Doubling down on stupidity is not the way to make a cogent argument.
Lately, I've been getting more and more of my ideas for new essays from the comment section to articles appearing in the Intellectual Conservative.
Because this is an open forum, I've come to expect a smattering of trolls and rabid partisans whose only purpose is to say idiotic or provocative things just to get a rise out of people. These people are fairly obvious, and the only real reason to continue the discussion with them is to have some fun with their "logic and reasoning" (such as it is) as the conversation plays out.
A second tier represents the best and brightest of our public school and liberal arts educational process. These are the people who lead with "I think," I believe," or some variation of "I feel" as the foundation for explaining their position. In other words, when asked to explain why they've concluded that global warming (a) actually exists, and (b) is the near-exclusive product of man's activity on earth, they ignore any arguments that question the assumptions behind that opinion and/or analyze the deficiencies in data collection surrounding that issue. Instead, based on their personal worldview, from their particular vantage point, using their particular value system and their own personal belief sets, they make a statement that is simply non-refutable. If you believe something because you feel that what you believe is correct, there is no amount of rational discussion that will change this feeling.
The world will always have its share of blind ideologues and emotion-based thinkers, so ranting and raving against their presence is useless. To the extent that I've indulged in conversations with either of these two groups, it has always been with the idea in mind that while true discussion with them is hopeless, others looking in on the conversation can judge for themselves which side has made the best argument. Of course, in an era of hope and change, where we've just elected a president based on how people feel about him rather than what people actually know about him, I'm not holding my breath for any new paradigm shift anytime soon.
What is distressing, though, is the third tier of stupidity which has begun to manifest itself. Supposedly educated, otherwise rational people have taken to adopting the Tier One and Tier Two approaches; namely, to abandon any real pretense at debate and simply repeat their emotion based-feelings over and over again.
Now I realize that one man's ideologue is another man's rational empiricist, so let me be a little more precise in explaining what I mean. We all begin every thought with a pre-conceived set of assumptions, so no one can ever be completely objective and exclusively rational about any issue under debate. However, it is still possible to have an intelligent discussion when both sides allow those underlying assumptions and ideologies to be examined.
If I believe that paying income taxes is "voluntary," I need to defend that position, just as I would if I automatically assumed that everything the government required (from taxes to setting speed limits) was a "coercive" process. The key here is that terms like "voluntary" and "coercive" need to be precisely defined, not just thrown around. I will be put in jail if I don't pay my taxes, making it "coercive;" but the power to tax is based on a social compact embodied in our Constitutional process which is derived from principles laid out in our Declaration of Independence, giving it a "voluntary" nature. A real discussion will involve each side in this debate addressing the fundamental issues associated with these two concepts, and doing so in a real-world context. Asking someone to prove a point by pointing to a TV program that used the concept as a plot device, or maintaining that if the government hasn't publicized an action it cannot have existed is, in a word, stupid.
It's the stupidity of debate with otherwise supposedly intelligent people that marks a real shift in public discourse in this country. I realize that labeling a particular thought or thought process "stupid" is considered boorish or provocative in certain circles. But in a forum where the exchange of intellectually-based ideas is the supposed reason for coming together in the first place, it doesn't do justice to the bizarre logic of certain arguments to simply call them "wrong." I was challenged by one person recently on this very point, who maintained that one could not, and should not, label another thought "stupid." So, I gave the individual five hypothetical statements, and asked him/her to characterize each properly if "stupid" was not the appropriate word to use. (Mind you, it's the thought or observation that's being labeled, not the individual. This is an evaluation of a position, not a mindless slur.)
1. White people are inherently superior to all other races.
2. To reduce our carbon footprint, no family should be permitted more than one child. Those exceeding this number should immediately kill any extra children.
3. God hates homosexuals and wants them to catch AIDS.
4. Democrats and Liberals are born evil.
5. All rapists and serial killers should be set free immediately because no one has the right to judge, and imprison, another human being.
And what was that person's response to each of the five statements above?
#1 is not a value judgment, it's just a statement of an opinion. The "values" issues involved with it revolve around how we measure the worth of a human, and how we would choose to define "superiority," and whether it should matter, and how.
#2, HMMM, I'd have to think about that one.
#3, again, is not a value judgment, it is a statement of (alleged) fact. It may even be empirically testable.
#4 is just an opinion. It may be empirically tested, I think. The values issue is more like "What is evil? How should we define it?"
#5 involves some values, I guess. Who "should" be allowed to judge others? Important value judgment there. But the statement then veers into absurdity, an example of taking an intriguing question to an illogical extreme.
Now keep in mind, this is a supposedly educated, intelligent person as far as I could tell. And yet, further discussion with him/her is impossible if we can't even agree that living children shouldn't be killed to help our "carbon footprint," or acknowledge the foolishness that being "liberal" is a genetic trait that automatically makes one "evil," or can't even recognize that value judgments about a human being's intrinsic value is a value judgment.
The refusal to acknowledge anything more than personal opinion as the basis for arguing a position is not limited to hypotheticals. The same thought process arose when discussing the relative merits of "aggressive interrogation techniques" on captured enemy combatants to secure time-sensitive information. This statement was taken as an explicit endorsement of "torture," with waterboarding as a universal example of torture.
Now, it's one thing to feel deeply that something like, say, waterboarding is "torture." It's a modest step to support this position by citing the feelings of a journalist who experienced waterboarding, and who feels the same way. And, it's a further small step to define torture in highly abstract terms (discomfort, stress, something you wouldn't want to happen to you, etc.), which allows you to conclude that waterboarding is most definitely "torture."
But these aren't component elements that define torture. They're feelings. If Person A believes that waterboarding is torture, but Person B doesn't (and both have experienced it — one as a journalist, the other as a US soldier being trained for combat), what makes either "feeling" correct? Do we simply count up the number of people who "feel" one way or another, and in the most morally relative way, see which side has the greatest consensus? Consensus may be a valid tool for permitting or outlawing certain actions (setting local speed limits come to mind), but that consensus doesn't tell us anything about the inherent nature of a 60 mph vs. 55 mph limit.
So too with abstract definitions. Putting someone in prison for 50 years would certainly cause discomfort, stress, and is something you wouldn't want to happen to you. But that doesn't make it "torture." Was the person arbitrarily imprisoned, or convicted in a legitimate court of law? Did the punishment fit the crime (mass murder vs. jaywalking)? Is the prison in Somalia, or San Francisco? These things make a difference.
Yes, it's harder to argue a point when you have to demonstrate some real knowledge of the real world within which that point exists. But isn't this what distinguishes intellectual debate from a bull session? It's always been my belief that the person raising an issue has a responsibility to support their position. Those wishing to assert things like "waterboarding is torture" need to define torture in such a way that it's recognizable from other actions (imprisonment due to lawful conviction, and decapitation by terrorists with a rusty knife to name two). What is the common element to both, and what elements are not common allowing the acts to be distinguished from one another? This is what, in technical terms, is called a "real conversation." Endlessly repeating platitudes and restating one's personal preferences and opinions is not.
I hold out little hope that such real conversations are possible, however. When challenged to support their feelings, even the Third Tier, otherwise intelligent and educated people, have decided to double down on their feelings rather than engage in real debate. This is how the point can be made that a "ticking bomb" scenario (which might possibly justify non-torture aggressive interrogation) is a straw man argument because, well, we've never read about an example of one in the newspaper. "[It's] possible that there might be some in some secret government records [that show this has happened before]. There may also be secret government records of crashed UFOs. But should we base policy on what we can't prove didn't happen? That opens up a fascinating line of thought." In short, if there has never been a publicized example of a captured terrorist with time-sensitive information, then it's illogical to believe it could possibly ever happen.
This is the kind of pseudo-intellectual tripe that diminishes a real discussion rather than allowing for a genuine debate, coming as this comment did in the aftermath of Leon Panetta's testimony before Congress as the new CIA-chief designate, where he said, "If we had a ticking bomb situation, and obviously, whatever was being used I felt was not sufficient, I would not hesitate to go to the president of the United States and request whatever additional authority I would need."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/us/politics/06cia.html?_r=2
The nominee to head the CIA can speak about "ticking bombs" before the United States Congress, but this is irrelevant to a debate about whether a ticking bomb scenario is a realistic threat for which the US should have policies in place? Instead, believing that terrorists may have time-sensitive information is akin to believing in UFOs.
This is why I left the academic world. It's filled with people who use statistical models to see whether it's raining outside rather than opening their curtains and looking at their front yard, who use terms with precise meanings in the most generalized way to make a connection that does not exist, and who create mythical worlds based on their feelings and preferences and then argue real world issues from that base.
When otherwise intelligent people cannot support their point without denying what is actually happening in the real world, we are truly lost.
Hopefully the first in a long line of comments. :>)
Bob Stabler make a good observation in another post about how these articles must be tailored to the medium and the audience. One paragraph is not enough and a book is too long, so they are naturally limited to a few page-downs which fortunately leaves them open to discussion. The good thing about this article is that it describes the wide variation in people and how they think.
Hey Phil,
I’ve always felt my wife mercilessly droning on and on about my shortcomings was torture. So can I be released too? :-)
…
Just kidding about the wife.
P
You’re right of course.
Let me add a few comments about your Tier One & Tier Three people.
I Argument By Intimidation.
(1) Tier One/Three: We, the enlightened, have presented you with Revealed Truth. “Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful Oz.” “Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile…Your culture will adapt to service ours.”
(2) Expertise certainly does not mean that the position of experts on an issue outside their field of expertise should be taken as, well, expert. Nor does the fact that the commenter who, so to speak, has “danced with a man, who danced with a girl, who danced with a HS physics teacher or a paralegal” signify that this speaker’s views on The Global Warming Theory or the Law Of War, respectively, are to be considered, ipso facto, expert views.
(3) And, in some cases (admittedly based on my unscientific perception), some Tier One/Three commenters will simply dismiss a source relied on by the blogger or another commenter on such blog. If this source is important to the main point of the blog or comment, the Tier One/Three dismiss-er can thereby feel, OOPS, make that “know” that he has demolished such argument. Thus, Liberals who are NYT poseurs will dismiss the ‘Net as run by the uninformed, knowing that the NYT itself will pick up the pronunciamentos, rumors, gossip, hearsay, etc. of Left Wing bloggers & commenters, giving such bloggers & commenters the “legitimacy” lacking to Right Wing bloggers & commenters.
II Inconsistency In Relying On Feelings & Beliefs & Assumptions Behind Info On Which One Relies.
An incident happens which would cause embarrassment to Republicans/Conservatives or Democrats/Liberals, as the case may be.
When it’s convenient, Tier One/Three guys connect the dots right away & go with their intuition, common sense, life experience & when it’s inconvenient Tier One/Three guys demand clear & convincing evidence, not just proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
WMD: Tier One/Three Guy: Bush misconnected the obviously unconnected dots.
9/11: Tier One/Three Guy: Bush failed to connect the obvious dots.
Now, as a lawyer, I understand the evidentiary difference between, on the one hand, fact & on the other hand, intuition, common sense, life experience. And since it was playing while I was selling candy in the lobby of the Capitol Theater, I saw the Liberal iconic movie, Twelve Angry Men a dozen times. But, I strongly suspect (OK, feel) that OJ killed those two & that he was punished far in excess of a first-time offender for his recent armed caper, in retribution for the failure of the system to bring him to justice for the killings. Nevertheless, I would not declare that I had the “evidence” or the “facts” proving OJ the killer.
But Tier One/Three Dem defenders say, Inwood, your lawschool Evidence 101 Prof would flunk you re Obama for conflating your intuition, common sense, life experience about Chicago politics to condemn him. And your college Logic 101 Prof would too. But we know that Bush went to war for Oil after he stole the 2000 Election!
And while it is certain that “nothing is certain, & not even that” & that truth is relative, changeable, nevertheless, what occurred, occurred & what did not occur, did not occur. This is tautology that NYTimes readers will never admit. To them, if something wasn’t “reported” in the NYT, it never occurred & if it was “reported” in the NYT, it did occur & moreover occurred exactly as the NYT “reported” that it had occurred.
III And, speaking about emotion
While the concept of “walking a bit in the moccasins of another” means that some emotionally-involved speakers should be given some necessary & appropriate emotional slack, it certainly does not mean that their ideas should thereby be considered revealed truth.
IV “Free Speech”
The concepts of “free speech” & of “all men, OOPS, persons, are created equal” mean simply that we all have equal standing in the public square; that everyone’s argument should be judged by its content, without prejudice.
And no more.
These concepts do not mean that all ideas are equal. Or that counterfactual ideas may never be challenged lest we stifle free speech.
Nor do these concepts mean that rhapsodizing over the supposed virtues of some PC term rather than supplying evidence constitutes an idea.
Nor do these concepts mean, as you note, that, when faced with a problem, liberal sentimentalism is “more equal than” reason.
I’ve been waiting for some detractors, Phil, but maybe they’re afraid to post. Likely they are “feeling” that the anointed truth they possess won’t stand up to scrutiny.
Inwood
Looking at my keyboard, I see the equals symbol, the greater than and less than symbol, but I can’t find the more equal than key.
First of all, Dr. Jackson, I applaud your strategy of quoting me at such length in your posts. That way, there is at least SOME verve and persuasiveness in your essays, even if it is not your own. :-)
I hadn’t really planned to contribute much more to the comments section of IC, for the same reason as you, just in reverse: I saw no evidence of serious engagement with the issues among the conservative commentators.
After all, being called ‘stupid’, and having it stated that I reason at the level of a grade-schooler was hardly encouraging.
By the way, I believe that these overheated name-calling eruptions put your claims that conservatives are dispassionate, objective thinkers in a highly dubious light. My posts were (mostly) polite and attempted to address the issues, but unfortunately the conservative responses were chock-full of ad hominem attacks (directed at me *personally*, and the supposed cognitive deficiencies of liberals in general). Very little substance to them, in my opinion, nor much response to the specific points being raised.
Before you interpret the above paragraph as whining, I should hasten to say that I don’t really mind. Some of you folks seem surprisingly easy to fluster and rankle (not that that is my intention), and if my analyses provoke eruptions of hostility, I naturally interpret that as a sign that you’ve simply run out of substantive arguments.
For the record, I merely suggested that the responses to my arguments were largely personal attacks rather than persuasive debate. Anyone who wishes can go back, read all that stuff, and draw their own conclusions on that.
I’m not really even that invested in the issue, but you seem to be, so I guess I will get down to the tedious business of refuting your specific claims, most of which are emblematic of your near-obsessive habit of flailing away at straw men.
I plead guilty to proposing that civility is a good thing. I think calling people ‘stupid’ when they disagree with me is crude and pointless, unless my only goal is to be nasty and vent my spleen.
I was rather astounded when Dr. Jackson (and others) questioned whether being half-ways respectful of each another was necessary, or even desirable. They seemed to be saying it’s not.
I responded with what I assumed everyone understands: that we all might be wrong, and so perhaps we ought to be a bit humble.
After all, I sez, isn’t it true that certain fundamental questions at the heart of our political ambivalences are rather unanswerable, in the empirical sense? I gave a number of examples of ‘value’ questions–questions that will probably remain in dispute for a long time, because they are not easily amenable to proof or disproof. Reasonable, moral, intelligent folk can disagree, and neither side can decisively answer with a real-world experiment, observation, or finding. They are in the realm of value judgments.
Naturally, following Pascal’s (?) statement that ‘No wars have been fought over arithmetic’, it is in these realms that our emotions are the most activated—-because the answers are the least clear—and that we ought to be the most cautious in our ‘certitudes.’ At least, that was my unheeded advice.
But Dr. Jackson characterizes (and distorts) the exchange thusly:
———————– I was challenged by one person recently on this very point, who maintained that one could not, and should not, label another thought “stupid.” So, I gave the individual five hypothetical statements, and asked him/her to characterize each properly if “stupid” was not the appropriate word to use. (Mind you, it’s the thought or observation that’s being labeled, not the individual. This is an evaluation of a position, not a mindless slur.)————–
(Dr. Jackson then provided a variety of nonsensical statements such as ‘Democrats and Liberals are born evil’ and ‘God hates gays’, etc).
First off: My main point was that calling your OPPONENTS ‘stupid’ is silly, counterproductive, and powerfully implies a lack of capacity to express oneself more articulately.
Calling their IDEAS stupid, to their face, is not much better. *Unless* your only goal is to goad, bully, and sneer, and receive a lot of “atta boy”s from your own crowd–in which case it makes perfect sense. Go on ahead with that, by all means.
Then I said that the nonsensical statements were not really ‘value’ judgments, as I understand them, but merely a series of inaccurate and easily refuted opinions. I tried to give examples of what I meant by value judgments, but I see those attempts have been subjected to the same fun-house mirror as all of my other comments. Oh well.
So, then we continue:
———– And yet, further discussion with him/her is impossible if we can’t even agree that living children shouldn’t be killed to help our “carbon footprint,”————-
It’s becoming embarrassing, Dr. Jackson, really. (The straw man arguments, I mean).
Of course I agree that living children shouldn’t be killed to help our carbon footprint (see below)**. Whatever in the world gave you the idea that I disagree?
I disagree with ALL of those nonsensical statements. Obviously. I mean, they are all pretty much ridiculous on their face, and I was frankly puzzled at why you even bothered to type them. When I called them ‘preposterous’ and ‘ridiculous’, how in heavens did you interpret that as failing to disagree with them?
I ask again: What’s your point?
I guess you are trying to construct some type of logical trap for me (in your mind). But it’s made of straw, like your other arguments. I didn’t say that NO STATEMENTS WHATSOEVER can ever be called stupid, no matter how stupid they are. I merely proposed that in many difficult philosophical debates, fundamental truths are elusive; and that bellicose language hardens positions and deepens divides; and that name-calling is not a satisfactory substitute for reasoning.
Not that I mind—please go on ahead. I’m really not all that disturbed by incivility on internet message boards. I’ve been uncivil in the past, and probably will be again, although I try not to be. I am responding here not out of some benighted and doomed attempt to bring civility to Intellectual Conservative, Dr. Jackson, but just to correct SOME of the many distortions in your essay.
Your incivility and name-calling I can cheerfully tolerate; it is your factual errors and straw man arguments that give me heartburn.
Best regards,
Ozzie
—————————————————————————————
**Here is the relevant exchange, from the other thread, if anyone remotely cares:
Dr. Jackson said:
————I would like now to see Ozzie publicly acknowledge that each of these egregiously stupid value and moral judgments may be correct (“I think it behooves us all to acknowledge that in fact, we might just be wrong”)———–
Ozzie said:
No, all of those statements seem to be false. I didn’t say all value statements are equal, or equally credible, or need to be given equal respect. Some value statements are easily refuted by empirical evidence, others are logically absurd, others are consensually absurd, some have horrendous practical implications that prevent their broad acceptance.
Why do I need to continually defend myself against…preposterous statements that are ridiculous on their face?
—————————————————————————————
The second half of the essay deals with the issue of torture, and your pet theory that Leftists have some type of cognitive incapacity to deal with logic and evidence, and instead wallow in ‘feelings’. I don’t believe you have proved the case.
Regarding torture, you say:
————————————–But these aren’t component elements that define torture. They’re feelings. If Person A believes that waterboarding is torture, but Person B doesn’t (and both have experienced it — one as a journalist, the other as a US soldier being trained for combat), what makes either “feeling” correct? Do we simply count up the number of people who “feel” one way or another, and in the most morally relative way, see which side has the greatest consensus? Consensus may be a valid tool for permitting or outlawing certain actions (setting local speed limits come to mind), but that consensus doesn’t tell us anything about the inherent nature of a 60 mph vs. 55 mph limit.————————-
It looks to me like you simply trot out ‘feelings’ to describe any arguments you disagree with. I earlier provided a clear definition of torture, that appeared reasonably objective and conformed well to the common and colloquial understanding of the term. Then, I pointed out that waterboarding seemed to hew very closely to that definition.
In other words, I applied a definition to a phenomenon, and discovered that it matched. This is not ‘feeling’, it is categorizing and defining.
So, take terrorism for example. People disagree on what constitutes terrorism. If someone bombs a grocery store, I might wonder if it should be considered ‘terrorism’, or not. I would feel obliged to find a generally accepted, middle-of-the-road definition of ‘terrorism’, and then see if the facts of the case support its inclusion in that category. Is that ‘feeling’? It seems like a reasonable and customary cognitive activity used by people across the political spectrum.
Further, I provided numerous reasons why waterboarding is likely to be bad public policy, several of which are quite material, observable, and testable (ie, not vague ‘feelings’).
Now, maybe you think that the definition of torture that I proposed is flawed. Fair enough. Entirely reasonable. But my recollection is that— for reasons that escape me— you believe it is unreasonable to expect you to provide an alternative definition. You’ll have to refresh my memory on why that might be. But I think the least you can do (and maybe you have and I missed it), would be to provide your own definition and explain why it is more suitable than mine.
————————Those wishing to assert things like “waterboarding is torture” need to define torture in such a way that it’s recognizable from other actions (imprisonment due to lawful conviction, and decapitation by terrorists with a rusty knife to name two). ———————–
But Dr. Jackson, I’m pretty sure that Mr. Ingles did exactly that, more than once. He pointed out, in my vague recollection, that common definitions of torture (like UNCAT below) explicitly exclude legal imprisonment or other sanctions applied in in modern Western societies. Decapitation by terrorists is probably not torture, at least not by the definitions provided, because there is not an intention to extract information, and it is not inflicted by someone acting in an official capacity. (Not 100% sure on that one).
Here’s the definition, for what it’s worth:
Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:
**************
“ ——any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.[1]
*********
So, maybe you don’t like that one, or don’t think waterboarding meets the criteria. Why not, exactly, or how would you prefer to define torture? I don’t recall that you ever clarified either of those things.
You just kept insisting that 1) “splashing water on a terrorist’s face” is not torture, (that is a deeply disingenuous description, by the way); 2) My military brothers don’t think it is torture; 3) all the lib’rls are just ‘feeling’ it is torture because Hitchens said it was; and 4) aren’t lib’rls stupid?
So no, your conclusions all appear to be insufficiently supported by evidence, so far.
Ozzie
By the way, can anyone tell me how to generate italics? I hate being the kind of guy that TALKS IN CAPS.
Ozzie
Ozzie the definition of torture is like the definition of porn, you can’t put it into words but reasonable men can agree on the broad spectrum of what is and is not. When the argument comes down to stubborn parsing of word(s) when the elephant in the room is blatant obvious difference between what is meant and what is defined then further debate is hopeless. Debating with people like that first requires one to lay down a dictionary of agreed upon definitions, its annoying, disingenuous, and has no business in gentlemanly debate.
>First of all, Dr. Jackson, I applaud your strategy of quoting me at such length in your posts.
*** As with my Looney Liberal Chronicles, I deliberately never put a name to the quotes, since it’s the idea being debated, not the person. You are the one who has decided to reveal your identity.
>After all, being called ‘stupid’ …
*** I comment on ideas and reasoning, not individuals.
>I believe that these overheated name-calling eruptions …
*** Once again, people who express stupid ideas tend to dwell on the fact that a stupid idea was called a stupid idea, rather than on the deficiencies of the idea itself. There’s nothing wrong with properly labeling an idea as stupid if it is, in fact, stupid. I gave five hypothetical examples of stupid statements which any sane person would instantly recognize as, well, stupid. They weren’t simply wrong, or just differences of opinions. They were, well, in a word, rather stupid. Anyone who finds even the slightest merit in them needs to have their head examined.
It’s been my experience that in the battle of ideas, the moral relativists and liberals in general are more upset that I’d call the idea of killing children to help our planet’s carbon footprint “stupid”, than object to the killing of children as patently stupid. This speaks volumes.
>Before you interpret the above paragraph as whining …
*** This is another hallmark of facile thought. Because I’m willing to say that stupidity is stupidity, the person offering stupid comments tries to deflect the merits of my conclusion by personalizing the comment in a way I never did. I don’t particularly care if the stupidity is whined-out or shouted out. It’s still stupidity, and that’s what I’ve focused on.
>Some of you folks seem surprisingly easy to fluster and rankle (not that that is my intention), and if my analyses provoke eruptions of hostility, I naturally interpret that as a sign that you’ve simply run out of substantive arguments.
*** Again, more deflection from someone who can’t seem to recognize the difference between labeling a stupid idea as stupid, and treating someone with “hostility”. I’ve never really understood why an idea must have intrinsic merit simply because someone expressed their own personal opinion. Exactly how is substantive discussion furthered by ignoring the blatant stupidity of a remark because the opinion-expresser thinks it’s hostile” to point out the blatant stupidity of a blatantly stupid comment? And why is pointing this out being “flustered”?
>I plead guilty to proposing that civility is a good thing. I think calling people ‘stupid’ when they disagree with me is crude and pointless, unless my only goal is to be nasty and vent my spleen.
*** This is another classic deflection. Again, it’s the ideas that are being called stupid, not the person. Moreover, not every disagreement leads to this conclusion. Bob Stapler (and others) and I disagreed vehemently in the essay I wrote “Farewell, Israel”. No one felt compelled to point out the stupidity of either side’s arguments because there was no stupidity, only disagreement. The discussion was intense, but civil. And why was that? Because points I or Bob made were actually addressed by the other party, and these points dealt with the substance of an issue, not the periphery or some extraneous issue.
And furthermore, no one introduced morally-equivalent or other stupid statements into the discussion which fostered the conclusion that these stupid statements were indeed stupid. Once again, by focusing on the fact that a point was labeled “stupid”, and assuming that any accurate label is inherently “uncivil”, the person making the stupid statement tries to shift the discussion away from what he actually said to the way those comments were characterized. This is, well, a stupid way to have a real discussion.
>After all, I sez, isn’t it true that certain fundamental questions at the heart of our political ambivalences are rather unanswerable, in the empirical sense? I gave a number of examples of ‘value’ questions–questions that will probably remain in dispute for a long time, because they are not easily amenable to proof or disproof. Reasonable, moral, intelligent folk can disagree, and neither side can decisively answer with a real-world experiment, observation, or finding. They are in the realm of value judgments.
*** Again, another classic dodge. Give a person a direct statement to react to. The person does not address the direct statement, but instead changes the subject to the philosophical nature of abstract truth. This allows them to conclude that some things in the universe are not knowable. This generalized statement is then re-inserted into the discussion of a specific, concrete example, to suggest that since some things are inherently unknowable, calling THIS particular statement (which, by the way, is knowable) “stupid”, is simple “name-calling” and somehow violates reasoning.
>So, take terrorism for example. People disagree on what constitutes terrorism. If someone bombs a grocery store, I might wonder if it should be considered ‘terrorism’, or not. I would feel obliged to find a generally accepted, middle-of-the-road definition of ‘terrorism’, and then see if the facts of the case support its inclusion in that category. Is that ‘feeling’? It seems like a reasonable and customary cognitive activity used by people across the political spectrum.
*** The morally-relative foundation of stupidity is laid out clearly here, when one cannot distinguish between bombing a grocery store to deliberately kill innocent civilians, and a conflict in wartime between two armies. For those who may actually be uncertain about this, there’s a simple guide. Terrorism is immoral, (and immorality is bad for those who need it spelled out more clearly), because it is immoral to deliberately harm an innocent human life. This is what distinguishes killing from murder, and warfare from terrorism. See my essay “What Kind of Car would Jesus Drive to take his girlfriend to an abortion clinic?”, where I’ve actually thought about and analyzed this issue, rather than repeat glittering generalities and platitudes about morally equivocal matters.
>Further, I provided numerous reasons why waterboarding is likely to be bad public policy, several of which are quite material, observable, and testable (ie, not vague ‘feelings’).
*** Another classic dodge. The issue under discussion was a statement one person offered that “waterboarding IS torture”. Whether it was good or bad policy is not the discussion. It may be, it may not be; but that’s not the issue being debated.
>Now, maybe you think that the definition of torture that I proposed is flawed. Fair enough. Entirely reasonable. But my recollection is that— for reasons that escape me— you believe it is unreasonable to expect you to provide an alternative definition.
*** We’re getting into the area of gross stupidity again, particularly when you cite the very reason I gave to clear up your alleged confusion in the next paragraph.” Those wishing to assert things like ‘waterboarding is torture’ need to define torture in such a way that it’s recognizable from other actions (imprisonment due to lawful conviction, and decapitation by terrorists with a rusty knife to name two).”
One of the hallmarks of truly dishonest debate is to introduce a blanket statement (“waterboarding is torture”), and then refuse to define it in such a way that allows for a concrete discussion to take place. Referring to abstract notions is not a definition (stress, something you wouldn’t want to have happen to you, etc.). Referring to abstract UN definitions while ignoring existing technical definitions in US law is not an honest debate either.
Those making a claim have a burden of proof on their shoulders to support that claim. When they can’t, they cannot turn to others and say “define the term for me instead” (i.e. “how would YOU define it?”). I didn’t use the term, and I didn’t make the statement. I don’t own it, and if the author cannot justify it, then it’s not my role to do so.
My thanks to Ozzie for outing himself in this discussion, since his reasoning once again shows the bankruptcy of arguing a position from emotion rather than facts.
And once again, for those who cannot distinguish the message from the messenger, it does absolutely no good to pretend that an egregiously stupid statement is anything other than that. Conversation is furthered by direct statements which are supported by the person making those statements. It is not furthered by ignoring blatant stupidity because correctly labeling a stupid idea “stupid” would hurt the feelings of the person making the stupid statement.
JayGee: The reason you “lay down a definition” in a policy discussion is to remove uncertainty. If you define a term so broady (distress, discomfort) that it can mean different things to different people in different situations, then it serves no useful purpose in permitting or circumscribing an activity. To use your example, while pornography may be in the eyes of the beholder, the laws against pornography are quite specific (the minimum ages of those involved, in certain states specific acts are prohibited, etc.).
Yes, actually dealing with definitional terms is tough, but it’s what distinguishes real efforts to understand and address an issue from simply expressing personal opinions. It’s why our roads have signs that give numerical speed limits instead of saying “don’t go too fast”.
Ozzie,
Remember writing this? “In answer to your suspicion that I haven’t ‘thought this through’, you are probably correct. In fact, there is a lot of truth to it. I am making it up as I go along.”
I think Dr. Jackson’a disdain might be because no one can take you seriously. Who knows if you’ve given any thought at all to this thread or anything else you have written?
It seems you remain blissfully unaware that your presentation is permeated with a naivete and superficiality that makes it impossible for people to engage you in meaningful dialogue.
MM — I’d forgotten about that statement from Ozzie.
It just goes to show that when I analyzed the stupidity of his new comments, I was looking at those new comments and not making a gratuitous observation about Ozzie himself.
The fact that Ozzie is on record as not being serious about real discussion just emphasizes the correctness of the judgement I formed based on his most recent statements. I focused on the stupidity of the thoughts themselves. By recounting Ozzie’s self-assessment, you’ve helped further confirm my deductive reasoning by pointing to Ozzie’s own self-described methodology and motives.
With Ozzie, all roads lead to Rome.
Dr. Jackson – (a) Waterboarding causes severe suffering, both physical and mental. (b) It was intentionally inflicted on KSM for the purpose of obtaining information from him. (c) It was inflicted at the instigation of public officials. (d) It was not inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions, since KSM had not even been charged at the time, much less convicted.
So, yeah, waterboarding KSM was torture. If you disagree, which of a-c did not apply?
Mr. Ingles,
1) Define “severe”
2) Tell us what lawful sanctions are in operation here.
Mountain Man -
1) I already defined “severe”. “How do you know if suffering is “severe”? Like I said, is it enough to make you willing to say anything to make it stop?”
2) I said that the waterboarding of KSM did not involve lawful sanctions. Since he hadn’t been convicted of (let alone charged with) a crime at the time. So, er, “none”.
P
We hope you’ll be fooled into thinking it’s “change” because it’s the policy of The One!
“So Exactly When Does ‘Change” Begin’, Take 45345234524523452452: Elena Kagan, Dean of Harvard Law School …[and nominee for Obama’s Solicitor General], says Government Can Indefinitely Detain Terrorism Suspects because the country is ‘at war’ with Al Qaeda…can someone please explain to me how this differs from Bush’s position, which liberals condemned, bashed and burned in effigy?”
http://dissentingjustice.blogspot.com/2009/02/so-exactly-when-does-change-begin-take.html
“the implications of [Kagan’s] statement are somewhat ambiguous. Also ambiguous is what Kagan meant: do battlefield captures in a war without a clear endpoint equate to total military discretion over the length of a person’s detention? And if that isn’t enough ambiguity, recall that Kagan, as solicitor general, won’t be a formal part of a the forthcoming administration review on detention policy. Still, it appears like it’s not just Panetta who thinks there’s something to the idea of a class of detainees who won’t face trial.”
http://washingtonindependent.com/29849/indefinite-detention-lite-et-tu-elena-kagan
“This (Hee-hee-hee-HA!) is, of (HAH-HAHH!) course, not no (HWAAHHAAAH!) …ticiably
different from (MABBRRHH-HAA-HHHAHHH!) Bush’s posi (MBWAHHH-HAAA!!!!)…tion on the (HA-AAA-HAAAA-HAAAAWAHAA-HAAAAAA1!!!!!) subject, (HAHH-SMHGDG-SNORT) which should. make. for. some. in.ter.es.ting. co.mmen.tar.y. from. the. Left…
“:silence:
:breaks:
“MWHAAA-HAHH-AHHA-HAAAA-HAAAAA!!!!!! HA-HA–HAAAA-HAAA, HAHHH-AAHHAAAA, MWHOOO-AHHH-AHHH-BEWAAHH-HAH-AAAHAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!
“:helpless waving on from on the floor:”
http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/02/11/solicitor-general-nominee-says-enemy-combatants-can-be-held-without-trial/
h/t Instapundit
Thanks again to Raymond for illustrating the point of my essay.
Ivan
You say can’t find the “more equal than” key on your keyboard.
Search “Orwellian Character Set, Code 1984.” :-)
Regards
Inwood
RI & Ozzie:
“Torture” being anything “severe”.
Asked & Answered.
To repeat:
Phil has pointed out that, besides “waterboarding”, imprisonment for any extended period & other not-so nice things would be called “torture, since severe” by some, including you. Good for you.
But Pres Bush, when he was CinC, felt that waterboarding did not meet the definition of “Torture”.
Now, you’ve won. So why can’t (a) your guys now pass a law which the President can sign, (b) the President as The One & now Commander In Chief say “revise the Army Torture (OOPS) Manual”, or (c) both, such law or Exec order specifically saying: “as used herein, ‘torture’ shall mean any technique which produces answers by prisoners, including, without limitation, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, making prisoners eat infidel food, & telling prisoners that the Koran is all B*lls**t”?
Hint: Can it be that these Hon worthies know that if the Sears Tower, or The Statute of Liberty is flattened by a kamikaze attack in which 11 bombers get their 72 virgins but their 12th co-conspirator is still sitting in Gitmo getting fat on all the goodies the PC yentas say he must be fed, they, Congress & The One, might be blamed by the voters for not connecting the dots & preventing such attack?
Gee, governing is, you know, hard, &, um, involves, you know choices.
1) Hmm, by that definition, my wife is guilty of torture.
2) Charged or convicted of a crime is irrelevant.
Dr. Jackson says:
***I comment on ideas and reasoning, not individuals.****
Well, I’m not sure that’s entirely clear from a few of your comments just on the last discussion alone (CAPS added by me):
————I think we’re all safe in assuming that Ozzie is a male, but maybe the better question to ask is WHAT GRADE HE’S IN. It’s possible I’m holding him to an unrealistic standard if his HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES haven’t prepared him adequately to think about and debate real world issues.———–
———–In this case, labeling the things he says as “stupid” would be an error, because no one would expect a YOUNG, PREPUBESCENT KID to know better.————–
————- What an IDIOT. I wrote 60,000 words on terrorism and abortion …..and insisted on debating issues I never raised instead of citing points I actually made…. What an IDIOT.————
——-What an IDIOT. Remember the original point Raymond made…they must not exist. What an IDIOT.——–
——-NUTCASES on the far Right —– LUNATIC Left… LOONEY Liberal——
Most of those look kinda like personal attacks, really. It seems like you often substitute invective for reasoning.
I guess calling people and ideas stupid is not the worst thing in the world. I imagine you can find examples of me referring to some idea or another as ‘goofy’ or ‘silly’, and the like. It’s just the *repetitiveness* of it, and the lack of much else substantive, that detracts from the usefulness of your arguments. What purpose is served by all of these ‘stoopids’? Man, I heard you twice the first time… :-)
———————————————-
“simple stupidity that which can be adequately explained by deliberate stupidity.”
This is the worst kind of stupidity —
it’s rather stupid to conclude that
Even the profoundly stupid who enter these discussions don’t say things like
This is a blatantly stupid proposition given
my head can only take so much stupidity and sophomoric reasoning
As for pure stupidity in reasoning, I think examples speak well for themselves
And then when the stupidity of that position
So yeah, your position is pretty stupid
the person under discussion exhibits stupid reasoning
Civility for civility’s sake is, well, rather stupid
I would call them “stupid”; not just a difference of opinion.
the only thing left is to let the stupidity continue to speak for itself.
You made a stupid, blanket statement
you want me to bail you out of your stupidity
Can you imagine the stupidity of asking
It’s one thing to hold a stupid position. But I don’t understand the strategy of deflecting attention from the first stupid statement by introducing other egregiously stupid statements into the mix.
Raymond doubles down on his stupid remarks
————————————————————————————–
Do not think for a single moment, Dr. Jackson, that I am imploring you to cease your mind-numbing repetition of the word ‘stupid’, or to stop applying it to anything or anybody you disagree with. It’s fine with me, because such crude emotionalism undercuts your arguments, making less work for me.
I just think you shouldn’t confuse it with actual debate, because it doesn’t appear to be. Looks more like venting to me.
Oz
Mountain Man opines:
——————–Remember writing this? ————
Ozzie:
“In answer to your suspicion that I haven’t ‘thought this through’, you are probably correct. In fact, there is a lot of truth to it. I am making it up as I go along.”
Mountain:
I think Dr. Jackson’s disdain might be because no one can take you seriously. Who knows if you’ve given any thought at all to this thread or anything else you have written?
—————————————————–
MEMO TO SELF: Ozzie, in the future, do not employ ironical self-deprecation as a way of turning away wrath…IC evidently doesn’t ‘do’ irony very well… :-)
OZ
*WARNING* What follows is a persnickety point-by-point response to Dr. Jackson’s last post, largely a by-product of the fact that I don’t have anything else to do right now. I cannot fathom for a single instant why anyone would want to read it. Consider yourself warned :-)
—-You are the one who has decided to reveal your identity.———
Of course. I’m happy to do so. No problem at all.
——– I gave five hypothetical examples of stupid statements which any sane person would instantly recognize as, well, stupid. They weren’t simply wrong, or just differences of opinions. They were, well, in a word, rather stupid. Anyone who finds even the slightest merit in them needs to have their head examined.——
Yes, you did. And yes, they do. I called them *ridiculous and preposterous*, rather then stupid. I know you’re quite fond of the ‘s’ word, but I think my derisive adjectives are perfectly serviceable as well.
Again, what on earth is your point with that stuff? I didn’t say that no stupid ideas exist. I didn’t say we couldn’t consider something stupid. I just said that calling people and ideas ‘stupid’ in political debate conveys an impression of undeserved arrogance, deepens conflicts, and polarizes rather than informs.
——— Again, more deflection from someone who can’t seem to recognize the difference between labeling a stupid idea as stupid, and treating someone with “hostility”.———
Interesting point. You can of course refer back to the examples of personal abuse I provided above, but putting that aside, I still disagree. If I tell somebody their ideas are ‘stupid’, that is pretty hostile, frankly. (not to mention counterproductive, incendiary, and rather silly). I imagine myself at a work-related meeting, saying ‘Gee George, that idea is stupid. Nothing PERSONAL, though…” I guess my peer reviews might suffer that year.
That’s an insult, not an argument.
Fortunately, I am largely immune from being offended or insulted, so it’s no skin offa my butt one way or t’other.
——— Bob Stapler (and others) and I disagreed vehemently in the essay I wrote “Farewell, Israel”. No one felt compelled to point out the stupidity of either side’s arguments because there was no stupidity, only disagreement.——–
Glad to hear that. Sounds like it was a great discussion. Maybe I’ll read it some time.
——— assuming that any accurate label is inherently “uncivil”——-
But I don’t assume that. It’s a straw man. I only consider abusive and crude name-calling uncivil. Were you to actually deconstruct the viewpoint in question, you could accurately label it *wrong, misguided, false, unproven, or destructive,* and I would not consider that uncivil at all. Not in the least. Again, words like ‘stupid’ are really just insults, ‘fighting words’ that accomplish nothing. But please, don’t quit on my account.
——– Again, another classic dodge——
All these clever dodges and misdirections that I am supposed to be perpetrating! You are giving me far too much credit as a debater. I’m simply trying to respond factually and honestly to each point you raise. If I am playing some type of rope-a-dope, I am unaware of it.
—— ——-Again, another classic dodge. The person does not address the direct statement, but instead changes the subject to the philosophical nature of abstract truth. This allows them to conclude that some things in the universe are not knowable. This generalized statement is then re-inserted into the discussion of a specific, concrete example, to suggest that since some things are inherently unknowable, calling THIS particular statement (which, by the way, is knowable) “stupid”, is simple “name-calling” and somehow violates reasoning.————–
Really?
“changing the subject to the philosophic nature of abstract truth, to conclude that somethings in the universe are not knowable, then re-inserting it into a discussion of something concrete to suggest that some things are unknowable….”
That’s a ‘classic’? Oh my goodness. You’re right, liberals need to come up with less complicated ‘classics’ :-)
——— when one cannot distinguish between bombing a grocery store to deliberately kill innocent civilians, and a conflict in wartime between two armies——-
Who are you addressing here? Surely not me, unless you are waterboarding yet another defenseless straw man. Whatever in the world gives you the idea that I don’t understand this difference? Please re-read my comments about defining terrorism, and if you still feel there is reason to believe I don’t grasp the elementary and obvious distinction above, please explain why. You’ve plainly projected something quite odd and inaccurate into my words.
I used bombing a grocery store as an example of something where *definitions become important.* I didn’t say that the bombing was done to kill innocent civilians–I gave no details at all. Maybe it was done by a disgruntled customer, or an insurance-seeking proprietor, or the US military, or an insurgency in a totalitarian state. Those pieces of context could throw it in a different light, right? In order to determine if it was in fact ‘terrorism’, then one would have to define what we mean by terrorism. It may or may not be, depending on the definition and the context. Similarly, deciding whether something is ‘torture’ depends on the definition and the context.
It looks like you actually convinced yourself that there are people who don’t grasp “the distinction between bombing a grocery store to kill innocent civilians, and a conflict in wartime between two armies”. (Then you go on to berate those pig-ignorant people). But those people aren’t here. Or anywhere, as far as I know.
——– Another classic dodge. The issue under discussion was a statement one person offered that “waterboarding IS torture”. Whether it was good or bad policy is not the discussion. It may be, it may not be; but that’s not the issue being debated.——–
There is some validity to this. They are, in fact, two different issues, and I should have clarified that. In my defense, I was just responding to this notion that my posts are dripping with feeble emotionalism. I was showing how I try to use clear, objective definitions and observable facts. I assume you are unconvinced, but that was my intention. Valid point, though.
——— Those making a claim have a burden of proof on their shoulders to support that claim. When they can’t, they cannot turn to others and say “define the term for me instead” (i.e. “how would YOU define it?”). I didn’t use the term, and I didn’t make the statement. I don’t own it, and if the author cannot justify it, then it’s not my role to do so.——–
Right, I understand that is what you believe, but it doesn’t really hold up very well. Look, if I say that something is true, such as ‘waterboarding is torture’, then you have every right to demand I define torture and support that opinion.
But *I did*, and so did Mr. Ingles. You then go on to opine, in fairly strong terms, that waterboarding is NOT torture. There’s just no way to move forward with the reasoned debate you claim you want, unless you provide your own definition of torture, and explain why you feel so strongly that waterboarding doesn’t meet that definition.
———- My thanks to Ozzie for outing himself in this discussion——-
You are welcome.
Oz
Ozzie:
Again, thank you for pointing out the obvious.
When a person offers a stupid statement, you address the stupid statement.
When the person offering the stupid statement CONTINUES to repeat the same stupid statements — all the while ignoring the counterpoints made to illustrate the stupidity of that statement — then Jackson’s Razor is invoked, an eponymous adage which reads: “Never attribute to simple stupidity that which can be adequately explained by deliberate stupidity.”
The only way to explain deliberate, continued stupidity is to first look for an alternative explanation, as I did and you quoted accurately: ”I think we’re all safe in assuming that Ozzie is a male, but maybe the better question to ask is WHAT GRADE HE’S IN. It’s possible I’m holding him to an unrealistic standard if his HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES haven’t prepared him adequately to think about and debate real world issues. In this case, labeling the things he says as ‘stupid’ would be an error, because no one would expect a YOUNG, PREPUBESCENT KID to know better.”
Thus, in the face of rampant, deliberate stupidity, my first inclination is to still look for a logical way to explain your stupidity. Lack of understanding due to a young age is a viable hypothesis, until proven otherwise.
Only when I have direct knowledge of a person’s background (as I did with Raymond, who wrote an article purportedly analyzing a 60,000 word essay of mine he apparently didn’t actually read), do I feel comfortable building upon this initial hypothesis to offer an actual judgment of “idiocy” with respect to the discussion we are having.
I know this is hard for some people to grasp, but there are indeed people in this world who are idiots. The issue is whether we arbitrarily label all people who simply disagree with what we say as an idiot, or allow their actions to demonstrate that fact for us.
Again, the purpose of discussion is clarity. When someone acts deliberately stupid, I can think of no better term to describe that fact. But unlike your conjecture, it’s a status that must be demonstrated and therefore “earned”, and not arbitrarily assigned.
By the way, only an idiot would object to calling “NUTCASES on the far Right” who believe that whites are inherently superior to blacks “nutcases” (See http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/09/11/in-their-own-words-the-undisguised-racism-of-the-far-far-far-right/).
And as for calling lunatic liberals “looney”, I again followed this same course as I outlined in excruciating detail in my Looney Liberal Chronicles.
You see Ozzie, the difference between you and me — or more generically, stupid people who argue idiotic points and me — is that I spend a lot of time developing my positions and explaining my reasoning. It’s there for anyone to see who actually wants to have a discussion, instead of reading the title to something I wrote and drawing a stupid conclusion from it. This is what adults call “real discussions”.
However, I do want to thank you for collecting my reflections on manifest stupidity into one easily assembled collection. It strengthens what I’ve said about not allowing accidental stupidity or deliberate idiocy to cause us to not call stupidity stupidity because it might hurt the stupid person’s feelings. You’ll note these all refer to what people say (i.e. stupid things); not a genetic description of an individual.
To wit:
This is the worst kind of stupidity —
It’s rather stupid to conclude that
Even the profoundly stupid who enter these discussions don’t say things like
This is a blatantly stupid proposition given
My head can only take so much stupidity and sophomoric reasoning
As for pure stupidity in reasoning, I think examples speak well for themselves
And then when the stupidity of that position
So yeah, your position is pretty stupid
The person under discussion exhibits stupid reasoning
Civility for civility’s sake is, well, rather stupid
I would call them [these comments] “stupid”; not just a difference of opinion.
The only thing left is to let the stupidity continue to speak for itself.
You made a stupid, blanket statement
You want me to bail you out of your stupidity
Can you imagine the stupidity of asking
It’s one thing to hold a stupid position. But I don’t understand the strategy of deflecting attention from the first stupid statement by introducing other egregiously stupid statements into the mix.
Raymond doubles down on his stupid remarks
So yes, you are indeed correct. When confronted with obvious stupidity, I tend to describe that stupidity as stupid. Your analytical powers in deducing this would be quite laudable, if not for the fact that I wrote about it myself over two years ago in http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/11/01/random-thoughts/
“My favorite response is “idiot,” which I employ liberally (no pun intended) as the situation warrants. But I will point out two tiny differences in my approach and the comments of those I’ve read in my posts or observed in other essays. First, I don’t lead with an insult, but rather employ such terms only after the manifest stupidity has become too overwhelming to deny. I love a good debate, but have no patience at all for idiots who have no idea what they are talking about, yet continue to make their points even when their original positions have been thoroughly repudiated. And second, to show that I am an equal-opportunity characterizer of defective intellect, my nastiest replies have been reserved for the idiots on the Right who substituted their own brand of racist bilge for the ideologically-infused reasoning so often employed by the Left. I’m quite willing to concede points or refine my arguments in the face of objective, relevant criticism, as I’ve done on a few occasions these past several months. And I’ve come across a couple of Left-leaning commentators who are prepared to do the same, so all hope is not lost for the future of political discourse. But what I won’t do is what I see all too often on the Left — start a debate by impugning someone’s intelligence (that designation has to be earned, and the specific reasons for it cited). And when critiquing an author or someone who comments on an essay I respond to what they actually say, instead of ignoring their words just to offer a personal comment.”
So Ozzie, if you come across any other phrases where I’ve called an idea stupid or idiotic — or a profoundly stupid person an idiot — please publish them again. It’s been my experience that the profoundly stupid have difficulty grasping simple concepts (like, if you say something stupid, saying something even more stupid won’t erase the first example of stupidity), so repetition is necessary to make even minimal progress.
This, of course, presumes that the person reading the remarks isn’t a complete idiot in the first place. But, that’s a judgment only the repeated stupidity of the person making the stupid observations can validate.
PS: I have been known to call certain people a**holes too. It’s another technical term you can read about in http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/09/02/off-to-the-races-the-perplexing-politics-of-political-correctness/ But just a note of caution. You actually have to read past the title and look at the essay itself.
All the best on your upcoming SATs. [I continue to hold out hope for you, and want to think of you in the best of light despite your penchant for making stupid statements].
Phil
>MEMO TO SELF: Ozzie, in the future, do not employ ironical self-deprecation as a way of turning away wrath…IC evidently doesn’t ‘do’ irony very well…
*** If anybody can figure out what is “irony” and what is allegedly real discussion, in Ozzies non-terrorist terror bombing of a grocery store that may or may not have had innocent civilians in it, or be done to collect insurance, or maybe targeted by the US military to make his original point that:
“If someone bombs a grocery store, I might wonder if it should be considered ‘terrorism’, or not. I would feel obliged to find a generally accepted, middle-of-the-road definition of ‘terrorism’, and then see if the facts of the case support its inclusion in that category. Is that ‘feeling’? It seems like a reasonable and customary cognitive activity used by people across the political spectrum”,
— or conversely make his alternative original point that:
“I didn’t say that the bombing was done to kill innocent civilians–I gave no details at all. Maybe it was done by a disgruntled customer, or an insurance-seeking proprietor, or the US military, or an insurgency in a totalitarian state. Those pieces of context could throw it in a different light, right? In order to determine if it was in fact ‘terrorism’, then one would have to define what we mean by terrorism. It may or may not be, depending on the definition and the context”
— please have a go at it. The moral relativism, and shifting context, and generalizations-as-a-substitute-for-actual-definitions have me completely lost in what, if any, real point he is trying to make, other than we supposedly can’t make any point at all except to say that waterboarding is definitely torture.
I will refrain, as a courtesy to Ozzie, from describing this obvious stupidity as obvious stupidity, and again wish him well on his upcoming SATs.
Just as a reminder, earlier you said this:
***I comment on ideas and reasoning, not individuals.****
You seem to have backed off on that, and now acknowledge that in fact, you quite often address your abusive language towards individuals personally, and not just their ideas (but only if you *really, really* think they’ve earned it). Seems like a little bit of progress.
I must say that your previous post probably set a record for the most uses of the words ‘idiot’ and ‘stupid’ squeezed on a single computer screen.
Maybe I misjudged you by concluding that it is simply piss-poor debating and inadequate vocabulary; I believe you are attempting to elevate it to Performance Art. It’s the only explanation I can imagine.
Anyhow, I’ve been as eloquent as I can on that particular subject. Maybe I’ll come back to it later. Your abusiveness and inhospitable language stand as their own rebuke, as far as I can tell, and you know the old saw–when your opponent is defeating himself, it’s best to just get out of the way.
As I’ve taken pains to point out, your communication skills are not terribly important to me. Suit yerself, I say.
On the torture stuff, I can’t fathom why my simple and obvious illustration about the store bombing is causing you so much angst and confusion. I guess I’ll stop trying to illustrate my points with analogies; it seems to throw you off track.
But I’ll let it go. I’ve re-read it and it all seems perfectly clear, so I can’t think of anything further to add. Sorry it was ineffective for you.
Oz
“…ironical self-deprecation…” Truly, irony is often lost on the ironic. What has been patently obvious in your various posts found confirmation in your now-retracted admission. It made sense, but now you contend you were just kidding.
So since you are backtracking on this admission with a lame rationalization, I am left in the same position that Dr. Jackson seems to be wrestling with: How does one now explain the lack of depth of thinking? How do we deal with you tendency to completely ignore the substance of the posts of others?
On the other hand, why should I bother?
Mountain Man, if I’ve ignored any substance, it was an oversight. Please point out to me any substantive areas I completely ignored, and I will be happy to either 1) show you where I thoroughly answered it; or 2) provide an answer to the best of my ability. I believe I have actually been pretty dogged about responding to each point raised, but there have been a lot of them, and I may have missed some.
Oz
Ozzie:
I’ve got a helpful suggestion based on your self-acknowledged style of reasoning.
Perhaps you could go back and re-issue your statements with the following codes to allow us to distinguish between the subtle levels of your thought.
Put an “[R]” for “real” in front of those comments that you are actually trying to be serious about.
Put an “[I]” for “ironic” in front of those comments that appear to be real, but really aren’t. I realize that to the untrained eye most people will automatically assume your [R’s] are [I’s] because to believe otherwise would be to invoke the dreaded “[S]” word. Like I said previously, we’re always looking for a way to cut people slack whose S-type commentary is so manifest it cannot be ignored. If the high school excuse doesn’t fit your particular circumstance, this would be an acceptable way to deflect attention from the stupidity of some of the things you say.
For the truly ironic statements you make, you could use “[TI]”, or just “moronic” [for “more ironic” than normal]. This designation would be reserved for non-explanation explanations, or just over-the-top emotion based observations in general.
And finally, when you are outright fibbing about what you said — you know, saying things like “”In answer to your suspicion that I haven’t ‘thought this through’, you are probably correct. In fact, there is a lot of truth to it. I am making it up as I go along” and then once you’re called on that, say it’s really just “ironical self-deprecation as a way of turning away wrath” and blame us for misunderstanding you because “IC evidently doesn’t ‘do’ irony very well” — you could put a “[L]” for lying or “[BS]” for BS in front of the comment. Actually, this isn’t really necessary because we all understand these types of comments for what they are anyway, but since personal feelings tend to drive your analyses, you might feel better by labeling these comments anyway.
Sure, maybe I will, if you guys need that level of structure. It’s kind of funny, really, thanks for the chuckle.
Naturally, if we are needing to attach a ‘key’, I might respectfully suggest some for you as well, Dr. J.
Let’s see, you could use (SM) for Straw Man attacks, and (PA) for Personal Abuse, and…um… Well, that should do it, really.
Your key is a lot easier to remember than mine :-)
But enough witty banter. I’m puzzled by your comment that ‘personal feelings…drive [my] analysis’. I’m not aware that that is true, at least, no more so than anyone else here at IC. Can you give an example?
Please how me an example of an opinion that I hold that I seem unable to support with anything other than ‘personal feelings’.
Once I have an example, I’d be happy to either 1) show why I’ve relied upon logic and evidence rather than feelings; 2) re-engage with the issue and provide something more than personal feelings; or 3) admit that you are correct and that personal feelings do in fact drive my opinions.
I don’t know which direction I will go, because I’m not at all sure which opinions you might be referring to. In my recollection (and of course, all humans have rather biased recollections), I remember providing evidence or rational support for nearly all my assertions. But perhaps not.
Please let me know, because I would happily engage in some rigorous self-examination on this issue, if necessary.
Ozzie
Ozzie is surely telling us the truth. (L)
Ozzie admitted that he was making things up, and now regrets his anti-intellectual comment. (T)
Ozzie is still in the mindset that led to this admission, therefore one really doesn’t know if he is thinking even now. (I)
Ozzie persists in believing he is logical and rational. (TI)
Ozzie is now the subject of scorn and ridicule, and doesn’t realize that the time for intelligent debate has passed him by. (S) for sad.
Ozzie: Without the codes, no one can tell when you’re being ironic, moronic, or actually trying to think.
Mountain Man –
1) Seriously? Your wife does something that’s likely to make you give up critical information to an enemy? Sounds like divorce time to me – maybe even criminal charges. My wife’s a lot more fun.
(Again, I’ll be happy to revise my opinion of waterboarding’s severity if someone can arrange to publicly demonstrate that they can casually shrug it off.)
2) If someone’s convicted of a crime, they can expect to be punished – which is, by definition, unpleasant. Imprisonment, execution, etc. That’s “lawful sanction”. I’ve no doubt KSM is a vicious thug, and I’ve got no problem with killing him upon conviction. Morally, I’ve no problem with doing it with a rusty saw, though pragmatically I think that would ultimately be counterproductive.
KSM, at the time he was waterboarded, had not been convicted of – or even charged – with a crime. It was not a legal punishment, a “lawful sanction”. That’s why it’s relevant.
And that’s why Inwood’s wrong, too. “Torture” isn’t “anything severe” – it’s severe, applied to extract information or to punish, and not as part of any lawful sanction. (I’ve already stated – when I first posted that definition – that I don’t think ‘public official’ is really necessary. Certainly terrorists can torture, and they aren’t public officials. Still, it certainly applied in KSM’s case.)
A tortured reading of one thing I said – which I’ve already clarified repeatedly – is the only way Inwood can misunderstand so badly. But he’ll continue to do so.
Ozzie – as I predicted, Dr. Jackson will never post his own definition of torture and explain why waterboarding doesn’t fit. He won’t even explain why it doesn’t fit the definition I posted, or even explain why the definition’s wrong. It’s a good thing Jackson’s Razor is named after him.
>Torture” isn’t “anything severe” – it’s severe, applied to extract information or to punish …
*** Good to know that waterboarding someone just for the fun of it can’t be described as “torture”. The act itself is not the key — only the motives for the act.
> Dr. Jackson will never post his own definition of torture and explain why waterboarding doesn’t fit.
*** Raymond. See my last 155 comments, including this article, about the stupidity of someone making a statement that “waterboarding is torture”, being unable to justify the comment by comparing and contrasting it to real world situations, and then begging someone to rescue them from their own stupidity by supplying the definition for them.
I’ve written extensively about morality and terrorism, but I’ve never written about torture. I didn’t introduce the term, and I don’t own it. It’s your judgment. You need to stop asking others to think for you and begin thinking for yourself. Unless of course you are trying to say that you are incapable of real thought, which opens up another line of inquiry all together.
Jackson’s Razor is again invoked.
Well this hasn’t gotten to 100 comments but it certainly has set a new record for words in the posts.
I thought the meaning of is was debated thoroughly in other threads particularly the meaning of torture. For those dinosaurs like me that went through college in the early 1960s fraternity initiations met the definitions of torture used by several posters in this thread. For those in the military during the 60s and forward to today waterboarding was part of training if you worked in a sensitive position or were a member of groups likely to operate in unexpected locations (a politically correct way of covering any clandestine operation).
So what is the furor about? I haven’t seen or heard of use of the Iron Maiden, rack, removal of appendages, removal of teeth, scalding, thumb screws, or other processes that could be determined to be torture without potential for serious disagreement.
As to charged with crimes it sounds like a belief that treating anyone in the world as a US citizen is the way to ensure our safety. Hmmm is naive too strong a term to describe this mind set?
A great deal of this discussion so far seems to come from those that always sat on the sideline and never ventured into harms way. I know that some of the posters questioning the sideline generals have military experience and may (shudder) have already undergone waterboarding. By the way they might also offer the opinion that other techniques used to train military on how to survive under interrogation go somewhat further.
Anyway we have solved the riddle question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
To a liberal the answer is none because it is discriminatory to discuss anything that might offend someone that does not believe in angels.
To the rest of us the answer is one of life’s unsolved mysteries.
A time out for those looking in on this discussion who are trying to figure out what Ozzie and Raymond are talking about.
Ozzie is a pretty hopeless case. He’s a bundle of incomplete thoughts and emotion-driven contradictions. It’s difficult to understand exactly what his main points are, because he keeps backtracking on his most egregiously banal observations by calling them “ironic” or ‘misunderstandings’ when he’s called to task.
He’s the kind of person who enters political debates to tell us his opinion on matters, as if one’s personal opinion is the fountainhead of analysis. There’s not a lot of “there” there, so real conversation is impossible. Since this is an intellectual forum and not a BS session, there’s not a lot of value in treating these types of comments too seriously, other than to point out the continuous flaws in the reasoning.
With Raymond it’s the opposite issue at stake. Raymond is insufferably precise when it comes to debating science and religion. Call a planetoid a planet, and you get not only a correction, but the precise astronomical distance of that object from Earth. Speak about “God” (which Raymond conflates with “religion”) and you’re treated to a mini-dissertation on the nature of evidence, logical proofs, whether it’s more accurate to speak about “Alpha” or “X” than “gods”, and other similar variations on a theme.
But, put Raymond in a political discussion, and all this foundation is quickly abandoned. He can make emphatic statements like ‘Waterboarding is definitely torture’, but only backs up that claim with the opinion of journalists, or generalized statements from the United Nations. Present him with actual US law that gives substance to the generalizations, and Raymond calls that a “tortured reading”.
The reason for Raymond’s confused approach is a typical mistake made by freshmen taking poli-sci 101 classes. [No, this is not an Ozzie-type observation, but a general observation from my teaching days]. It’s embodied in the conflating of several elements:
a. What actions actually constitute “torture”?
b. Is the action administered legally or illegally by US officials?
c. Does the action produce the intended result?
d. Does the action produce an unintended result.
B-D are policy issues in the broad sense. Any action could be evaluated by these criterion: tax policy, campaign finance reform limitations on free speech, welfare vs. workfare programs, etc. They’re interesting and important questions in their own right, but addressing them tells you nothing about the inherent nature of taxation (is it “voluntary” or “coercive” as I discussed in my essay), whether McCain Feingold is a usurpation of our First Amendment rights, or whether the Great Society approach was “better” than the Reagan Administration approach to a public safety net.
In the absence of addressing the fundamental real world issues of these policy matters, which means precisely defining those issues, all we’re left with is personal opinions. It’s why I told an earlier commentator that even though pornography may indeed be in the eye of the beholder, we are still able to construct specific definitions of sexual acts and images and pass specific laws to allow or regulate these activities.
This is why it’s foolish and sophomoric to make an emphatic statement that “X is torture”, and then support that statement by:
1. Other personal opinions [“I'll be happy to revise my opinion of waterboarding's severity if someone can arrange to publicly demonstrate that they can casually shrug it off.] This ignores the fact that the US army has waterboarded soldiers to prepare them for war, but they have not mutilated their bodies or decapitated them. Just calling something unpleasant “torture” doesn’t actually make it “torture”. What is it about all three acts that are in common, or different, to allow for a judgment of commonality or a judgment that distinctions exist between or among the three acts?
2. The “legality” of an issue — i.e. whether the act is legally authorized or not. ["If someone's convicted of a crime, they can expect to be punished - which is, by definition, unpleasant. Imprisonment, execution, etc. That's "lawful sanction".] Slavery was legal at one time in this country. Legality does not bestow morality, or in this case, ‘correctness’. Governments have passed lots of laws to do things “legally” that one could still object to on moral grounds as wrong.
By focusing on whether an act is legal or not, it ignores the fundamental nature of the act itself. This is how you allow yourself to rationalize killing a convicted person with “a rusty saw, though pragmatically I think that would ultimately be counterproductive.” If the only inhibition on human action is that acting barbarically may not always produce the best results, then the discussion becomes how to be barbaric productively, rather than to behave morally. This is an important real world issue, not a facile debating point like the counterproductive rusty saw example.
3. Whether the person being tortured has been convicted in a court of law. ["KSM, at the time he was waterboarded, had not been convicted of - or even charged - with a crime. It was not a legal punishment, a 'lawful sanction'. That's why it's relevant.”] Again, if torture is indeed a bad thing morally, and makes for bad policy by producing allegedly inaccurate information or promoting counterproductive actions, then what real difference does it make whether a person was legally tried and convicted first? All this is is a legal excuse for practicing sadism.
And this is the main point. You can assert that Action X is counterproductive because it produces false confessions. That’s a policy statement about a policy action, not a statement about the intrinsic nature of an action. If the discussion takes place on this level, then it can be countered with the observation that Action X is not designed to produce confessions (or convictions), but to secure time-sensitive information that can be tested (give us the password to your computer; tell us who your contact is, etc.). Certainly someone can lie about these issues to temporarily halt the action, but it takes only moments to check a computer password and verify the information, so such a strategy is not normally successful.
This is where real conversation comes in. If the person alleging the ineffectiveness of Action X wants a real discussion, they have to address this counter point, not simply maintain that all action X does is secure false confessions of guilt.
If a real conversation takes place on this level, it’s not necessary to address the fundamental nature of Action X. Action X could be moral, immoral, pervasive, infrequent, etc. Although its fundamental nature is a legitimate question, it’s not the subject of this discussion. Only its effectiveness is, regardless of its nature.
But — and this is the issue that keeps escaping Raymond — if you want to characterize the actual act itself, i.e. maintaining that “waterboarding IS torture” — you now have to address its fundamental nature. And since YOU are the one making this claim, YOU are the one who needs to justify it; not me or anyone else.
In this case, waterboarding must be defined so it is not simply a word that engenders images of all types of water “torture”. [The Japanese would force large volumes water down prisoners throats as “waterboarding”. This is fundamentally different from what the US military does to train its soldiers.]
Also, the word “torture” must be defined; not abstractly, but concretely. What makes decapitation with a rusty saw “torture”, waterboarding “torture”, and lawful imprisonment in SuperMax prison “torture” to the ACLU and “not torture” to Raymond if the person is imprisoned lawfully?
If, as raymond contends, “torture isn’t ‘anything severe’ – it’s severe, applied to extract information or to punish,” then the key appears to be the motives of the alleged torturer and not the actions themselves. If KSM is waterboarded just for the fun of it (no information is being extracted), isn’t this still “torture” if “waterboarding is torture”? Or is it ok to waterboard people recreationally, but not to secure information?
Sloppy definitions based on sloppy reasoning and analysis lead to sloppy conclusions. By calling imprisonment in SuperMax “torture”, or all waterboarding torture (it’s still Torture to Raymond if legally authorized — it’s just legal torture now), we have a perfect illustration of what I’ve been railing against; the substitution of personal preferences for a concrete definition.
We can have a discussion about waterboardiong’s effectiveness, waterboarding’s inherent nature, or both. But we can’t have a discussion about it’s inherent nature by only addressing it’s policy implications and legal trappings, any more than discussing its policy implications and legal trappings will tell us anything concrete about its fundamental nature (i.e. whether it is “torture” or not).
Unlike Raymond, I’ve made no claim about the inherent nature of waterboarding. That’s his position, and he needs to support it or admit he doesn’t know what he’s been talking about. Asking me or others to define his term is disingenuous. It would be equally unfair for me to claim that “waterboarding is justice”, cite the opinion of a few journalists, speak about justice as a correct action appropriate to a behavior (or use other equally generalized terms), and then when asked to be more specific, insist that Raymond now define the term for me.
This is why real conversation is not possible with people who either base their positions on their opinions or feelings, or who speak about the fundamental nature of an issue only in its superficial policy terms.
I have made claims about the policy effectiveness of aggressive interrogation techniques like waterboarding, and if you look back in the comment section to my last article, you’ll see me engage the debate on this level.
1) …”critical information to an enemy…” was not contained in your post or your quote. Therefore, my wife is capable of an activity that makes me willing to do anything to get it to stop. Viola! Torture.
2) Criminality is irrelevant. This is war, and terrorists are the enemy. Torture ‘em, kill em.
Besides, if a terrorist gives up “…critical information to an enemy…” I judge that to be a positive outcome.
Mountain Man reveals:
———Ozzie is now the subject of scorn and ridicule—–
What, again? Man, this is just like that time I auditioned for American Idol. I thought everyone was laughing WITH me… well, anyway, it’s a bitter pill for me to swallow, but I agree, it’s best I know the truth. A true friend isn’t afraid to be honest. Thanks, MM.
————, and doesn’t realize that the time for intelligent debate has passed him by.————–
Are you saying it’s now the time for UNintelligent debate? Sorry Mountain Man, but read the last hundred posts. That ship has sailed.
By the way, how’s that deal coming where you were going to support your contention that I ‘don’t respond to the substance of posts’? Just hoping you can give some examples. I’d like to go back and respond to anything I might have missed.
Oz
And when I said ‘hundred posts’, I meant 40 posts. It only SEEMS like a hundred posts :-)
Oz
Dr. Jackson says “Present him with actual US law that gives substance to the generalizations, and Raymond calls that a “tortured reading”.
False on two counts. Number one, that’s not what I said was a “tortured reading”. It’s easy to see what I did call a “tortured reading” (see comment 34 – “of one thing I said”), and that’s not it. (I recall Dr. Jackson getting very upset once when I accidentally used double quotes instead of single quotes when paraphrasing him. Let’s see if he’s willing to apologize to me, as I was to him. He hasn’t even apologized for taking my words out of context on the last thread, so I’m not holding my breath.)
Number two, “actual US law” has not been quoted here or on the previous thread. I’d appreciate a cite if possible, by thread and comment number.
Dr. Jackson still insists that I’ve been “unable to justify the comment by comparing and contrasting it to real world situations” – when I have. I’ve presented a definition of torture, and explained in detail why, e.g. waterboarding KSM fits that definition. See comment #14, and note that he’s yet to answer the very simple question I placed there at the end. Who, exactly, is dancing here?
What was the title of this essay —”The Hopelessness of Debate.”
Actually, I correct myself a little. Since the U.S. signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture as a treaty, and by Article 6 of the Constitution that makes it “the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
So, in that sense, I’m the only one who actually has cited “actual US law”.
Torture the terrorist b*st*rds.
Mountain Man – I would think that “anything” would include, y’know, anything. Including “critical information to an enemy”. That’s kind of the point – of waterboarding, and torture generally.
If what your wife does wouldn’t make you say anything – and you’re basically admitting it wouldn’t – then it can’t be that severe, right?
“Waterboarding causes severe suffering, both physical and mental.” Wife qualifies. Thank you ma’am, can I have another?
I also said, “Besides, if a terrorist gives up “…critical information to an enemy…” I judge that to be a positive outcome.”
I also said, “Torture the terrorist b*st*rds.” I’ll send my wife.
———Ozzie is a pretty hopeless case———–
Yes, there is a lot of truth to that.
Regarding Torture, Dr. Jackson says:
———————————————–
In the absence of addressing the fundamental real world issues of these policy matters, which means precisely defining those issues, all we’re left with is personal opinions.
————————————————
Well, no, I disagree. You’ve been provided with the UNCAT definition of torture, not opinions. I noticed that when I Googled ‘torture definitions’, it was present in the bulk of the posts that arose. Various commentators have referred to it as ‘customary’.
Does that mean it is the ONLY definition, or the CORRECT one? Of course not. But it seems to be quite broadly used and quoted, so it seems like a good place to start.
Perhaps you disagree that the UNCAT definition is valid. It would further the discussion if you would explain why.
Dr. Jackson says:
——————————————–
But — and this is the issue that keeps escaping Raymond — if you want to characterize the actual act itself, i.e. maintaining that “waterboarding IS torture” — you now have to address its fundamental nature. And since YOU are the one making this claim, YOU are the one who needs to justify it; not me or anyone else.
——————————————–
He did. So did I. Torture is well-defined by UNCAT: (paraphrasing here): severe mental or physical suffering, inflicted on someone to gain information, in an official capacity of some sort, but NOT legal sanctions like imprisonment.
Waterboarding would seem to be ‘severe’ because it can be tolerated for only a few seconds by most before inducing panic and even begging for cessation. It simulates drowning, which is traumatic. I read numerous accounts by various commentators who have seen and experienced it, who describe it as really quite horrifying. Maybe you don’t think it qualifies as ‘severe’. That’s a reasonable objection. What is your basis for that?
For KSM, it was done in an official capacity, to gain information, and it was not a form of legal sanction.
Sounds like it conforms to the best definition of torture that we have available.
Nothing ‘opinion’ based about that, nothing ‘feeling’ based. Just applying the best definition of torture we have and noting that it seems to fit in that category.
Perhaps you disagree with the definition, feel it is inadequate, or that I have misapplied one of the prongs. I still can’t find your specific disagreement with it. It might be there, I’ve just missed it somehow.
Dr. Jackson:
————————————————–
Sloppy definitions based on sloppy reasoning and analysis lead to sloppy conclusions
————————————————–
On that we agree. Is the UNCAT definition sloppy? Why do you think so?
Dr. Jackson:
—————————————————
By calling imprisonment in SuperMax “torture”, or all waterboarding torture …..we have a perfect illustration of what I’ve been railing against; the substitution of personal preferences for a concrete definition.
—————————————————
I never said that imprisonment in a SuperMax is torture. I specifically said it was NOT (it is a legal sanction). Nor did I say that ALL waterboarding is torture. When done by the military in preparation for combat, for example, it is NOT torture (it is not being done to extract information, and I am not certain that the mental anguish would be nearly as ‘severe’ in that context).
I didn’t see anyone here say that a SuperMax is torture. It is easily distinguished from torture by reading the definition I’ve provided. Perhaps I missed it, and you could point to it.
And if it is the ACLU you are talking about, please spare me. I’m not going to defend the ACLU’s views. I’m just using a definition that seems quite comprehensive and reasonable.
I sure do hope the Supermax thing wasn’t another Straw Man (ie, arguing with nonsense opinions that nobody has expressed).
Dr. Jackson:
————————————————–
The reason for Raymond’s confused approach is a typical mistake made by freshmen taking poli-sci 101 classes. [No, this is not an Ozzie-type observation, but a general observation from my teaching days]. It’s embodied in the conflating of several elements:
a. What actions actually constitute “torture”?
b. Is the action administered legally or illegally by US officials?
c. Does the action produce the intended result?
d. Does the action produce an unintended result.
—————————————-
It’s hard to see how anyone is really ‘conflating’ these things (I fear that YOU are, actually). My contributions lately have been confined to the first point, because that seems more than enough to chew on.
Oz
Raymond says:
—————————————————-
Ozzie – as I predicted, Dr. Jackson will never post his own definition of torture and explain why waterboarding doesn’t fit. He won’t even explain why it doesn’t fit the definition I posted, or even explain why the definition’s wrong. It’s a good thing Jackson’s Razor is named after him.
—————————————————-
I am a cockeyed optimist!
OZ
> Since the U.S. signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture as a treaty, and by Article 6 of the Constitution that makes it “the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” So, in that sense, I’m the only one who actually has cited “actual US law”.
*** This is another great example of intentionally conflating issues to avoid reall debate.
1. The US has signed this and several other treaties outlawing “torture”. “Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which the Senate unanimously ratified in 1955, prohibits the parties to the treaty from acts upon prisoners including “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; . . . outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” Second, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Senate ratified in 1992, states that “[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Third, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which the Senate ratified in 1994, provides that “[e]ach State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction,” and that “[e]ach State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture . . . .”http://lawreview.wustl.edu/slip-opinions/waterboarding-is-illegal/
Note that “Waterboarding” is never specifically mentioned.
2. A number of individuals have concluded that they believe that waterboarding is torture. Other individuals, by contrast, among them the US military which practices it on its own soldiers, have concluded it is not.
3. Because the treaties mentioned in #1 outlaw torture, and some people have concluded that waterboarding is torture (while ignoring that others have concluded the iopposite), Raymond has somehow demonstrated that waterboarding IS indeed torture.
Once again, despitye the fact that there are no specific statutes that state that waterboarding is torture, opinions of those opposed to waterboarding are used as evidence by Raymond to support his opinion that waterboarding is torture.
It’s the battle of opinions with no regard to defining what makes waterboarding “torture” the same way as decapitation is “torture”.
Sloppy, and dishonest. But predictable.
[...] Part II [...]