07 December 2015
The dumbest analogy I've ever heard?
Everyone has to have an opinion, it seems, because Donald Trump proposed stopping all Muslims from entering the U.S. "until we figure this out." Apparently Dick Cheney now belongs to the ranks of the "politically correct" because he reportedly criticized Trump's proposal for going against American values, and at least some of the front-runner's Republican rivals have said similar things. Trump is enough of a thing now that CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 show has a designated Trump spokesman, Jeffrey Lord, available to talk whenever the man makes news. Inevitably he was on tonight, sparring with Van Jones, who took the liberal line that Trump's proposal, if implemented, would only further enrage Muslims, since it would prove, or so Jones claimed, that the U.S. was as hostile to Islam as groups like al-Qaeda and the self-styled Islamic State claimed. To this Jeffrey Lord responded with the dumbest analogy I've heard in at least a very long time. What he said to Jones was, in effect: by that standard you should have opposed the Civil Rights movement (Jones is a black man) because it only angered white supremacists. I'm sure a lot of liberal bloggers will have the exact quote up shortly, but I feel confident that I didn't misrepresent Lord. I think we can all see what he means, which is that the possibility that bad people will get angry shouldn't stop us from doing the right thing. But to make that point, Jeffrey Lord equated banning Muslims from entering the United States with the Civil Rights Movement. Think what you like of Trump's proposal, but you have to agree that these are two profoundly different concepts, while Lord's focus on one of Jones's arguments misses that Jones had other arguments to make against the Trump idea -- it may be one of the few things on which he and Cheney are in agreement -- that are not refuted by Lord's silly syllogism. We're definitely in a silly season now. If Lord hadn't claimed this stupidity prize preemptively, it probably would have gone to a retired general of an opposite point of view, who in a later segment of the same 360 show said that Trump's proposal, if implemented, would be "Abu Ghraib on steroids." That is, this guy compared the mere denial of entry into the U.S. with the physical torture of Muslims. Not many people are thinking straight right now, which means, I suppose, that the terrorists are winning something. To be fair, let me offer a possibly dubious analogy of my own. It may be sometimes that public safety, if not your own survival, depends on taking decisive actions on limited information that you may regret later for harm done to the innocent or undeserving. You may want to take your chances with that argument, but isn't it the same one police use when they've killed unarmed people?
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10 comments:
Actually, Sammy, if anyone's deserving of being your Idiot of the Week, it'd be Trump. Dumb Donald will say anything to keep his dittoheads happy.
Of course Cheney wants to be chummy with arabs - he is in the oil business after all, and a good deal of our oil comes from muslim nations. That doesn't make Cheney correct. As much as I despise Trump, if I thought he stood a chance of eliminating Islam - even temporarily - from the stupidity allowed in this nation, I'd hold my nose and vote for him.
Quite frankly, what I'd really like to hear is a candidate offering a presidential pardon to all Americans who help eliminate the muslim threat, in whatever way necessary.
No, hobby, I don't think I've heard anything dumber lately that what Lord said on the 360 show.
Anon 2:03, you get what you pay for.
Anon 2:04, you don't happen to have a headless pig lying around, do you?
Lord's supposed to be a Trump "spokesperson", right? That makes him almost as dumb as Dumb Donald himself.
I wouldn't have left a pig's head in the mosque. I would have let an entire herd of rabid pigs loose in the mosque then chained the door shut.
Anon, I suppose at this point, given your sense of urgency, you shouldn't be thinking about what you would do but what you can do. But I suppose we had better end this particular discussion here on the CYA principle.
Since our current administration seems to be of the (very stupid) opinion that opening your borders to your enemies is somehow a good idea and the overly-liberal bent of this nation currently, there isn't much anyone can legally do about the muslim problem. But also, given the violent nature of this nation and the high-level of gun ownership, I will not be surprised if other patriotic Americans don't take the nation's defense into their own hands. You may be willing to trust muslims and open your arms to welcome a knife in the back, but there are many of us who are far more grounded in reality who understand the threat islam poses to freedom anywhere on this planet. Take a good, hard look at current islamic nations and tell me that islam supports freedom. Take a good, hard look at history of islam and tell me again how islam is a religion of peace.
11:31 - I've never said that Islam was a religion of peace. There's no such thing as a religion of peace anywhere on Earth -- yes, there are even Buddhists killing people of other faiths out there. That doesn't mean they're all equally violent, just that all religion is capable of violence. Unless you're a Christian I don't know if you can even explain why Islam is the most violent right now -- their answer would be "They deny Christ." But in the U.S. we're supposed to see people as individuals first; we're not supposed to be as tribal as the rest of the world. That doesn't mean we have to let everyone in without asking questions, or ignore the dissemination of treasonous media in this country by Muslim citizens. But it does mean either a presumption of innocence for American citizens or else a consistent policy if, in today's world, you presume no one innocent.
By asking questions you assume an honest answer. But if you study the Koran, you understand that muslims are not required to give an honest answer to non-believers. Their very faith is the reason no muslim can be trusted to truly be "moderate" or "non-violent". The best answer is to simply deny them access to the United States and the wealth it represents. Unless they are willing to denounce islam and its pedophile prophet.
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