Comments | dancingguy: Going for the Jugular

dancingguy

Going for the Jugular

Jun 26, 2008 16:48

I detest Senator McCain. The chance of me voting for him in November is someonewhere between "slim" and "none". But I'm willing to give credit where credit is due. His announcement about Heller is a beautiful shot at Senator ObamaUnlike Senator Obama, who refused to join me in signing a bipartisan amicus brief, I was pleased to express my ( Read more... )

guns, politics

Comments 12

quervin June 27 2008, 00:01:38 UTC

While I'm not a huge fan of Senator McCain, he wasn't my first, second or third choice for the nomination, I dislike Obama more so I'll probably end up voting for McCain.

chuckles48 June 27 2008, 03:26:57 UTC

Thee and me both, methinks.

quervin June 27 2008, 03:35:44 UTC

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

chuckles48 June 27 2008, 03:51:35 UTC

Looks like others are taking the same position.

http://www.saysuncle.com/archives/2008/06/26/to-heller-and-back/

Thread 6

nolly June 27 2008, 19:34:35 UTC

Alas, both McCain and the media have twisted what Obama actually said. What he said, paraphrased, was "[Some] Bitter people cling to guns". The is not logically equivalent to "[All] People who cling to guns are bitter". Substiture religion or anything else for guns, and the logical fallacy remains. "A implies B" as not equivalent to "B imples A".

dancingguy June 27 2008, 20:51:55 UTC

You are correct that "some" does not equal "all", and that Obama said "those people" (which is equal to "some").

The problem for Obama is that "those people" are the swing voters he desperately needs to win to have any chance of winning the election.

The further problem is that his comments were rather insulting (whether or not Obama meant it to be insulting is irrelevant. Except that if he didn't think he was being insulting he displayed a rather large blind spot that raises questions about his competence). And when you insult a group of people because of a characteristic they have, most people with that characteristic take it personally, even if you didn't mean them.

And going out and saying "I wasn't insulting you, only those losers over there" is not a winning strategy. :-)

Besides, I didn't say it was "fair". I said it was a good shot. And for those, "close enough for government work" seems to apply.

nolly June 27 2008, 21:37:19 UTC

Even without the scope limitations, "Bitter people cling to guns " and "People who cling to guns are bitter" are not equivalent statements. The media is very fond of this particular logical fallacy -- it's come up more than once lately -- but that doesn't make it any less wrong.

dancingguy June 27 2008, 23:07:25 UTC

P (A|B) doesn't == P (B|A). True. But not relevant. Here's why.

Let's consider the relevant parts of what he said:You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania.... So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion....
I think a valid restatement of this would be "these people cling to guns and / or religion because they are bitter."

Would you disagree that that's a valid reformulation of the logic of what he said?

Now, McCain said: "Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness".

Note that McCain didn't say all Americans. he just said Americans. Since "these people" are Americans, McCain's statement is a valid restatement of Obama's statement. (Does it possibly carry invalid implications? Yes. But technically speaking, it is valid.)

Now, if he was claiming to be quoting Obama, then saying "Some Americans" would have been a much fairer way to quote Obama. However, he didn't say "Obama", he said "the elitist view". And there he's on much safer ground ( ... )

Thread 6