/woman), do you think the media would be treating (him/her) like this?

Let’s talk about what a penultimately dumbass argument this is.

First, it is utterly speculative, and entirely dependent on the (self-serving) interpretation of the speaker — usually tossed out as a rhetorical (obvious) question requiring no response since it’s supposedly SELF-EVIDENT.

Answer: NOPE. It’s NOT self-evident. It’s a dishonest rhetorical device, and outside the bounds of reasoned discourse. It is at its base unfair: racist, sexist, ageist, dumbass and evil. And ANYONE using this argument should be laughed off the stage as a clueless moron.

Got that?

Second, there is literally no way to ever establish the truth or falsehood of the proposition, and it feeds into the racist/sexist/ageist notion that we can judge people by the color of their skin, by their sexual plumbing and by the number of rings you can count in a core sample.

Here is the argument in its implicit form from famed evil dumbass Charles Krauthammer:

Watching such a display, you get a full appreciation of Hillary’s challenge. The mainstream media are back in the tank. The “Saturday Night Live” skits parodying media obsequiousness toward Obama, followed closely by the revelation of the Wright tapes, temporarily forced the media to subject Obama to normal scrutiny. But after the “speech” and Tuzla, they have reverted to form as protectors of the myth of Obama.

The implication here is, of course, that the “media” are treating Obama BETTER than anyone else (but if he/she had been Hillary/McCain such “normal” scrutiny would ALWAYS have happened. Note the mythical projection of the chimera of “normal scrutiny.”) This argument has been presented ad nauseum in this silly, evil season.*

[* And note the evil underlying lying that Charles Krauthammer is "defending" Hillary. He wants Hillary dead. He's just using her candidacy as a catspaw for his form of gutter slander spiffed up via his thesaurus.

Actually, Krauthammer is a devoted practitioner of this classical fallacy:

Argument By Prestigious Jargon:

using big complicated words so that you will seem to be an expert. Why do people use "utilize" when they could utilize "use" ? For example, crackpots used to claim they had a Unified Field Theory (after Einstein). Then the word Quantum was popular. Lately it seems to be Zero Point Fields.]

Third, the absurd presumption that the media deals with ANYONE in a fair or even-handed manner can only be put forth truthfully by a space alien just arrived from Arcturus.

After all, there is no singular media — we Americans ungrammatically insist on using “media” as a singular when it is in fact, a plural. The British rightly use the construction “the media ARE,” where we foolishly insist on using the construction, “the media IS.”

Foolishly? Yes. Because it muddles our thinking.

The use of ‘media’ as a singular leads to the idiotic presumption from both the left and the right that the pluralistic and widely divergent voices of the mass media (radio, tv, print, internet), each in its separate medium (the singular), can be stereotyped/characterized/painted with one broad, tarred brush. Ridiculous.

Because the “media” are always the enemy of YOUR candidate. Got that? Even when it comes to the absurdist proposition that the “liberal” media ALWAYS smear the poor conservatives — a claim of “victimhood” as absurd as the notion that the Jews were beating up the poor, misunderstood Nazis in ’30s Berlin — it’s always because the “media” haven’t said enough glowing things about the conservative in question. Ditto liberalis.

Look:

We have three contenders for the presidency, and the “categorical” arguments are WORSE than merely pointless. They are EVIL. They are MALICIOUS. They are self-serving, vain and arrogant.

Each person has their own strengths and weaknesses, each can be adjudged in their own right, and none are served by this dumbass, dipshit, moronic form of drooling argument.

So stop it.

In future, I will merely flag such arguments with [**MORON ALERT**] and move on. A word to the wise is sufficient, and ten thousand to a fool will not do.

Now:

2. Three degrees of separation

This is the SECOND form of moron argument I’d like to deal with today, albeit not by direct refutation, as above, but, rather by the quaint and fun practice known in debate and logic circles as reductio ad absurdam. We will accept the premises of the argument and apply them to similar/identical situations, and see how valid the argument actually is.

Oh, all right, I’ll add the “official” type explanation, if only to prove that Bertrand Russell was the Pope:

Reductio Ad Absurdum:

showing that your opponent’s argument leads to some absurd conclusion. This is in general a reasonable and non-fallacious way to argue. If the issues are razor-sharp, it is a good way to completely destroy his argument. However, if the waters are a bit muddy, perhaps you will only succeed in showing that your opponent’s argument does not apply in all cases, That is, using Reductio Ad Absurdum is sometimes using the Fallacy Of The General Rule. However, if you are faced with an argument that is poorly worded, or only lightly sketched, Reductio Ad Absurdum may be a good way of pointing out the holes. An example of why absurd conclusions are bad things:

Bertrand Russell, in a lecture on logic, mentioned that in the sense of material implication, a false proposition implies any proposition. A student raised his hand and said “In that case, given that 1 = 0, prove that you are the Pope”. Russell immediately replied, “Add 1 to both sides of the equation: then we have 2 = 1. The set containing just me and the Pope has 2 members. But 2 = 1, so it has only 1 member; therefore, I am the Pope.”

All right. Got that? We move on to the absurd proposition that Barack Obama was in the congregation of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who was, himself, a visitor with Louis Farrakhan to Libyan Leader Muammar Khaddafy.

This is “three degrees of separation” in all cases. Either Wright to Farrakhan, or Wright to Khaddafy. In using a mysterious power of the transitive property of belief (e.g. whatever someone who I know believes, I believe, and, therefore, whatever someone who knows someone I know believes that someone I know believes, and, therefore I believe, I propose that we play the game of three degrees of separation with Hillary and McCain, just so’s ALL can receive “normal scrutiny.”

Let’s start with an easy one:

John McCain knows both Bushes George. Their father/grandfather was Hitler’s American banker, and, therefore, John McCain believes what Hitler believed.

OK? How about Hillary:

Hillary was/is good friends with Jean Houston, who was married to William Masters, who co-authored the Masters and Johnson report. Houston and Masters used to take LSD together. Therefore, Hillary likes to take LSD and have sex while being filmed with electrodes attached to her body.

OK. How about a bank shot?

Mike Huckabee:

Mike Huckabee had a co-chair of his Faith and Family Values Coalition named Janet Folger, President of Faith2Action, in Florida. “In recent weeks, Folger has been going all out for Huckabee in her WorldNetDaily columns, calling Hillary Clinton ‘Queen of Slaughter’ and claiming that, if elected, Clinton will put Christians in prison.”

Huckabee also toured with Chuck Norris, faded martial arts movie star who ALSO writes a column for WorldNetDaily. Therefore, Chuck Norris believes that if Hillary Clinton is elected, she will put all Christians in prison.

As does Mike Huckabee.

One final McCain “3 degrees of Separation”:

John McCain also has secured the endorsement of Janet Folger. “[A]t the Values Voter Debate, which she organized [, i]t should also be noted that Folger personally invited the Grand Avenue Church of God choir to perform their rendition of “Why Should God Bless America?” which includes these lyrics:

Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land

The courts ruled prayer out of our schools
In June of ‘62
Told the children “you are your own God now
So you can make the rules”
O say can you see what that choice
Has cost us to this day
America, one nation under God, has gone astray

Why should God bless America?
Shes’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Here is the YouTube video.

Reverend Wright ALSO has a YouTube video where he says “God damn America.”

Therefore, John McCain is in complete agreement with Reverend Wright.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

3. I’d Sure Love To Get My Hands On The Idiot Who Put Glenn Beck on TV

[h/t to Scott B]

The Beckster has yet another brilliant proof that Global Warming isn’t real, based on his multiple Doctorates in Climatology. Or, perhaps just this one little fallacy. From CNN:

The other villain of the moment is the global warming “denier.” Anyone who disagrees, even in the slightest, must be ridiculed. On “60 Minutes” last weekend, Al Gore said: “They’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the Earth is flat. That demeans them a little bit, but it’s not that far off.”

Approximately 6 percent of Americans believe in the fake moon landing theory, although I’ve always heard there was a conspiratorial consensus that it was staged in Nevada, not Arizona. I’m going to guess quite a bit less than 6 percent believe in a flat Earth, but no one seems to be asking that question in polls anymore, so I can’t be sure. So, who are those people Gore was demeaning “a little bit” by these comparisons? There’s a good chance it’s you. That’s because the vast majority of Americans believe something that categorizes them as a flat earther to environmentalists like Gore.

Despite the media’s one-sided view (the Business and Media Institute says dissenting voices about global warming are outnumbered on CBS News broadcasts by a 38 to 1 ratio), only 21 percent of Americans say “the release of greenhouse gasses is the most important factor causing global warming” according to a 2007 New York Times/CBS News poll.

OK. Here’s the classical fallacy, and then I’ll be back to dance on Beck’s flat, empty skull:

Appeal To Widespread Belief (Bandwagon Argument, Peer Pressure, Appeal to Common Practice):

the claim, as evidence for an idea, that many people believe it, or used to believe it, or do it. If the discussion is about social conventions, such as “good manners”, then this is a reasonable line of argument.

However, in the 1800’s there was a widespread belief that bloodletting cured sickness. All of these people were not just wrong, but horribly wrong, because in fact it made people sicker. Clearly, the popularity of an idea is no guarantee that it’s right.

Similarly, a common justification for bribery is that “Everybody does it”. And in the past, this was a justification for slavery.

This is also known, classically, as the “Fallacy of being a complete, drooling imbecile.”

Yes, that’s right. Old numnuts Beck believes that if there is a POLL, then the laws of physics will alter to meet the beliefs of those being polled. One assumes, therefore, that if enough people stop believing in the law of gravity, we will all float. (Or, that we can all vote to not have to breathe that icky air).

And, as long as we can fly, if we all believe that Tinkerbell isn’t REALLY dead, she’ll come back to life.

Clap, everybody. Louder! Tinkerbell can’t hear you!!

Courage.

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Note: This is EXTREMELY disconcerting. I began composing this post in WordPress’ interface that I left my old blogger account for, and IN THE MIDDLE of putting this together, the INTERFACE changed!

I am sure that there is some stupid headline on the dashboard page about how great this is, etc. etc. and what a fantastic new upgrade this is, etc. etc. But frankly, having to figure out a new interface with all the button positions changed, with things gone and things added is EXTREMELY weird. It’s like getting into your VW to go to work, getting there, and getting out of a Buick. With the steering wheel now on the OTHER side of the car. What is this, a Philip K. Dick novel? Don’t answer that. Never mind. Just keep concentrating on bringing “Tink” back to life. What can be more important than that?

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