The Low

I find my blood pressure spikes every time I read stories of people like Shawn Glans, the bully thug in a police uniform who assaulted & battered a citizen unaware he was being recorded.

Official United States Bully, Shawn Glans

You can imagine how I felt reading yet another similar story, this time from Alabama. A Police Department Training officer named Eric Parker and his trainee came across a supposedly suspicious person whose crime started and ended there. I have yet to see where it is a crime to be a suspicious person in any ordinance or edict in any city or state.

"Found guilty of being a suspicious person, Abraham Lincoln of Springfield Illinois was today sentenced to two months' jail time. He was rigorously reprimanded & the accused promised never to be suspicious in the future."

Eric Parker will end up costing the citizens of his city millions of dollars, but worse, he will solidify the visceral hatred of the police that ordinary citizens continue to harbor. The chief of police stated that Parker did not exhibit the "high standards" of that city's police department. Sure, chief, that's why he's a training officer.

How dare you be a suspicious person!

If you don't know, (now ex-) Officer Eric Parker accosted an Indian grandfather who had been reported as suspicious. The law requires that a crime be currently & actively investigated before an officer may detain a citizen and in this case, that crime was being suspicious, you see. Alas, the frail Indian gentleman did not understand he was committing this crime, and after he added on the veritably hateful inability to speak English, paid for it by having his neck broken in a takedown befitting the felony crime of being suspicious.

As bad as that is, there's something far, far worse at play here, and is the reason these two jerks acted the way they did. I've already touched on this topic in my other post, In Mala Fide. It is characterized by the following statement: someone somewhere once did X therefore everyone is guilty of X until they prove otherwise.

These officers are trained to ensure that every interaction with the citizenry holds within the potential for violence. Because of this, it conditions these simpletons--and I use this term advisedly, because for too many police officers it is unfortunately true--to act as if the citizen is already guilty of the crime of executing a police officer and it is their job today, right now, to stop their own murder from commencing.

They deal with citizens in bad faith, assigning the worst intentions to every person until that guilt person has proven otherwise. This is the same thing the TSA does: everyone is guilty of trying to blow up airliners until they've proved they won't. Someone once tried to blow up an airliner by smuggling a bomb in their shoe therefore everyone thenceforth is guilty of trying to blow up an airliner with a shoe bomb and must prove they won't by taking off their shoes for inspection.

Once you think of it like that, everything snaps into focus. The Newtown board set up to Do Something about the shooting there just came out with even more restrictions to be placed on the sale & transfer of not only firearms but cartridges as well. None of this would have prevented Newtown from happening, as even a laudatory ("courageous!") newspaper editorial points out. Nevertheless, proceed full speed ahead, guilty citizens one and all.

Seen through the filter of bad faith, it makes sense why these simpletons would call for further restrictions on erstwhile law-abiding citizens. Let's see how it fits into our bad faith template: Adam Lanza committed a crime with guns therefore every citizen in his state is now guilty of committing a crime with guns and must prove they (i) have not (ii) are not now (iii) will never commit a crime with guns. The burden of proof lies with them.

Aside from the fact that it is in a 180-degree direction from how our system was designed to operate--the presumption of innocence, in case you missed it--it is actually a completely worthless approach to law enforcement & safety. This is likely the reason why our Founders designed the system in that way! Who would've thought. While it is straightforward to prove I have not committed a particular crime, it is quite difficult to prove that I am not currently committing said crime and further, just about impossible to prove I will never commit that crime.

We treat each other with the basest of assumptions, assigning the worst possible to our intent, locking us away in virtual jail cells until we have each proven to one another that we are not guilty. If you want to exercise your Second Amendment rights, you are guilty of trying to murder someone. So you must prove you haven't and aren't currently by undergoing a background check. If not that bad, then you are certainly guilty of negligence. You will leave your weapon unattended and someone will get hurt. You will kill your wife and children with that weapon. You will shoot up the local elementary school.

Some other examples, in passing: men who sit with their legs open in subway cars are guilty of patriarchal oppression and must be shamed & punished. A mother brings in a child to the ER who hurt itself falling off a high chair; she's guilty of Munchausen-by-Proxy until she proves she isn't. That guy who made a joke about Asians is guilty of racism and must be prove to our collective sense of justice that he is not a racist; until then he is to be punished. Eric Eich once gave money to a cause therefore he is guilty of hating homosexuals and must prove his innocence; until then he is punished.

Someone suspicious once walked the streets casing houses for later burglary. Therefore the frail Indian gentleman is guilty of both being suspicious and casing houses therefore he must prove to Officer Parker's finely honed sense of justice that he is not guilty of that crime, but in the meantime, will be handled like a guilty criminal until such time as he has proven he's no threat.

Do you see how nefarious this is? Low-trust societies do not survive long yet this is exactly what we're positively encouraging each other to do. It is brutal if you're the person caught in the headlights of the oncoming Guilty Train for the simple reason that it is very difficult if not sometimes impossible to prove a negative, to prove something isn't there. Asking me to prove there are no black swans requires an extraordinary amount of work on my part because I must search every corner of the earth for a negative, as you sit there actively punishing me.

Guilty of rara avis!

Bad faith.

In Mala Fide

There are a great many people out there, including police officers unfortunately, who feel (not think) that the mere presence of a gun implies evil. In the case of the police--like this unfortunate meathead Idaho sheriff, who actually shot himself--the presence of a gun screams criminal!

What tosh.

The Idaho Supreme Court, in a case from 1909, includes this diamond of a quote among a long and rather dry analysis of an appeal before it:

A man may need a gun for a great many things other than that of shooting his neighbor. In fact, it should be presumed in the first instance that a man is going to use his gun for a lawful purpose and that he is not out gunning for his neighbor. [Emphasis mine.]

 Well there you go. Our system works on a presumption of innocence; even in the case of a clear-cut case against a violator with many witnesses, the burden of proving guilt lies with the prosecutor only.

It is the same way outside the courtroom as well. More people are pummelled to death by hands and feet than get shot by so-called assault rifles (AKA a black rifle) yet this doesn't make anyone afraid for their safety simply walking by a man equipped with those tools of destruction. One commences in life by placing good faith in their fellow citizen that they will not suffer battery at the hands (and feet) of passersby. In other words, unless and until you have good reason to believe you will be battered, proceed as usual.

Another quick example: chances are, you get into your car everyday and drive wherever you need to go. You do this without living in crippling fear that an oncoming vehicle's driver will swerve into your lane and take you out in a head on collision. Since you have no good reason to believe that the 2000 pound weapon under the control of your fellow citizen will be used with malice against you, you proceed as usual. (Need I point out that more people die in vehicle accidents a year than get shot?)

We presume that everyone around us will act in a lawful and peaceable manner.

Except, of course, if that person were carrying a firearm. In which case, small-minded, scaredy cat, safety-first-last-always folks will assign the worst motives.

Common sense ain't.

The Illegality of Christianity

I read without real surprise about the Oregon bakery that's gone out of business because the Christian owners refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

In addition, they're being investigated by the State of Oregon for discriminatory practices.

Here's why I'm not surprised: in many states, it is already illegal to practice Christianity and I'll formulate an argument for why.

Christianity is a discriminatory religion.

It makes certain claims about humanity, and these claims are intensely discriminatory. It calls people names. It categorizes people.

Of course, it also freely ‘offers’ a way out of that categorization, but that's neither here nor there in the context of this post.

In the modern state, it has become illegal to discriminate.

Therefore to practice Christianity is illegal.

There are quite a number of people who can't wait to see this come to actual, practical fruition, when practicing Christians will be imprisoned for holding fast to a faith that discriminates.

These will be interesting times.

On Being Uncomfortable

Benjamin Franklin, on being asked to publish something with which he didn't agree:

I have perused your piece, and find it to be scurrilous and defamatory. To determine whether I should publish it or not, I went home in the evening, purchased a two penny loaf at the baker’s, and with water from the pump made my supper; I then wrapped myself up in my great coat, and laid down on the floor and slept till morning, when, on another loaf and a mug of water, I made my breakfast. From this regimen I feel no inconvenience whatever. Finding I can live in this manner, I have formed a determination never to prostitute my press to the purposes of corruption, and abuse of this kind, for the sake of gaining a more comfortable subsistence.

Would that I had even half the determination and wisdom. Alas …

Behold A Pale Horse

I do not watch the news (and no, not even Fox News). I stay away from these 24-hour factories of perfectly useless information because they have a way of sensationalizing their product such that one ends up believing the hype. What I’ve noticed by doing so is that 95% of what they deem newsworthy is definitely not. 4% of it is barely newsworthy and certainly will have no bearing on my everyday life. Which leaves the 1%.

Ah yes, the 1%, made famous by a group of unwashed, entitled jerks in makeshift camps (I had typed makeshit, which is actually precisely what these camps were). The 1% of news that actually is pertinent to my life. Yet even then they manage to make a mess of it, marketing it with such ferocity and frequency, it sears trails in the brain resulting in information overload and fatigue.

Friday, 14 December, 2012. Newtown, Connecticut. A ‘crazed’ gunman—and boy, don’t we hope he was crazy!—forced his way into the so-called Gun-Free zone of an elementary school and slaughtered the most innocent of victims possible. No one could protect those children from the onslaught of this asshole, not the teachers responsible for the kids’ safety and certainly not a piece of paper (the law).

As I was at the gym tonight, I found myself in the unfortunate circumstance of forced watching—volumeless—the usual suspects: CNN, NBC, MSNBC, and FOX. These networks and their smarmy hosts had descended on the small town in CT, snagging at anyone who wanted a few minutes of fame: tell us what you know, even if you don’t know anything. And everyone, believing of course that being on television is THE BEST THING EVER! obliges, including relatives of the murdered children!

Every so often, they would feature the pictures of the murdered children with their ages (6! 7!) highlighting the sorrow of a life snuffed out way, way too young. Interspersed with these grim, lump-inducing pictures, these media vultures leveled the info that this or that senator had rescinded his previous stance on Guns (“No one needs an Assault Weapon to go hunting!”) in seeming courageous defiance of the NRA! Some courage, some defiance. We have come a long way since ‘give me freedom or give me death.’

All at once I was overcome with an intense feeling of loathing for these media scum. Oh! You could just sense the gloating, the almost orgasmic delight—with the appropriate somber mask in place of course—that children had died so that their political agenda would finally (finally!) be pushed through: Assault Weapons Ban, Y’ALL!

I was so overcome with this feeling of scorn, that I fired off several tweets of invective. Yes, in America, that is what now passes as a display of indignation, 140 characters of hard-hitting snark. Useless, and like most of the citizenry, completely ineffective. As is this blog post. No one will listen, and even if they do and especially even if they agree, a barely noticeable nod will appear and vanish like the morning dew. Life goes on, Monday Night Football reappears to take up a place of honor in our mental lives.

I realized that in two months, the names and faces of these precious children will fade from national memory. Their parts have been played, and Obama—I will not call that phony, reprobate cast about President, as an ineffective measure of the derision I hold for that shitbird—and his liberal ilk will have rammed down our collective throats another completely ineffective piece of legislation (“We did something!”) aimed at … what, exactly? The last time this was tried in 1994, absolutely nothing came of it. Let me repeat that for the hard-of-understanding: nothing came of it. Zilch, nada, zip, zero, NOTHING.

Laws do not deter criminal behavior. This is something we all know and if you were the victim, what you have experienced. Like so-called Airport Security, it’s Kabuki theater, meaningless, a storm in a tea cup. If these sorts of bans worked, the United Kingdom would be the safest place, but don’t look up the actual statistics unless you want to be shocked—if that is still possible. Because since their ban, “gun crime” has bloomed quite nicely, thank you very much.

I could go on talking about the statistics and the empirical results of these sorts of legislation and their utter uselessness, but that is not what matters any longer. No, in America, we have become a nation of thirteen-year-old girls. Emotion reigns supreme, it overshadows all thought, all action. It overshadows entertainment, political discourse and every facet of life. We have become a nation of entitled thirteen-year-olds thinking feeling for today only.

Thirteen-year-old girls form cliques, a herd of conformist titterers. Go against the wishes of the herd and suffer the consequences of ostracism and exile, as screed after teenage-angst-filled screed is directed at the unfortunate trespasser in the form of endless snark, petitions signed to rid the trespasser of their jobs, aided and abetted by the Mainstream Media. Since their ‘parents’ are also thirteen, lack education and understanding and therefore wisdom, no guidance or discipline is forthcoming from that quarter. When the feelings get overwhelming, clique members seek comfort in distraction. Like 13-year-old girls, we don’t produce, we consume and voraciously so.

Even so-called Conservatives are 13-year-olds; slightly plainer and certainly pudgier 13-year-olds, sure, and as such not members of the ‘elite’ (elitist?) Cheerleading squad fawned over in the Leftist corner of the cafeteria. While not members of that particular group, this doesn’t prevent the Conservative brand of 13-year-old girls from forming their own less shiny facsimile of that group all the while daydreaming of being just as popular, pimples and crooked teeth notwithstanding (wouldn’t it be so cool if the media was on our side?!)

Conservatives may not be as flighty, but they are still 13. Which means emotion over substance, knee-jerk, thoughtless reactions (honestly, the woman’s body rejects the rapist’s baby?!). No sir, Conservatives are just as bad. I have read it somewhere that Social Conservatives are Third Wave Feminists who don’t believe in abortion and thinking about it, there is truth to this put-down. If you’re a Conservative and that statement stings, it does so for a very good reason.

So who’s in charge of this once-might nation? The depressing answer is no one. The ship of state is adrift in a sea of irrelevancy: the things that should matter don’t, even if we could determine what was relevant.What a mess!

An enchanting magic trick, once learned, will become prosaic and disappointing. Before I arrived its shores, America used to be my magic trick, but now I can see where the magician hid the string of dirty handkerchiefs and I am no longer enchanted.

Heliocentricism

A story:

Wittgenstein once asked a friend, “Tell me, why do people always say it was natural for man to assume that the Sun went round the Earth rather than that the Earth was rotating?” His friend replied, “Well, obviously, because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth.” To which Wittgenstein responded, “Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?”

Nod, nod.

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius, from Meditations Book II

5.  Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice; and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts. And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee. Thou seest how few the things are, the which if a man lays hold of, he is able to live a life which flows in quiet, and is like the existence of the gods; for the gods on their part will require nothing more from him who observes these things.

Reason And Force

A letter from a retired Marine:

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or forcing me to do your bidding. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunken guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society because a firearm makes it easier for an armed mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are unarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat -- it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a monopoly on force.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... And that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
By Maj. L. Caudill, USMC (Ret.)

Hear, hear!

Hampikian’s Mangina

Greg Hampikian (greghampikian@boisestate.edu) is a professor of Biology and Criminal Justice and the director of the Idaho Innocence project. He wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times essentially questioning the necessity of men, if not for basic child rearing then definitely not for reproduction.

You see, according to the many-hatted dick professor at a third-rate university Boise State:

As the Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan has shown, poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents.

Barring the obvious fallacy of an appeal to authority (just who the fuck is Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan?) this specimen of beta male-ness—I mean, look at this clown-nosed, chinless mangina and tell me different:

uses SCIENCE to push the sex-positive feminist idea that his own children—whom he took care of as a, surprise!, house husband for a year—didn’t need him in any capacity, fundamentally.

Not content with one fallacy, he blunders into another. This time, he asks you to “think about your own history”:

Your life as an egg actually started in your mother’s developing ovary, before she was born; you were wrapped in your mother’s fetal body as it developed within your grandmother.

Yes dear reader, you have always been you from the time immemorial and the only thing you needed for some weird kind of meta-actual-existence was when,

… at some point, your father spent a few minutes close by, but then left. A little while later, you encountered some very odd tiny cells that he had shed.

First, this is a classic case or projection. Just because his love-making lasts “only a few minutes” much to his wife’s consternation, doesn’t mean that every man is so. Dick(-less). Second, and much more important, is this pernicious idea that an egg is a human being.

For a professor of biology (and criminal justice!), this is a strange thing to conclude unless I’m completely off my intellectual rocker. OK, maybe I am and I don’t know squat about biology, but(!) this is a dangerous Philosophical stance to take. If it is as the dick(-less) professor says, then abortion of an egg at any stage is murder of a human being!

There’s some other bullshit floating in that cesspit of an article, but here again we have an all too common case where a self-castrated scientist decides to overreach on his scientific background and starts drawing social engineering conclusions based on that background (yet another fallacy).

Listen pal, some bits of advice: stop smoking the blue grass and concentrate on satisfying your wife sexually. Although I’m sure that’ll be difficult since you’re dickless.

Evolutionary Truth

An interesting book recently published, contains:

Notice something else. The atheist naturally thinks that our belief in God is false. That’s just what atheists do. Nevertheless, most human beings have believed in a god of some sort, or at least in a supernatural realm. But suppose, for argument’s sake, that this widespread belief really is false, and that it merely provides survival benefits for humans, a coping mechanism of sorts. If so, then we would have additional evidence—on the atheist’s own terms—that evolution is more interested in useful beliefs than in true ones. Or, alternatively, if evolution really is concerned with true beliefs, then maybe the widespread belief in God would be a kind of “evolutionary” evidence for his existence.

You’ve got to wonder.

Indeed.

Commerce Clause Ascendancy

Excellent riposte:

If birth means entering the market, Congress is omnipotent, authorized by the commerce clause to regulate “every human activity from cradle to grave.” —Michael Carvin

From an excellent—as usual—Krauthammer article.

The New Reality

There is something admirable, but also delusional about the American character which seeks to hack new realities out of life. When it works, many mistake it for creation, rather than merely discovering a heretofore unknown aspect of it.

The truly intelligent understand they’re merely uncovering reality rather than manufacturing it whole cloth. Like Michelangelo's aphorism about sculpting marble, the discerning understand this. The others rail against such an idea of life because they’ve been conditioned to conclude that America’s abundance of opportunity translates to an almost superhuman ability to manhandle reality’s molecules to synthesize a new reality. This is not only possible, it is simple, given the proper mindset, money, and a massive government program.

In this, they’re not unlike those blind men and their proverbial elephant. Whatever one may think that reality elephant is (a rope!), it is an elephant nevertheless, or perhaps regardless.

The wrong-headed approach to reality bending gives rise to such ludicrous conclusions as the idea that gender is a figment of society’s imagination only, amenable to infinite combinatorics.

It hasn’t, can’t, and won’t work. Life will out.

Manimal

Once upon a time there were two animals …

1. The Great White Shark, Carcharodon carcharias, is an animal.
2. The Human Being, Homo sapiens, is an animal.
3. The males of the species Carcharodon carcharias copulate with the female of the species.
4. The males of the species Homo sapiens copulate with the female of the species.
5. A male Carcharodon carcharias forcibly copulates with a female of the species.
6. A male Homo sapiens forcibly copulates with a female of the species.
7. The male Carcharodon carcharias forcibly copulates with the female.
8. The male Homo sapiens rapes the female.
9. The male Carcharodon carcharias is an animal.
10. The male Homo sapiens is an animal.
11. What is or are the philosophical difference(s), if any, between 7 and 8?
12. If there is or are any philosophical difference(s), what is the grounding for it or them?
13. If there isn’t or aren’t any philosophical difference(s) between 7 and 8, why not?

Quote Of The Day

“… for never can a fair or just policy be expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the decision the interests and apprehensions of a father.” —Pericles

Patriarchy for the win?

Veritas Odium Parit

Terence, in his Andria, wrote that truth can breed hatred.

From Crimes Against Logic:

The slogan, “You are entitled to your own opinion” is so often repeated that it is near impossible for the brain of a modern Westerner not to have absorbed it.

Like many other views that have at times enjoyed universal assent, however, it isn’t true. You don’t really have a right to your own opinions. And the idea that you do, besides being false, is forever invoked when it would be irrelevant even if it were true.

The Irrelevant Right

Before showing that this cliché is false, let’s first be clear that its common use in discussion or debate really does amount to a fallacy. It is often used preemptively, when an assertion is prefaced with the acknowledge that “Of course, you are entitled to you opinion, but …” Yet its more basic use, which the above acknowledgement is intended to preempt, is false.

Jack has offered some opinion—that President Bush invaded Iraq to steal its oil, let’s say—with which his friend Jill disagrees. Jill offers some reasons why Jack’s opinion is wrong and after a few unsuccessful attempts at answer them, Jack petulantly retorts that he is entitled to his opinion.

The fallacy lies in Jack’s assumption that this retort is somehow a satisfactory reply to Jill’s objections, while, in fact, it is completely irrelevant. Jack and Jill disagreed about Bush’s motivation for infacing Iraq, and Jill gave reasons to believe that Jack was mistaken. She did not claim that he had no right to this mistaken view. By pointing out that he is entitled to his view, Jack has simply changed the subject from the original topic, the reason Iraq was invaded, to a discussion of his right. For all it contributes to the invasion question, he may as well have pointed out that whales are warm-blooded or that in Spain it rains mainly on the plains.

As with most of our fallacies, once seen, it is obvious. Here is a simple way of putting it. If the opinions to which we are entitled might nevertheless be false, the entitlement cannot properly be invoked to settle a dispute. It adds no new information on the original matter; it does nothing to show that the opinion in question is true.

Interpreting the cliché to exclude the possibility of falsity—that is, to mean that we are entitled to have all our opinions be true—has two problems. First, it is ridiculous. Second, it does not in fact make the entitlement to an opinion relevant in deciding who is correct in any dispute. If Jack has a right to his true opinion then presumably Jill has a right to hers too. But then, since Jack and Jill disagree, one of them must be suffering a rights violation; one of them has a false belief. So, even if we had the right to true beliefs, that would only show that it is a right that is violated all the time, on precisely those occasions when our opinions are in fact false. In any dispute, to know whose right to a true belief is being violated we would first need to settle the original dispute—in the case of Jack and Jill, about President Bush’s reason for invading Iraq. And a diversion on the matter of rights gets no one any closer to answering that question.

So, even on the strongest, and utterly incredible, interpretation of our opinion entitlement, it is irrelevant to anything else we might be debating. Why then is insisting on one’s right to an opinion such a popular argumentative ploy?

In part, it is encouraged by an ambiguity in the word entitlement. It has a political or legal interpretation, by which we are all entitled to any opinion we might have, however groundless. But it also has an epistemic interpretation, that is, one related to, or concerned with, truth or knowledge. You are entitled to an opinion, in this epistemic sense, only when you have good reasons for holding it: evidence, sound arguments, and so on. Far from being universal, this epistemic entitlement is the kind you earn [emphasis mine]. It is like being entitle to boast, which depends on having done something worth boasting about.

So, the two senses of entitlement could not be further from each other. Yet it is too tempting to muddle them. The implied argument of the muddler runs as follows:

1. If someone is entitled to an opinion then her opinion is well-supported by evidence. (This is precisely what it means to be entitled to an opinion.)
2. I am entitled to my opinion (as is everyone in a democratic society).
3. Therefore, my opinion is well-supported by evidence.

This is a beautiful example of the fallacy of equivocation, i.e., slipping between different meanings of a word in an argument that would be valid only if the word were used with the same meaning throughout.

Once pointed out, it’s easy to see that this confusion of the political with the epistemic notion of entitlement is a mistake. And though, strictly, that will do for the purposes of this book, I don’t want to leave the matter here. Even if the cliché that we are entitled to our opinions is not employed in the truly egregious way so far discussed, it is part of a mindset that increasingly impedes the free flow of ideas and their robust assessment. Many people seem to feel that their opinions are somehow sacred, so that everyone else is obliged to handle them with great care. When confronted with counterarguments, they do not pause and wonder if they might be wrong after all. They take offense.

The culture of caution this attitude generates is a serious obstacle to those who wish to get at the truth. So it is important to strip away any bogus ideas that support the attitude, such as the idea that we all have a right to our own opinions.

Rights and Duties

To see that there is really nothing at all to this idea that we have a right to our opinions we need only understand one basic point about rights, namely, that rights entail duties [emphasis mine]. I don’t mean to endorse the fashionable slogan, “No rights without responsibilities,” which is supposed to justify policies whereby the government imposes good behavior conditions on the receipt of social welfare. I mean something more fundamental about rights: they are defined by the duties to which they give rise.

The law gives all citizens a right to life. Your right to life means that everyone has a duty not to kill you. This is not something that a government may or may not decide to associate with your right to life; it is that right. A law that did not impose on others a duty not to kill you would fail to establish your right to life. Does your right to life mean that others have a duty to feed  you, to house you, or to provide you with medical care? These are hotly debated questions, but no one doubts that the answer to these questions about others’ duties are what define and delimit the right to life.

So when anyone claims a right, first ask which duties does this right impose on others; that will tell you what the right is supposed to be. And it also provides a good test for whether there is, or should be, any such right. It will often be clear that no one really has the implied duties, or that it would be preposterous to claim they should.

Mary Robinson, in her former role as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, claimed that we have a human right to be healthy. Yet, without qualification it is difficult to know what she could possibly have meant. According to the World Health Organization:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Yet everyone ages and dies. And when they do, their physical, mental, and social well-being are less than complete. So the simple fact of human mortality means that everyone’s right to be healthy is ultimately violated, and someone has failed to do his duty. But what could that duty be? To find a remedy for human mortality, presumably. But who could possibly bear this burden? Surely not each of us, who mostly know so little about the mechanics of human aging.

There is, of course, no unqualified human right to good health, any more than there is a human right to all those other things that it would be nice to have—such as long eyelashes and silk sheets—but which no one has a duty to provide. If she wanted to make sense of her claim, Mary Robinson should have started with the duties rather than the right. What duties does each of us have with respect to others’ health or governments with respect to the health of its citizens? Then we would know what this right to good health is supposed to amount to.

Opinion Duties

What then are the duties that the right to your opinions might entail? What am I obliged to do to respect this right? Let’s start from the boldest possible demands and word down to the more humble.

Does your right to your opinion oblige me to agree with you?

No. If only because that would be impossible to square with the universality of the right to an opinion. I, too, am entitled to my own opinion which might contradict yours. Then we can’t both do our duty toward each other. And think of the practical implications. Everyone would have to change his mind every time he met someone with a different opinion, changing his religion, his politics, his car, his eating habits. Foreign vacations would become as life-changing as the brochures. claim.

Does your right to your opinion oblige me to listen to you?

No. I haven’t the time. Many people have many opinions on many matters. You cannot walk through the West End of London without hearing some enthusiast declaring his opinions on our savior Jesus or on the Zionist conspiracy or some other topic of pressing concern. Listening to them all is practically impossible and not therefore a duty.

Does your right to your opinion oblige me to let you keep it?

This is closest to what I think most mean when they claim a right to their opinion. They do so at just that point in an argument when they would otherwise be forced to admit error and change their position. And this is also the weakest possible interpretation of the right and thus the most likely to pass the test.

Yet, it is still too strong. We have no duty to let others keep their opinions. On the contrary, we often have a duty to try to change them. Take an obvious example. You are about to cross the street with a friend. A car is coming yet your friend still takes a stride into the road. Knowing that she is not suicidal, you infer she is of the opinion that no cars are coming. Are you obliged to let her keep this opinion?

I say no. You ought to take every reasonable measure to change her opinions, perhaps by drawing her attention to the oncoming car, saying something like, “Look out, a car is coming.” By so doing, you have not violated her rights. Indeed, she will probably thank you. On matters like whether or not a car is about to crush them, everybody is interested in believing the truth; they will take the correction of their errors as a favor. The same goes for any other topic. If someone is interested in believing the truth, then she will not take the presentation of contrary evidence and argument as some kind of injury.

It’s just that, on some topics, many people are not really interested in believing the truth. They might prefer it if their opinion turns out to be true—that would be the icing on the cake—but truth is too important. Most of my friends, though subscribing to no particular religion, claim to believe in a “superior intelligence” or “something higher than us.” Yet they will also cheerfully admit to the absence of even a shred of evidence. Never mind. There is no cost in error, because the claim is so vague that it has no implications for action (unlike the case of the oncoming car). They just like believing it, perhaps because it would be nice if it were true, or because it helps them get along with their religious parents, or for some other reason.

But truth really is not the point, and it is most annoying to be pressed on the matter. And to register this, to make it clear that truth is neither here no there, they declare, “I am entitled to my opinion.” Once you hear these words, you should realize that it is simple rudeness to persist with the matter. You may be interested in whether or not their opinion is true, but take the hint, they aren’t.

Point, Counterpoint

Richard Dawkins: "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." [1]

C.S. Lewis: "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning." [2]

Resources:

1. Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden, p. 55.
2. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

[Thanks, Truthbomb!]

The Banging Gong

It never fails that on the days I most need my brain cells, they take a rousing drinking vacation, damned things.

Here’s a quote from a post on a blog which shall remain nameless for now, dealing with the Big Bang and whether the ‘material universe’ either (1) may not have started at the Big Bang or (2) may not actually have a cause and therefore, needs no explanation.

That’s assuming, of course, that the Big Bang is indeed the beginning of the material universe, which might not be the case. Even if the Big Bang should turn out to have a material cause, though, the general principle will still hold true: time is a property of material reality, and the law of cause and effect is bound to time (since the cause must occur before the effect in order to be an actual cause), and therefore there will never be a time when material reality, in some form, does not exist. Ultimately, material reality must be an uncaused cause, which has no beginning, no cause, and no “explanation.”

If wading through my mental miasma will allow me, it seems there’s something intrinsically wrong with this quote, perhaps an equivocation—or maybe an obfuscation—of the meaning of time and of causality. It seems it’s asserting that the presence of time is a necessary and sufficient factor for causality so that if it doesn’t exist (as it doesn’t before the Big Bang) it is impossible to have causality.

What’s wrong with this, if anything?

For Athol

Note: This is a reply to a post elsewhere. Read on if you like, but it was meant for Athol Kay.

[I decided to put in a longer comment in response.]

FW: You're making a category mistake when you talk about Odin, Zeus, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the same vein “definitionally” as God. By definition, Odin, Zeus, and the FSM are man-made. God, by definition, isn’t.

Athol: It's a common religious viewpoint that everyone else's god is man-made except their own definition of god which is the true one.

[I’m not sure you understand what I mean by a category mistake. Say what you will about the various religions’ definition of God, god, G-d, Odin, Zeus, the FSM. In point of fact, you can show, on first principles, and without subjectivity, that Odin, Zeus, and the FSM are all man-made creations. We have good reasons to know that these do not exist. By definition (whether you agree with this definition or not, doesn't matter at the present. To show that the definition is wrong is an argument that can be made in the future, but not in the context of what I’m pointing out, ie. A category mistake. Also, important to note is the fact that I’m not talking about a Christian God, or any other particular religion’s God.
Regardless, it is a well-established principle of argumentation that one starts discussions of our sort with definitions then proceeds from there) God—according to the OED—is “The creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.”
When I speak of God, I am referring to this definition. Because of this, you are making a category mistake by lumping such, definitionally, with Odin, Zeus, the FSM. It’s like saying “most bananas are atheists.”]

FW: In essence then, you’re positing a claim, hidden though it may be: the universe was here because humanity needed a “place in the sun,” so to speak, in order to experience it . What proof do you have for this claim?

Athol: You're positing that claim for me. We don't need to be here, we just are.

[Au contraire, I’m *interpreting* your claim. You’ve now changed it from a asserting a claim to a non-assertion which, begging your pardon, is a cop out. You see, you’re not simply stopping at asserting without evidence that there is no need for humanity to be here (and all the attendant corollaries), but you’re taking a massive leap in logic to concluding that therefore, there is no God. *It could very well be there we do not need to be here and that we just are. BUT this is NOT a sufficient AND necessary condition for God’s non-existence.* It could be that God exists AND we do not need to be here and that we just are. To say that there is no God, Athol, is a claim to knowledge. And again, every claim to knowledge requires supporting evidence. So, what are your reasons for this claim to knowledge?]

FW: The science is very clear on the issue: the Universe “started”. How is not quite clear or universally agreed upon, but that it did start existing at some point isn’t a bone of contention. Why did it start? Wel … If, according to the laws of Physics and Logic, anything that begins to exist has a cause. The Universe has a beginning. Care to posit what caused the Universe?

Athol: My point is that it doesn't matter what caused the universe. You're determined for there to be an answer to "why". There isn't one.

[I suppose you have proof that there isn’t an answer as you so confidently claim. Again, every claim to knowledge requires evidence. I’ll await yours.]

Athol: Also you seem to be trying to posit intention to the laws of physics. Things may have causes, but no intent to cause an effect. Water does not intend to become a river. Excess rain may cause the river to flood, but it does not intend it to flood.

[In order to make such a statement as “water does not intend to become a river,” you’re ascribing properties to water that it simply cannot have. Intent is a property of a moral, personal agent. Water is not a moral nor is it a personal agent and so you’re again making another category mistake.]

FW: You ask why not, supposing (I assume) that you already know the answer to your question—I assume because you wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise, no? Would you care to explain your answer? And of course, also be prepare to back it up with evidence?

Athol: I'm pointing out there is no answer to that question. You just have to accept reality as being what it is and figure out what you want to do in life.

[This sounds suspiciously like relativistic nihilism. Do you know for certain there is no answer to that question? The only way to provide such an answer is to have a full and complete knowledge of the Universe. For all you know, you and everything you “know” is an illusion, and you’re but a brain in a vat of salt water whose “knowledge” is being provided through electrodes placed to titillate your brain. Unless you know this is not true, you simply cannot say with any definitive certainty that life has no answers. I presume you’ve not read Kant.


Unless, of course, you have proof positive there’s no answer. In which case, I again await your evidence.


An addendum: what are the practical implications of your worldview? How indeed, to quote you, does one “accept reality” and therefrom, figures out what to do in life? Who’s to say what you’ve figured out is your reality is real and true and you’re not hallucinating? If you were in front of Hitler and he asked you why he shouldn’t destroy all those millions of Jews because, in his reality, they were Untermensch and deserved to be slaughtered in the gas chambers? On what basis would you tell him his reality was *WRONG* or *NOT REAL* when it is very real TO HIM?]

FW: As for me, the ontological answer to "why" is clear from the evidence and again, I can explain the evidence further, if you care to take this discussion any further.

Athol: You're like a baby looking at a mirror. I'm telling you all you see is light reflecting off the mirror. You keep telling me you see another baby in there.

[Cute.]

The Spider’s Web

A question on the LSAT, first:

Poor nutrition is at the root of the violent behavior of many young offenders. Researchers observed that in a certain institution for young offenders, the violent inmates among them consistently chose, from the food available, those items that were low in nutrients. In a subsequent experiment, some of the violent inmates were placed on diet high in nutrients. There was a steady improvement in their behavior over the four months of the experiment. These results confirm the link between poor nutrition and violent behavior.

Then:

Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?

1. Some of the violent inmates who took part in the experiment had committed a large number of violent crimes.
2. Dietary changes are easier and cheaper to implement than any other type of reform program in institutions for young offenders.
3. Many young offenders have reported that they had consumed a low-nutrient food sometime in the days before they committed a violent crime.
4. A further study investigated young offenders who chose a high-nutrient diet on their own and found that many of them were nonviolent.
5. The violent inmates in the institution who were not placed on a high-nutrient diet did not show an improvement in behavior.

Well, what do you think is the correct answer and, if you like, why? Bonus question: how many of the Wall Street Occupiers do you think would be able to answer this question and get the wrong answer?

Relativism—Feet Firmly Planted In Mid-Air

This … cancer, eating away at the soul of humanity cloaks itself in wondrous finery, doesn’t it. How could being a relativist cause harm? Surely, what’s wrong with according “honor” to everyone’s viewpoint. To anyone’s viewpoint. It’s inclusive. It is welcoming. It is accepting. It is progressive. It is egalitarian. It is … human.

The problem:

And by insisting that “everything is relative”, everyone’s viewpoint becomes equally correct, equally valuable, equally “worthy of being honored”—no matter how absurd or contradictory or just plain stupid or wrong it might be.

This is why I continue to insist—despite the overtones of elitism it may seem to engender—that no one is simply, by the default of being born, “entitled to their opinion.” Opinions, just like the people who own them, are to be judged worth or unworthy.

Judgment per se presupposes a standard. This standard—whatever it is—in order to be a standard is required to be unchanging, proven true and factual by testing. This, for example, is how Science works. This is why you have little qualm with flying in an aluminum tube 35,000 feet in the air when you can’t intelligently discuss why it doesn’t fall out of the air: millions of people “prove” the safety of air travel by rigorous and constant testing.

Entitlement, generally, is mostly bullshit. One is not even entitled to their own life. One can’t, for example, make a case against the ocean as it pours into a drowning man’s lungs that it shouldn’t do so because the drowning man is entitled to their life. The ocean cares not a whit and another hapless person gets admitted to Davy Jones’s locker.

Everything is not relative. Relativism leads to doing things that are popular, not that are right and true and correct. Ironically, no one, not even its most ardent supporters can sustain relativism for long. We certainly don’t act as if relativism is true. You act as if your opinion that you should receive $11.34 in change from the cashier is correct, regardless of what the cashier’s opinion of the issue happens to be. You’re appealing to an external, unchanging standard (in this case, the “laws” of Mathematics) that the cashier’s opinion on the matter is incorrect. In this case, the cashier is certainly not entitled to their opinion.

So let’s stop feeding this creeping monster. Exercise your moral and mental courage: call things as they are, even those that will hurt you. Bring up the elephant in the room. Bring it up and kill it. Regain your human dignity. Because wherever it does lie, dignity does not lie with floppy relativists, however popular they are.