Sock Puppet News--Fox pundit defends Trump's campaign manager.

FOX's fallacious zealotry

By now you've all likely seen the FOX news interview of Reza Aslan by Lauren Green (if not, here's the link: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/is-this-the-most-embarrassing-interview-fox-news-has-ever-do?bffb). The general reaction of most has been, "isn't FOX news stupid?". Yes, they are, but it's worth exploring precisely why. It is, of course, possible that Aslan's Zealot is a terrible book.  It is also possible that he is biased because he is a Muslim.  The key word here is 'because', which has several meanings. The two most important to distinguish are the causal and the epistemic senses. As I've used it above, because is causal (the fact that he is a Muslim caused him to write a badly researched work). The second sense is still causal, however, it causes one to know something (episteme is the Greek word for knowledge). How do I know it is 7am and not 7pm? Because I see the sun in the East rather than the West.  Now try that with the Aslan case. How do I know that Zealot is a biased work? Because Aslan is a Muslim. This results in a classic example of an ad hominem fallacy. If you want to discuss bias in Zealot you must first show that it is biased by discussing its content (noting that Aslan does not claim Jesus is god does not represent bias since Jesus' divinity is irrelevant in the field of religious history generally and more specifically in studies of the Historical Jesus). If the work shows bias, then you can ask whether or not the particular biases contained therein represent a specifically Muslim bias).

How An Analogy Works.

Much of the gun-control debate in recent weeks has not really been a debate at all.  Each side is speaking past the other, neither taking the time to understand the other.  Part of the problem is failure to understand certain features of logic, especially the analogy.  Analogies are not metaphors or similes, and they have rules that make them work (or not if they are not followed).  Here is a good example of failure to understand how an analogy works:

Mr. Howe's original analogy may be expressed this way: banning assault weapons is to mass gun violence as banning wrapping paper is to paper cuts.  His implication is, of course, that banning assault weapons is "legislative idiocy" (which it may very well be).  Nevertheless, and this is the important part, an analogy (in this case, a four term analogy--A:B::C:D) suggests that the first and third terms are similar, and the second and fourth are similar.  Take the mathematical analogy, 1:2::4:8.  The analogy establishes that the relationship expressed in the first analog (1:2) and that expressed in the second (4:8) are the same, viz. half.  But notice that you can examine the terms individually as well: 1 and 4 are similar in that they are half of 2 and 8 respectively.  Thus, in Mr. Howe's analogy, despite his objections to the contrary, the Newtown shooting is compared to a paper cut.  This comparison is precisely where Mr. Howe's analogy breaks down (as all analogies do at some point).  However, this is just one example of the faulty use of analogy in this debate.  One Twitter user compared banning guns to prevent gun-violence to banning utensils to prevent obesity.

And on Sean Hannity's show on Fox, Ann Coulter asked:

The simple answer is that in certain areas gun permits are a matter of public record (which is how The Journal News got their information), while medical records are not.  Coulter makes the point that such permits should not be public, and perhaps they shouldn't; but the analogy is not only useless to making the point, it's actually backwards.  I suggest we stop using analogies altogether in this debate.  They are unnecessary given the amount of information we have on gun violence in the US and elsewhere.

Never waste a good tragedy.

Notice the relation between the first tweet and the last. 

Some people just can't resist trying to score a political point.

Why is Glenn Beck no longer on Fox?

Here's just one reason.

Dr. Seuss was a douche!

I often use this political ad by Dr. Seuss to demonstrate bad logic to students.  Dr. Seuss lived in a different time, and so I can give him a pass.  Fox News, on the other hand, presented this headline this morning:

Unless your backyard happens to be a prison yard, this seems like an empty threat.

Ever wonder...?

Do you ever wonder how these incredibly busy pundits and politicos turn out so many books while doing their radio shows, interviews, attending fund-raisers and speaking events?  Simple: they don't.

There's bad journalism and then there's bad journalism.

I've made this case before, but it keeps popping up--so, I'll give it one more go and then try to let it rest.  Pew Research has released another very interesting report on coverage of the 2012 presidential race.  Among its recent findings it turns out that in the last week before the general election MSNBC presented no positive political coverage of Romney and no negative coverage of Obama.  They compare this to Fox News' coverage in the following graph:

The differences are indeed striking, but not at all conclusive of anything but the facts (viz., MSNBC presented no positive Romney stories and no negative Obama stories).  Notice that what is striking is not the positive to negative gap on the Obama side--the gap is precisely the inverse on the Fox side (51 points)--but the fact that there were no negative reports on Obama, and no positive on Romney.  However, this is not philosophically impossible.  One might run similar research on reports regarding Donald Trump (on any station at any time of the year).  Were you to find a network that ran an equal number of positive and negative stories on Trump, I'd suggest you watch a different channel.  Nevertheless, News Busters today posted a blog regarding this research.  Their conclusion was that this is "disgraceful".  Notice there is absolutely no analysis, just a presentation of the numbers.
At the same time, Media Matters just posted this blog regarding Walmart's handling of unions and strikers.  I hate to have to say it, but to be sure--I am not arguing in favor of unions, nor am I arguing in favor of Walmart, I am arguing in favor of reasonable and proper journalism.  Notice that, regardless of what you think of the story and the actors in it, this is a conflict of interest, and should have been avoided, or declared as such.

You're not making the compelling case you think you are.

Free speech is a double edged sword--what is mean is not that there are good aspects and bad--all aspects are good, in principle.  However, the same freedom of speech which defends your right to say stupid shit also defends my right to call what you say "stupid shit".  You may not like it, you may disagree, but you cannot claim that I am violating your freedom of speech without rejecting your own (that is how these rights work).  Nevertheless, when the president of Fordham chided the campus Republicans for inviting Ann Coulter to speak, Fox and WSJ descried this as a kind of censorship.  The result was that the campus Republicans rescinded their invitation.  This seems to me a free speech success--the university's president criticized Coulter as intentionally inflicting pain on others race, sex, sexual orientation, or creed.  Whether or not you agree with his assessment, he made an argument rather than a proscription--he did not censor the campus Republicans, he shared his opinion with them.  They agreed and changed their minds.  How can this be anything but a free speech victory?

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/free-speech-campus/2012/11/18/wsj-how-free-speech-died-campus#ixzz2CbNe4ScX

intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/free-speech-campus/2012/11/18/wsj-how-free-speech-died-campus#ixzz2CbNe4ScX

All I want for Christmas...

Is systematic extermination of homosexuals in Uganda.  This is apparently how Ugandan clerics expressed their desire for the passage of Uganda's so-called "kill the gays bill".  'Some Christian clerics at the meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, asked the speaker to pass the law as 'a Christmas gift.'"  To a certain degree, the story is old news.  Rachel Maddow has been reporting on the bill and the involvement of US legislators in encouraging its passage for some time:

Nevertheless, last Monday it seems the bill was passed and will take effect in the new year (Merry Christmas AND Happy New Year!) [ARTICLE]  What I find disturbing today, is that it is not being reported more broadly in the news.  Here's what you get if you search "Uganda" over at CNN:

And Fox:

And if you search at MSNBC, you'll find it last:

Geraldo is the voice of moderation at Fox News

I remember when Geraldo Rivera was not considered a reliable journalist, and perhaps he is still not.  Nevertheless, by comparison to his Fox colleagues on the issue of the connection between the Petraeus scandal and Benghazi, he provides a voice of moderation--suggesting one may be skeptical without drawing conclusions not supported by available evidence--if not of reason.  VIDEO

Bill Kristol offers a compromise (sort of).

Conservative pundit and commentator Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard is encouraging the GOP to compromise on the the Bush tax cuts--one of the most significant elements of the looming fiscal cliff (fiscal slope? fiscal mound?).  Breaking ranks with Grover-Norquist-Republicans, Kristol suggested that the cuts could be allowed to expire for those making over $250,000 (or $500,000 or $1 million).  He seems to acknowledge that the reelection of President Obama (together with the continued Republican control of the House) will require negotiations, conversation and debate.  But notice, he is incapable of simply suggesting what is a very reasonable response to the elections (presidential and congressional) without a dig at the rich Democrats who voted for Obama and "live in Hollywood?".  What does their address have to do with anything?  (Is it even true?)

Begging the Question--It's not what you think.

This may seem a bit nit-picky, but it drives me crazy that professional journalists and pundits are unaware of the meaning of "begging the question".  The phrase actually refers to a logical fallacy wherein the conclusion is restated as a premise.  Here it is being used--incorrectly--to mean "calls for" or "leads to".  Is it too much to ask the media to learn some logic?

Every vote counts, but some more than others.

After every election cycle (presidential or otherwise) post game analysis begins.  Who were the winners and losers?  What went wrong?  What worked?  Fox News seems to be analyzing a different election, asking whether or not his reelection should have taught him.  They continue this narrative still.  Back in Kansas, there are real lessons to be learned.  This week the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case over the Voting Rights Act.  Here's a quick primer:  The Act was passed in 1965, requiring states with a history of discrimination at the polls to have any changes to voting procedures (change in early voting, change of polling stations) to be approved by the federal government.  Not all states are subject to pre-clearance, and many are calling this part of the Act (the Act which enforces the 15th Amendment) unconstitutional and discriminatory.  The case brings up a larger issue--voting procedure in the US.  Leading up to every presidential election you hear over and over that Ohio will decide who wins, or Florida, or Wisconsin.  This is because the election is not decided by popular vote (which is exactly as it sounds--the candidate with more votes wins) but by the electoral college--in other words, a candidate doesn't win votes, but states (hence the awkward pause caused Rove's refusal to admit that Obama had won Ohio).  Among the many (and obvious) problems with this system is the fact that the members of the electoral college do not have to vote with the citizens (depending on the state).  The electoral system is so dysfunctional that Florida can close its polls more than 40 hours after the winner is declared (which leads to the ridiculous circumstance of Romney conceding Florida more than 40 hours after he has lost the election).  It seems that, while we say, "every vote counts", some votes count more than others.  If there is one lesson to be learned from this election (sadly, we have not already learned this lesson: in 1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000 the president elect lost the popular vote) it is that the system of voting, counting and weighing votes needs to be revised.  Nevertheless, I think there are two major lessons, not one.  The second is that Citizens United needs to overturned as unconstitutional.  But more on that later.

Spy vs. Spy

The analysis continues as to why Romney (and the Republicans in general) lost.  And the Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf has weighed in with an article entitled: How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File.  The article itself is quite interesting, analyzing acutely the problems at certain conservative outlets.  However, although he identifies many errors committed by conservative media, he does not identify the reason for those errors, and thus misses an opportunity to make the larger, more important point.  

Indeed, listening to the predictions of Noonan or Morris or Scarborough over those of Nate Silver was idiotic.  You shouldn't start making bets when you don't know the rules of the game.  Silver is a gambler, and a highly successful one, not a journalist.  The first three are pundits, commentators and politicos.  They should not be playing the numbers game in any case.  Nevertheless, the Atlantic article misses two important points.  First, the Republicans lost because they fronted some of the worst candidates they could possibly find (and that is saying quite a lot after having allowed Palin on their ticket in '08--she was a strong woman who fought for what she believed; unfortunately she believed Africa was a country).  Second, there is no such thing as conservative media (nor liberal media), if by media you mean an organization responsible for broadcasting the news.  If you intend the fifth estate, a biased news outfit is not a news outfit at all.  Rather it is fictional programming with an agenda.  The only bias of a true newsman is bias towards the truth.

Fair and Balanced

With the election over, the losers are bound to do some Monday-morning quarterbacking.  This happens after every election, whether the country goes Red or Blue.  Indeed, the football analogy is apt--a football team takes the time to analyze a loss so as to not commit the same errors.  Unfortunately, in this era of meta-journalism (reporting about reporting and reporters, as if that were news), much of the blame is bound to be placed on the media itself, and I saw a good bit of this by the folks at Fox News (and other outlets) this morning.  To be clear, the media has a strong influence on any election, as indeed they should, since their job is to inform the voting public.  It's been said that the media contributed to Ford's loss to Carter in '76--when the public saw that Ford was up in the polls and likely to win, the public was reminded that they were unhappy with him.  However, recognizing that the media influences an election is not the same as saying that the media was responsible for the outcome of an election.  As I've already pointed out, simply noting that MSNBC reported more negatively about Romney than Fox did about Obama is absolutely void of meaning until content is offered (that is, quantity is meaningless without quality).  This is where fair and balanced comes in.  Often the public assumes that fair and balanced means that for each negative story reported about Romney, the same network must report a negative story about Obama.  This, of course, requires a news network to make up news on occasion just so as to fulfill this false sense of balance.  In other words, in order to do their job, journalists are forced to abandon journalistic integrity.  Scott Whitlock complained that MSNBC mocked Romney's international gaffes while fawning over Obama's world tour.  Fox News' Rich Noyes presented "Five Ways the Mainstream Media Tipped the Scales for Obama".  As I see it, there are two ways to react to these claims (not to say accusations).  First, you can deny.  This is the simplest reaction, and the one which will be chosen by most, I suspect.  Second, you can admit that this is precisely correct.  MSNBC especially took Romney to task, and much more often and much more harshly than they did Obama (and more than Fox did Obama).  This is because Romney said some of the dumbest things imaginable during this campaign (the Putin comment), contradicted himself over and over, and chose a terrible running mate (only Palin could have been worse).  Obama certainly made his own mistakes on the trail, but were I to recount them now, I'd be falling into the trap of that false notion of fair and balanced I noted above.  The articles by Whitlock and Noyes are intended to show that certain media outlets are not fair nor balanced, implying that they are not doing their jobs.  Instead, with their lists and descriptions of the Romney campaign's errors and misjudgments, they are really making that case the the media outlets they have in mind have done their job quite well.  In effect, they are asking, "why should Romney be taken to task for a mistake someone else... noticed.  Maybe Romney should call Bob Loblaw.