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.
Inwood: Because watching torture is unpleasant, I always self-abuse with the lights off.
P
Here’s the answer: The Recession/Depression will save us!
Headline; “Terrorists Quit Over Pay Dispute”
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/phillip/articles/20090214.aspx
Trials? Treason? Investigations??
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
PATRICK HENRY 1775
I usually don’t like to quote people but this just seemed appropriate given the circumstances.
P
And Leftist commenters are focused only on Gitmo interrogations as torture.
And now to the Big Bad world of, well, you know, those 99% of Muslims who give the other 1% a bad name:
New York man Muzzammil Hassan who founded pro-Islam station Bridges TV five years ago to combat the negative public image of Muslims has been arrested for beheading his wife.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/hassan_chop/
Suggestion: there’s a strange world out there in Muslim land. Ya think?
******************
Comment by bloggers on this:
He’s failed at his job.
By the time Law and Order gets around to it in the US, he’ll either be changed to a Lebanese Christian or will have been driven to it by an Angry White Christian Male Working for Homeland Security…
Heads will roll for this.
He’s merely being guided by the Koran, you judgemental racist swine…
Thank god she wasn’t also a homosexual, those double beheadings are a logistical nightmare.
REXISWRITE
Here is another quotation:
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
Winston Churchill
:>)
IVAN THE ALL KNOWING
For over two thousand years, Western man has had answers for why the universe exists, and why it is intelligible to us: God created it, made it orderly, and gave us reason to perceive that order. Pin-heads with left wing college educations know better then the rest of us how we should think?
P.S. They really are trying to kill us. Winston Churchhill knew that too!
Mr. Ingles said:
———————————————
So I have to disagree with Ozzie on this one – Pearl was tortured and murdered.
———————————————
I don’t think there’s much daylight between us, Mr. Ingles.
I was just pleased to see Dr. Jackson apply a definition — ANY definition — and reason towards a conclusion. I thought that was a sign of progress, and I wanted to praise and encourage him. Maybe I came off as over-enthusiastic in my zeal.
But I still gotta say, he came to a technically correct conclusion–Pearl’s beheading doesn’t amount to ‘torture’ —- *as torture is defined by UNCAT* —-.
UNCAT is the definition that Dr. Jackson himself inappropriately chose to apply to Danny Pearl, and he got the right answer–it doesn’t meet the criteria in THAT definition.
Why? Because UNCAT is not remotely applicable to the Danny Pearl situation. It was NOT INTENDED to be applicable.
UNCAT is a definition of torture intended to guide governments in knowing the civilized boundaries of prisoner treatment. It is intended to apply to public official actions, and *only* public official actions. It says so **right in the very definition itself**, and that’s why it is pointless to apply it to Danny Pearl. And why, if you apply it, you get a flukey answer.
But this whole discussion is about the actions of OUR U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, which is why we need to refer to definitions that are useful and germane to THAT discussion. Such as UNCAT. Unless Dr. Jackson would like to propose a better definition that we could try to apply.
Oz
Well, as I said before, I am winding down on this. But I did want to respond to this, because it did seem to involve a ‘summing-up’ of sorts by Dr. Jackson. Kind of a bottom line of how he views us and them, and our responsibilities, and the usefulness of definitions.
I made about a dozen notes and rejoinders to the text before this final paragraph or two, because it seemed full of the usual straw men and inaccuracy. But I think I’ll just drop all that for now in favor of a final comment on the ‘bottom line’ Dr. Jackson is coming to.
Here’s how he sees it:
————————————————-
And it is through this debate that we’d look at the threat of Islamo-fascist terrorism and discuss which methods are appropriate and which are not to counter that threat. All this again from a real world setting, using the moral code as a guide, and not generalized pronouncements by the UN or other entities that supposedly condemn US government waterboarding as definitely torture while saying that Islamic terrorist beheading of innocent non-combatants is not torture.
So Raymond and Ozzie, what I’ve been trying to get you both to recognize is that instead of really debating this issue, all you are doing is tossing around labels (“torture”) that have no inherent context, or a politically-defined context, while not seriously looking at the action itself.
An act is either appropriate or not when applied to the real-world circumstances that it is immoral to deliberately harm innocent human life. That act is the focus, not whether it’s called “torture” or “good policy”.
Stop focusing on the secondary issues of what label to attach, and look at the action itself in a real world setting.
———————————————–
You seem to be saying that it is unimportant to define torture, or decide whether that label is appropriate to our recent treatment of prisoners.
That instead, we should just choose our interrogation techniques based upon whether we believe we are doing the *moral* thing, and the *necessary* thing, regardless of whether in the eyes of the world, it is considered to be torture (or at least abusive mistreatment).
And that since these prisoners are morally culpable of harming innocent lives, they more or less have it coming, and we don’t need any legal niceties to confirm their guilt first.
Did I characterize your viewpoint correctly? I want to be careful of not putting words in your mouth, or attributing goofy notions to you, since that is a behavior of yours that I find so off-putting. Please tell me if I missed the point, because I really am not sure what you are trying to say.
But if that is anywhere near close, I profoundly disagree, on about ten different levels. And as the title of your essay implies, debate may be hopeless, because we proceed from markedly different assumptions and foundations.
For one, I assume that the guilt or innocence of some of these folks is unknowable, and a cavalier assumption of their guilt, because somebody thinks so, it treacherous. Torturing the guilty is unnecessary, ineffective, unwise, and will probably backfire, but torturing the innocent seems pretty monstrous. I think we should worry more about that possibility than you do, apparently.
Secondly, you might like to define away torture by dismissing the UNCAT definition of it, or refusing to submit to any definition of it at all, but just because you ignore something it doesn’t go away.
Much of the world views us as torturers now, because of waterboarding and Abu Ghraib, with all of the sad consequences that it may well entail for us. See my previous posts for a list of those possible consequences.
Regardless of what you might think, though, I am not all that hung up on the word ‘torture.’
Go ahead, take just about everything I’ve written about the negative effects of ‘torture’ and replace that word with ‘inflicting severe pain’, or just ‘waterboarding’. All of my points still hold. I can call it something else if you insist, but it doesn’t make much difference.
(You might want to check with John McCain first, though, because he’s been pretty clear on what it should be called, and he’s somebody who has walked the walk.)
All of the negative effects I predicted are still every bit as likely, *whatever* you choose to call this (mis)treatment.
When the enemies catch our boys, they won’t hold back because you’ve ‘defined down’ the torture we inflicted on their boys. (Top military brass have warned of this).
The millions of Muslims who could go either way won’t cooperate with us any more, and help us when we need them, because we use euphemisms or minimizations to describe it. They aren’t stupid.
Waterboarding IS torture, though. Self-evidently, and you’ve not given a single reason why it isn’t, and why the world, and the enemy, won’t see it as such. And that matters to a lot of Americans, and I’m one of them.
OZ
The Hoplessnes of Debate: Part 3 — the Ozzie Chronicles.
It seems to me that much of your posting about torture in this thread has been flailing around, trying to avoid defining it. This effort culminated in your recent posts, where you appear to be dismissing any efforts to define what that word means.
But overwhelmingly, the fights at the highest levels of government policy recently have been over the *definition* of torture. Even the Bush White House has been in the game, arguing that torture should be defined in one way and not another (in order to claim that we don’t do it, of course).
Defining torture (especially torture in the context of offical state action) is exceedingly important. I suspect the reason you avoid defining torture is that it is really hard to find a definition of torture/abuse/mistreatment that wouldn’t seem to apply to waterboarding.
Numerous top military officials (including generals and retired chiefs of staff, not to mention the most recent Republican presidential candidate) have warned that waterboarding is torture, and torture is bad, not only for moral reasons, but for practical ones. It makes it harder for us to credibly demand humane treatment when our boys are captured, and is a poor tool for gaining info in any case. It damages our standing in the world, among our allies and enemies alike.
Dr. Jackson, I know you disagree with all of those people, but are they all really ‘stupid’ and ‘idiots’ because they don’t see things the same way you do?
Or could it be that these are actually complex, thorny, many-faceted issues upon which intelligent and moral people can disagree, and no need for name-calling?
I’m pretty much repeating myself at this point, so probably about time to wash my hands of it, as I said before.
Best regards,
Oz
It just keeps on going …
Get a clue…
MM: A clue for the clueless? Not gonna happen.
Dr. Jackson – When you can label both pouring water on a person’s face to simulate drowning with cutting off a person’s head as the same identical thing (“torture”), you have a word that describes nothing.
By that logic, when you can label unlawfully shooting, stabbing, bludgeoning, poisoning, drowning, dropping, or irradiating someone to death as the same identical thing (“murder”), you have a word that describes nothing.
I guess it really is all word games to you.
You also say And how anyone could justify deliberately “torturing” another human being just because it’s “legal”…
Since my whole point has been that it’s not justified, however satisfying it might be to “torture the terrorist b*st*rds”, I can only conclude that debate here really is hopeless.
I understand the sentiment of “torture the terrorist b*st*rds”, and I would even agree with it… if it weren’t ultimately counterproductive. It’s not that terrorists deserve better. It’s that torture has inevitable side-effects we don’t want, and equally effective alternatives are available that don’t have those side effects.
Hence it’s, y’know, unjustified.
And I don’t excuse the behavior of Person A because he didn’t sign a document saying he wouldn’t cut off people’s heads…
Glad to hear it, since I haven’t done so either.
Mountain Man – Ah, yes, all of which includes the right to counsel, the right to be tried by a jury of one’s peers, and, shazaam, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
When did I say that? I said the opposite – terrorists who aren’t U.S. citizens don’t get those rights. If they weren’t unlawful combatants, they could appeal to the Geneva Convention… but terrorist actions make you an unlawful combatant by definition.
The only thing they get is a competent tribunal to determine that they aren’t one of the protected G.C. categories, and then, well, they are “the common enemies of mankind”. My problem there is that such tribunals haven’t been being carried out.
I’ve even stated that I’m not too worried about terrorists apprehended by our troops during combat. If we’re going to do things like beat them to death, though, the ones turned in by other parties (for reward money or whatever) should get a hearing first.
(That’s where Dr. Jackson’s really disingenuous. He says that he focuses “on the fundamental question: is an innocent human being being deliberately harmed?” but ignores when I point to documented cases where our policies have led to exactly that.)
I’m going to have to find somewhere that people actually argue with what I write, rather than what they wish or hallucinate that I’d written. Oh, well.
Sorry Raymond. I really can’t take anyone seriously who approves of “legal” torture while simultaneously telling us how innefective and cruel it is to torture someone.
And other than Ozzie, who’s off in his own version of reality, no one else can do it either.
I see that the intellectual conservatives have at last been reduced to sniggering behind their hands.
All the better, because to paraphrase Lincoln on this President’s day, it makes the essay writer’s original point ‘far above (my) poor power to add or detract’.
It truly is hopeless to try and hold a debate with you fellows. You are pretty much all about ‘snark’ and personal abuse, from A to Z, rather than reasoned debate.
And so, ‘with malice toward none, and charity for all’, I bid this thread adieu. Happy President’s Day!
Oz
‘Bye, Ozzie.
For Ozzie, who keeps going away without actually going away.
Remember the lead in to my essay. “Doubling down on stupidity is not the way to make a cogent argument.”
Mr. Ingles wrote, “When did I say that? I said the opposite – terrorists who aren’t U.S. citizens don’t get those rights. If they weren’t unlawful combatants, they could appeal to the Geneva Convention…”
A quick search of this thread yields the discovery that #114 is the first post containing the words “unlawful combatants.”
You used the word “convicted.” It is natural to deduce that you are referring to due process and constitutional protections.
So I guess that means you are in favor of military tribunals, a conviction from which lustifies torture.
The only thing tortured here is your logic.
hmm, not “lustifies,” “justifies.”
MM: It was an understandable slip, given Raymond’s lust for legalized torture.
I get lustified and I cannot type.
Mountain Man – See the links in comment #84.
MM
Ray is either ingenuous or disingenuous.
Ya see, first, by the time a terrorist, OOPS, alleged terrorist could be convicted, anything he knows is gonna be out of date, especially with regard to the “ticking time bomb” situation. So even the CIA/FBI will not waste their time by then & Ray gets his no torture result.
Second, it depends on Ray’s definition of “conviction”. He will argue that you have to wait ’til all appeals have been exhausted & after that, he will argue that you have to wait ’til all coram nobis procedures have been exhausted, which they never are until the miscreant dies. Or he will argue that The Pope, The Chief Rabbi, The Archbishop of Canterbury, a former AG, Helen Thomas, etc. have said that our terrorist was wrongly convicted.
You get the point. The goal posts will be moved each time.
Ray giveth & Ray taketh away.
And he thinks that you, P, & I get “lustified” at the mere thought of “torture”, quasi torture, virtual torture, or the torture that dreams are made of.
If the NYT says so, it must be true. Dr Jackson is a seer!
Headline: “Obama’s War on Terror May Resemble Bush’s in Some Areas”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/us/politics/18policy.html?_r=1
“Even as it pulls back from harsh interrogations and other sharply debated aspects of George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism,” the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda.
“[The examples given, already discussed on this thread] and other signs suggest that the administration’s changes may turn out to be less sweeping than many had hoped or feared — prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies.
*************
“For example, Mr. Obama’s Justice Department last week told an appeals court that the Bush administration was right to invoke “state secrets” to shut down a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees who say a Boeing subsidiary helped fly them to places where they were tortured.
“Margaret Satterthwaite, a faculty director at the human rights center at the New York University law school, said, ‘It was literally just Bush redux — exactly the same legal arguments that we saw the Bush administration present to the court.’
“Mr. Craig said Mr. Holder and others reviewed the case and ‘came to the conclusion that it was justified and necessary for national security’ to maintain their predecessor’s stance. Mr. Holder has also begun a review of every open Bush-era case involving state secrets, Mr. Craig said, so people should not read too much into one case.”
But not to worry, Lefties:
“ ‘We have been some of the most articulate and vociferous critics of the way the Bush administration handled things’ Mr. Craig said. ‘There has been a dramatic change of direction.’ ”
I’m still worried about this last statement, because some of the crazies in this new Administration have apparently not been caught yet on their tax evasion & may sneak some bad things in!
Achtung! Bush “Regime” was correct on Gitmo! Guantanamo is not, repeat not, a Nazi concentration camp or an American gulag.
OK, I know that we’re all too cowardly to discuss the subject.
Oh well, at least The One didn’t let all the terrorists, OOPS, alleged terrorists go free. Um, yet. Wait ‘til the “betrayal” cries of the frenzied Left. Wait ‘til the NYT publishes a chimp pictures of The One!
Hey, I know: He’s going to need a place to put Rick Santelli & Co!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/20/AR2009022002191.html
Actually, if Panetta’s ticking time bomb happens, then this report will be inoperable, you know.
And Obama’s promise to close Gitmo was not premised on Gitmo as not OK under the Geneva Conventions, but rather on the “Gitmo as a gulag, a Nazi concentration camp, a charnel house since Bush who stole the Presidency is running it” mantra. Those who feel that way may have moved on, but The One & some peace loonies may really be delusional enough to believe that he can gain some points with the Euro-weenies & the Islamofascists by closing it down. Um, where to put the terrorists? Nevermind. They may be innocent, you know. Certainly they have not as Ray will tell us been “convicted”.