Logical Public Education

Imagine we looked at the culture at large and found that people have a tendency to make common math errors.  Politicians can’t add two-digit numbers, news pundits don’t know their basic times tables, and even teachers and professors can’t understand negative numbers and fractions.  Let’s say that in polls, eight percent of Americans can’t perform the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

The response to such a situation would be immediate and simple: The problem is obviously math education.  Let’s fix the math programs in public schools.  It would be imperative to fix such a problem.  After all, society probably couldn’ tfunction if the majority of adults were lacking basic math skills.

Now, what if the problem is thinking in general?  What if the problem is even deeper and more pervasive than a lack of basic math proficiency?  What if the problem is the method by which math – and every other subject learned in school – is understood?

We don’t teach logic in public schools.  We don’t teach our students how to think.  We rely on innate common sense (which is essentially the weaker and less precise little brother of logic) to see them through.  Smart kids today leave high school with a working knowledge of trigonometry and maybe a foreign language, but I would bet that hardly any of them can name a single logical fallacy.

The culture today is rife with logical fallacies.  Anyone who’s ever listened to a politician – any politician – answer questions is exposed to about for of them per answer.  Cable new is sickening, from the endless non-sequiturs of Sean Hannity to the inevitable tu quoque replies of Alan Colmes.  Logical fallacies are so prevalent that even the very notion of a logical fallacy has been undermined.  Practically every day I hear someone put “ad hominem” before the word “attack.”  The term “ad hominem” is not supposed to be interchangeable with a simple insult; the point is that one attacks the arguer instead of his or her argument.

Perhaps learning about formal logic isn’t going to save most people from using their emotions where they shouldn’t, or from the omnipresent confirmation bias, but the se types of thinking errors are dangerous, especially when they’re habitually made by policy-makers, teachers, parents, and other people of influence.  At the very least, we should be arming young people with the tools needed to recognize and answer these common situations.  Before spelling, geography, biology, and all the rest, how about we first teach kids how to use their minds properly?

Moore vs. Hannity

I think it’s very instructive for everyone to watch two guys who have no idea how to make a rational point argue for a half-hour.  It’s a great lesson on what not to do if you want your positions to be based upon logic.

Granted, I don’t think Michael Moore and Sean Hannity are anything much more than entertainers, which translates to style (or an attempt at style) without substance.  Fine.  The two of them were intent on one-upping one another about who went to church, who is really their brother’s keeper, and who gives more money to charity.  All entertaining issues, to be sure, but they’re hardly going to solve an economic issue such as the state of capitalism in this country.

Moore was content to try to use religious guilt to make his point, as if we should look in the gospels to find instructions on how to run the economy.  How charitable the American people are has absolutely nothing to do with how or why the economy works.  What is Moore suggesting – that we turn a phrase Jesus uttered into a law of the land?  And what does wealth redistribution have to do with charity anyway?  Charity is voluntary.  Coerced compassion is not compassion.  I think Jesus would have been able to tell the difference.

When the two of them were talking about the economic crisis and the foreclosure of homes, Hannity pointed out that people bought houses they can’t afford.  Moore responded with a non sequitur; he chided Hannity for thinking that “poor people caused the credit and housing crisis.”  No, but that’s not what Hannity was saying.  He was saying that there have been so many foreclosures because people bought houses they couldn’t afford.  This is manifest.  If someone buys a big screen TV or a car they can’t afford, and later has to return it, no one bats an eye.  But because it’s a home, the emotional responses come out and people like Moore make millions off a movie exploiting heartfelt feelings.

Moore went so far to absolve people of responsibility even if they didn’t read their contract!  “Come on,” he said, “what poor person is going to read a big complicated contract?”  Give me a freaking break.  If you took out a loan and didn’t read the contract, you made an idiotic mistake.  You don’t get the blame the bank, and you definitely don’t get to demand other people’s tax dollars to bail you out.  This is called life.  Adults live with the bad decisions they make.

And as for Moore’s blanket claims that “most” of these people were swindled or lied to – where are they?  Can he provide any evidence for this other than a few anecdotal cases?  Don’t get me wrong: If a bank cheated or lied or reneged on a contract, then they’re criminals and should be prosecuted.  But where are they?

Not that Hannity was in any way competent in the debate.  Though I agree with his position, he still got his ass handed to him by Michael Moore – and it’s pretty bad if you can’t argue intelligently against Michael Moore.  There was one thing I agreed with Moore about: He said that he doesn’t hate capitalism, he only hates what it has become.

Close enough, I suppose – although I think the point is that it’s no longer capitalism when government-run firms control the housing and credit markets, go bankrupt, and receive taxpayer money so they stay afloat.  Moore is arguing against the antithesis of capitalism, the sworn enemy of the free market.  Hannity certainly didn’t seem to notice.

Redistributionist Protestors, Part Two

Sean Hannity’s redistributionist guests from the G20 protest said some things that were pretty out there.  I doubt that every socialist leftist in this country would ask a question like, “Why should anyone need to make more than five hundred thousand dollars a year?” with a straight face.  (However, let me note that the philosophy behind such questions and such thinking is fairly simple and always the same at its base.)

Something else this young woman said was to recount a tale of her family.  She said that she was fortunate to be enrolled in college, but that the rest of her family had worked brutally hard for all their lives and make only “ten thousand a year,” and now are going bankrupt because they can’t afford medical care.

I have no reason to cast any doubt on her story, just as I have no reason to doubt that similar situations exist among Americans.  My question is, so what?

Some would surely call me cruel for that attitude, but by asking, “so what?” I don’t mean that no one should care about such a situation.  What I’s trying to say is that this young woman’s family bears the responsibility for how their lives unfold.  We all do.  Plenty of people live hard lives and eventually go on to be successful.  Plenty of kids stay home and study hard while their friends are partying and hanging out on the street.  Plenty of adults work two jobs and go to night school.

Is there something preventing members of this young woman’s family from getting educated and finding a better job, or starting their own business, or investing in the stock market?  Is there an obstacle that she failed to mention?  A greedy elected official who taxes them too harshly, perhaps?  A crooked employee at their bank who skims their savings?  A prejudiced employer who ignores their applications?

I doubt that such an obstacle exists, but if it does, it should be abolished right away.  Such obstacles are morally wrong and certainly not a part of a free capitalistic society.

What is a part of a free society, however, is that everyone must earn what they consume.  Furthermore, the only worth that your product or service has is whatever others are willing to pay for it.  If your particular job doesn’t pay you enough, then perhaps you should provide a more valuable product or service.  If you instead demand that you should be given more than others are willing to pay for your product or service, you’re demanding that which you didn’t earn.  That is called begging when a private citizen does it, and thievery when men with guns do it.

All of this is assuming, of course, that there are no criminal obstacles in your path.

Hannity’s Theocracy

It’s so funny watching Hannity, in his zeal to bust Obama on anything he possibly can, go after him for saying (on foreign soil) that America isn’t a Christian nation.  I understand Hannity’s point; it almost sounds like Obama is bending over backwards to accommodate everyone (or perhaps bending over forward, when it comes to Muslim kings).

This “Christian nation” thing is ridiculous, though.  If you mean that America is  Christian nation in the sense that most of its citizens are Christians, that it has a long and deep Christian tradition, that its birth and history are steeped in Christianity, and that its legal and moral ideas have their roots in Judeo-Christian values, then okay.  No problem so far.  That’s just the truth.

But if you mean America is a Christian nation in the sense that it’s a theocratic country whose laws come from the Bible, you’re just plain delusional.  I couldn’t believe my ears when Hannity started mentioning Thomas Jefferson (!) to support his notion of a Christian nation.  Jefferson, the staunch deist and secularist who said, “Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.” 

I could be wrong, but I thought the entire point of the creation of America was to give the People moral authority.  The People, not God.  The Constitution does not mention God once, and the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence speak only of a “Creator.”  A Creator, not Jesus or Yahweh.  This was intentional.  The United States is a secular nation.  Our government was something radical, something the world had never seen before, something that grants the individual more freedom than any other nation before it.  And we did it by leaving God out of government.

People like Hannity can continue to say that “our rights as Americans were endowed by our creator,” but I don’t know which creator they’re talking about.  Certainly not the God of the Bible.  Let’s see, the first three commandments directly contradict the First Amendment.  God does not grant us freedom of religion, speech, or expression; on the contrary, in the Bible He makes it clear where He stands on those issues.

For all the stink Hannity is raising about what Obama said overseas, perhaps he should be reminded of a little something a guy named George Washington said: “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Clueless Republicans

Lately all I seem to hear from Republicans is that they lost the White House and Congress because they’ve “gotten away from their basic principles.”  People like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Laura Ingraham are constantly claiming that the way to make Republicans politically attractive again is to present candidates who are more conservative.

They mock the idea that their problem is that they’re not mainstream and moderate enough to attract large voting blocks.  They point out that John McCain was a perfect specimen of a moderate Republican, a candidate who reached across the aisle, a candidate liked on all sides, a candidate who even supported green policy, decried torture, and tried to give amnesty to illegal aliens.  If McCain couldn’t get elected, they day, then obviously trying to be more moderate is not a good idea; therefore they conclude that being less moderate is.

Of course, this is a classic example of the either-or logical fallacy.  They’re creating the false dichotomy that what’s needed to get their party back on track is a trend toward either the right or left.  Really?  Why can’t it be something else?

I think the real question to ask is not how John McCain did in the election.  The real question is this:  How would a more conservative candidate have fared?  Suppose Romney, Huckabee, or Duncan Hunter had been the GOP’s candidate.  This is easy: The proverbial snowball in Hell would have been more successful.  Did Hannity, Limbaugh, Ingraham, and their ilk ever stop to think that perhaps John McCain was the best shot they had?  That only a moderate, well-liked guy like McCain had the slightest chance of winning whatsoever?  McCain lost, but Romney would have been creamed.

I guess we’ll see come 2012, and again in 2016, but it seems pretty clear to me.  Do they really think America is going to elect a Bobby Jindal or a Sarah Palin just because they get out there and talk about “good small-town American values?”  This is a colossal joke.  The only way that’s going to happen is if President Obama continues to purloin the free market and makes some huge foreign policy blunders – which is certainly possible.

Read Obama’s Lips

No wasteful spending.  Transparency.  Fiscal responsibility.  NO FREAKING EARMARKS.  With one side of his face, Obama warns of economic doom, and with the other, he smiles and nods and signs his looter bills that contain earmark after earmark.  The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but we need eight hundred grand to study the catfish genome and over a million to study odor on pig farms.

What’s worse, what’s amazing, is that Obama and his entire administration seem more worried about criticism of their policies than they do about the effects of those policies.  Our president is simultaneously whining about Rush Limbaugh and telling us not to pay attention to the stock market.  It goes up, it goes down; it’s everywhere!  Yes, America, don’t pay any attention to the stock market, which has gone down thirty percent since election day.  Don’t pay attention to all the people out there who’ve seen their retirement funds cut in half.

This is more patronizing rhetoric.  During the election, it was Sean Hannity who got Obama’s panties in a wad.  Then he told us not to listen to the cable chatter, and now it’s Rush Limbaugh.  In fact, don’t listen to anyone who’s critical of Obama, his administration, or his economic looter bills.  Anyone who disagrees with him is just a cruel, bipartisan jerk.  God forbid we let things like the facts get in the way of our president’s socialist agenda.

I have a suggestion: Why doesn’t Obama just go ahead and put the Fairness Doctrine on the table?  All of his pissing and moaning these days conveys the same message, anyway: I can’t compete with my critics on the substance of the argument, so we’re just going to see to it that they’re demonized and no one listens to them.

Obama will triple the deficit, raise taxes in a recession, push healthcare and more entitlements we can’t afford, and stymie the free market.  But here’s the greatest idiocy in Washington’s intervention, the greatest hypocrisy, the greatest denial of reality.  Obama said the shrinking stock market is good, because it’s going back to natural levels as demand outstrips supply, and people will be able to afford stocks again.

Wow!  Who could have guessed that the President of the United States knows a little something about capitalism!  But here’s the question, Mr. President: Why not apply that same logic to the credit and housing markets?  You admit it’s the right plan for the stock market, and yet you sink hundreds of billions of dollars we don’t have into failing banks and crappy mortgages.  Why?

How Sean Hannity Convinces Himself that God Exists

On Hannity & Colmes, I’ve heard Sean Hannity mention a particular argument more than once.  This is the belief that all of existence is “perfect” and was therefore designed for human beings by a benevolent, omnipotent deity.  It is usually accompanied with some mention of how the laws of physics are all fine-tuned to make life possible for humans.

The only point this argument makes is that humans exist in a place where it’s possible for humans to exist.  Are we supposed to be shocked by this fact?  I’m not sure if Mr. Hannity could discuss the difference between the strong and weak versions of the anthropic principle, but perhaps he can at least admit that the universe must be capable of supporting us whether there is a designer or not.

I wonder if Hannity ever contemplates how the “perfection” of our solar system accounts for the deterioration of the moon’s orbit, the slowing of the Earth’s rotation due to tidal friction, the fact that the sun will eventually broil our planet to a cinder, or the mathematical certainty of a life-threatening asteroid eventually striking the Earth.  Has he considered the blatant waste in nature?  Ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever existed on Earth are extinct, our DNA contains vast amounts of junk, species have vestigial limbs and organs, and so on.  Those like Hannity evoke the teleological argument as Paley’s analogy of the obvious design of a watch.  But what watchmaker creates a watch with parts that are nonfunctional, parts that have prominent imperfections, and parts that seem to have once been used in simpler watches but are no longer needed?  What is “fine-tuned” about the appendix and wisdom teeth?

We are surrounded by a hundred billion galaxies, each with a couple hundred billion stars.  Much of the universe is empty space, and much of what is not is still inimical to human life.  Further, for most of the universe’s fourteen-billion-year history, humans have not been around.  Mr. Hannity would better serve the truth by saying: “Here on this obscure arm of an ordinary spiral galaxy among billions, revolving around one of billions of planets, in a tiny zone between freezing space and melting core – human being have managed to be part of a fragile balancing act with other carbon-based life for the last 0.00001 percent of the universe’s existence.”

Perhaps if cyanobacteria could think, they would beleive that their deity created humans and other animals for the purpose of breathing in the deadly gas oxygen that they emit as a waste product. 

The universe seems perfectly designed for human beings only when one assumes beforehand that we are special, that a place and a purpose were reserved for us.  This is a comforting and even understandable thought, but that does not make it true.

Why Bill O’Reilly is Right About Radical Liberals

Foremost among the irrationality of the radical left is the conspiracy theory about 9/11.  This is an utterly unsurprising movement if you consider that millions of Americans also subscribe to notions such as alien abductions, power crystals, astrology, and the prattling of hucksters like Sylvia Browne and John Edward.  We had the grassy knoll, Area 51, and Pearl Harbor – this is just the latest installment of America’s fascination with being gullible, and yet another example of how walking the road of nonsense is vastly easier than using your brain.

To answer this foolishness about 9/11, don’t believe any authority figure, don’t listen to Rosie O’Donnell or Willie Nelson, don’t accept it because you hate George Bush – just look at the evidence.  It’s non-negotiable and it isn’t colored by ideology or bias.  Evidence is only evidence.  Yes, you’re right, burning jet fuel isn’t hot enough to melt steel.  It is, however, hot enough to weaken it significantly.  Really, it looked to you like a controlled demolition brought the buildings down?  Then why did they start collapsing from the exact points where the planes hit them?  Yes, there really was wreckage at the Pentagon and yes, there really was a great deal of structural damage to Building Seven.  (For an impressive array of evidence debunking this garbage, I suggest the 2006 Vol. 12, No. 4 issue of Skeptic magazine.)

Was there incompetence leading up to 9/11?  Were there simple things that could have been done to prevent it?  Were warning signs ignored?  Most definitely.  But you can say the same for every tragedy that happens.  Hindsight is much better than twenty-twenty.

The Bush-hating rolls right from the 9/11 conspiracy nuts.  Fine, George Bush is a horrible president, he led us into a war for the wrong reason, he has discredited America on the world stage, he has spent money like crazy and raised the national debt, he condones water-boarding, the PATRIOT Act has taken away some of our liberty.  Those are all valid points.  Argue them and elect a Democrat if that’s what you want.

But please, for the sake of rationality, stop the nonsense.  None of that makes Bush evil or diabolical, or a power-mad dictator trying to turn this country into a totalitarian state.  He’ll be gone in a few months with no more money or power than he had when he was first inaugurated.  Barack Obama will be sitting in his place, and then what will you have to whine about?  Other than a quasi-socialist nanny state, that is?

The liberal ideologues who are convinced of their holiness rank pretty high on the irrationality scale.  These are the people who can’t seem to cede a point or accept an explanations if it comes from the mouth of a conservative.  They can do nothing but discredit them, insult them, and leap on any opportunity to call them racist or bigoted in some other way.  Conservatives are Americans, and just because you disagree with their ideology doesn’t mean they’re automatically wrong in everything they say.  Again: Evidence are only evidence.  It doesn’t matter if it’s presented by a conservative or a liberal, a Republican or a Democrat, Bill O’Reilly or Bill Moyers.

Regardless, conservatives have every right to their opinions.  Ann Coulter may be cruel for saying that 9/11 widows are enjoying their husband’s deaths, but she doesn’t deserve to be shouted down or hit with pies.  You might no agree with Rush Limbaugh’s opinions, but you should be defending his right to express them.  Sean Hannity may be a hypocritical demagogue for claiming he’d turn down the Nobel Peace Prize because it had been given to a terrorist like Yassir Arafat and then twenty seconds later saying it should be given to the US troops, but that doesn’t make him a liar. 

Here’s a crazy idea:  If you disagree with these people, argue with them.  Meet them in debate.  If they’re half the liars and idiots you say they are, it should be simple to expose them, right?

Kirsten Powers a Conservative Shill?

Recently I posted a blog lauding Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers for being a voice of reason to oppose Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly (Why Fox News Needs a Hannity & Powers Show).  In response, I was told that Ms. Powers is a “conservative shill” who “kisses the asses of Michelle Malkin and her ilk on a daily basis.”  And since I spoke positively of Ms. Powers, I was labeled a conservative myself – one who wants Ms. Powers to take Alan Colmes’s place on Hannity & Colmes so the show will be “all conservative” and I’d never have to see my point of view challenged.

After I finished laughing, I realized that this is a perfect example of how hyper-partisanship can destroy rational discourse.  Regardless of the finer points of Ms. Powers’s views, she is manifestly a Democrat who spends a great deal of time arguing with conservatives like O’Reilly and Hannity – and she holds her own with reasonable points and worth acumen (something that cannot always be said of Alan Colmes).  Perhaps some liberals don’t agree with Ms. Powers, but to call her a conservative shill is simply absurd.

For the record, I’m a fiscal conservative and also a conservative on national defesne.  I don’t want nationalize health care.  I want free trade, a flat tax, and vouchers in public schools.

But behold:  I’m also pro-choice, pro-environment, and pro-gay marriage.  I don’t think people should be turned into criminals and tossed in jail for prostitution, personal drug-use, polygamy, or gambling.  Is that socially liberal enough?

And yet, I watch Fox News.  I never miss an episode of O’Reilly or Hannity & Colmes.  Hmm, this must be so that I’ll “never have to see my point of view challenged,” right?

I don’t know where Ms. Powers stands on some of the issues, but then, my previous post didn’t say anything about her views other than that she’s a Democrat.  In fact, the emphasis of that post was that her political views aren’t as important as her skill at presenting a rational argument.  Like other Fox News contributors such as Bernie Goldberg and Juan Williams, Kirsten Powers seems to defend reason first and political views second.  That’s a trait worthy of praise.

I don’t have any problem with opposing views.  I generally enjoy arguing with them.  I refuse to be pigeonholed by a political label or which cable news channel I watch.  I definitely don’t suffer from the extremist fallacy that everyone who disagrees with me is either a shill or an immoral human being.  Self-righteous partisan certitude hurts America.  Let’s all stop sacrificing rationality on the alter of ideology.

Why Fox News Needs a Hannity & Powers Show

So the Fox News Channel leans to the right.  So what?  That doesn’t make it unfair, and every other news channel leans to (or topples over to) the left.  I don’t understand why people constantly equate Fox News with conservative bias and unequal coverage.  Why do they care anyway?  Do they not have brains to decide for themselves what may have a right of left slant?  Are they not capable of listening to opposing views?  Can they not distinguish between fact and opinion?

Besides, the left-wing whiners can rest easy:  Just wait for Kirsten Powers, a Fox News contributor, to show up.  I don’t mean because she’s a Democrat; I mean because she’s a rational human being who states her arguments calmly, with aplomb rather than emotional knee-jerking.  Whether she’s on Hannity & Colmes or The O’Reilly Factor, she always stands her ground against the conservative hosts – an often makes them appear silly simply by presenting her argument.  Even when I disagree with Ms. Powers, I find her staid handling of Bill O’Reilly’s fervent stances or Sean Hannity’s blanket criticisms to be refreshing.

I remember when Mr. Hannity once attempted a sort of “gotcha” moment on Ms. Powers by pointing out that she was being unfair and biased by saying that she would never vote for any of the REpublican presidential nominees.  Her jocular reply: “I’m a Democrat.  Is that suspicious behavior?”

Ms. Powers accomplishes what the Fox News-haters don’t have the professionalism or guts to do:  Rather than whining about those who disagree with her, she argues head-on with opposing positions.  That’s America.  It’s kind of the whole point of that little free speech thing.  I don’t really care whether Ms. Powers is a liberal, a moderate, or whatever; the pertinent issue is that she seems to rely on reason rather than pure ideology.  That’s what we should see more of on all news channels, irregardless of political predisposition.

Someone at Fox News needs to offer Ms. Powers a permanent position, perhaps as the foil to Sean Hannity.  With all due respect to Alan Colmes, I’d have to say that on the occasions when Ms. Powers sits in for him, the program is more interesting – and generally the Democratic viewpoint is presented more effectively.