Tucker Carlson is not an honest journalist

There is a great deal of sloppy, fallacious, and outright deceptive language surrounding the BLM protests. A good illustration of this comes from a recent episode of Tucker Carlson's show on Fox as illustrated in the following tweet:

i didn't edit this footage at all pic.twitter.com/afEkKzQrXb

— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) June 17, 2020

This is a both nice illustration of both the Appeal to Emotion (Scare Tactics version) and  a good example of the fifth filter in Chomsky's and Herman's Propaganda Model of the Media. As a reminder, the fifth filter is the "Common Enemy" filter, and we can see quite clearly through the use of scary music that Tucker Carlson is attempting to present BLM protestors and activists as scary monsters that lack humanity.

The Appeal to Emotion to End All Appeals to Emotion

The Appeal to Pity is a type of appeal to emotion in which one attempts to play on someone's sympathy or empathy to get that person to support a conclusion. The idea is that you make your audience feel pity for some subject, and then you can get them to support the policies that you claim will help that subject. When I teach this topic in my classes, some student invariably raises his or her own hand to offer the following commercial as an example of an Appeal to Pity. Without further ado, here it is

Now I am a sucker for dogs, so I am clearly the target of this video. It is almost impossible for me to avoid tearing up when I see dogs suffering (particularly that poor dog whose back legs don't seem to work). Thus, even though I can recognize this video for the fallacious argument that it is, it is still remarkably effective. And this is the major reason these fallacies continue to exist and proliferate. They work, even on people who know that they are being manipulated. I really need to donate to the local SPCA.

Senator Dianne Feinstein Weighs In

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) weighed in the Surveillance State scandal on ABC's This Week. As should be no surprise for anyone who follows Senator Feinstein, the focus of her appearance was to defend the various programs that have been revealed by Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian. The core of her defense is that these programs are legal, and they have played an important role in keeping us safe from the terrorists. Also, 9-11. Let's take a closer look at her defense and unpack some of the fallacies she commits. After some preliminary remarks, she begins:

So here's what happens with that program. The program is essentially walled off within the NSA. There are limited numbers of people who have access to it. The only thing taken, as has been correctly expressed, is not content of a conversation, but the information that is generally on your telephone bill, which has been held not to be private personal property by the Supreme Court.

This first statement actually appears to be false. According to the Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked this information in the first place, all this data was quite accesible to a large number of people.

As Snowden told The Guardian in a videotaped interview: "When you're in positions of privileged access, like a systems administrator, for these sort of intelligence community agencies, you're exposed to a lot more information on a broader scale than the average employee ... Anybody in the positions of access with the technical capabilities that I had could, you know, suck out secrets."

Let's remember, Edward Snowden is a 29 year old high school dropout, and he had access to all this classified information after just 3 months on the job with the defense contractor Booze Allen Hamilton. This is not intended as a criticism of Snowden, but merely to put the lie to Sen. Feinstein's comments about the limited access to this program. As Julian Sanchez put it:

Though, if you DO think Snowden is a traitorous criminal, shouldn't you be concerned about a system that gave him keys to the spy machine?
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) June 10, 2013

Feinstein then goes on to discuss a few cases in which the program has been used:

So, the program has been used. Two cases have been declassified. One of them is the case of David Headley, who went to Mumbai, to the Taj hotel, and scoped it out for the terrorist attack.

The case of David Headley is quite interesting and there are a few things worth noting. First, Headley was a DEA informant.  Second, the Mumbai terrorist attacks Feinstein mentions were successful  Thus, one example of the program in action was to track down a DEA informant who had slipped through the cracks to successfully commit a wide-scale terrorist attack in Mumbai. Needless to say, if the best example of this program in action is finding a former informants who went on to successfully commit acts of terror, I am unclear what benefit the program is supposed to serve. If it can't even be used to prevent an attack, I am not sure what the point of trading away my privacy was.

Feinstein's second example involves a terrorist plot to blow up the New York Subway. I won't go into to many details about this example, but there are definitely some suspicious aspects of this case.

Feinstein concludes her defense of this program with the ultimate Red Herring/Appeal to Emotion when she remarks:

Here is the point. And this is why this is so difficult. I flew over World Trade Center going to Senator Lautenberg's funeral, and in the distance was the Statue of Liberty. And I thought of those bodies jumping out of that building, hitting the canopy. Part of our obligation is keeping Americans safe. Human intelligence isn't going to do it, because you can't -- it's a different culture. It is a fanaticism that isn't going to come forward. And so, this kind of strict, strictly overseen -- it's overseen by the Justice Department, by inspectors general, by audits, by a 90-day review, by the court, is looked at as a method. I'm very happy if there's a better way, we will certainly look at it.

This last argument is really quite shameful as Sen. Feinstein invokes the specter of 9/11 to justify this program. This strategy is ancient, and was one of the favorite techniques of the Bush administration. Whenever anyone raises questions about a policy, one simply repeats 9/11 over and over again as a way to shut down conversation. This is exactly what Feinstein is doing. If the best argument she can muster to defend this program is to get everyone worked up and frightened, this suggests that the program is probably indefensible.

h/t to Digby

Round and Round It Goes. Where It Stops, Nobody Knows.

Apropos of the stunning, but ultimately not very surprising, revelations of the scope of government spying on innocent citizens, I present this Tom Tomorrow cartoon from over a year ago, which nicely summarizes and anticipates many of the responses we have heard and can continue to expect to hear from President Obama and various other security state apologists:

As illustrated, this is a nice example of a Circular Argument. That is, an argument in which the conclusion is stated or assumed in one of the premises. This particular argument is one that really bothers me as I don't understand how someone can defend something they don't know anything about. Those who defend Obama's expansion of the security state are really like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand (I know ostriches don't really do this, but it is too good a metaphor to let factual considerations get in the way). If one doesn't know what is happening, then one can't defend it.

Furthermore, the appeal to terrorism (a sub-category of the Appeal to Emotion) begins to make less and less sense when one realizes that, from the perspective of the US government, every single man, woman, and child in the US is a potential terrorist. If the state really is genuinely afraid of every one of its citizens, then we need to seriously rethink what we mean by democracy and what we mean when we call ourselves one.

h/t to Digby

UPDATE: I just realized that I blogged about this topic over a year ago. That post can be found here.

Vote for my Dad because I have Cancer

Brian Bilbray is the Republican running for the 52nd Congressional District in California. Recently his campaign  released an advertisement featuring his daughter Brianna making an emotional appeal to voters to elect her father. Here is the ad in question:

This is a great example of the Appeal to Emotion, specifically an appeal to pity. Bilbray is leveraging the tragedy of his daughter's cancer to appeal to voters. He is not making any rational argument about why he would be superior to his opponent, Scott Peters. He is basically arguing, "My daughter has cancer. Vote for me." If we think a little more deeply about the ad is should be clear that this emotional appeal makes absolutely no sense. Are we supposed to believe that Bilbray's opponent Scott Peters won't make any efforts to fund cancer research? Are we supposed to believe that Bilbray has some special powers as a congressman that would make him more successful in curing cancer or funding cancer research? Is his mere presence in a lab looking over the shoulder of a researcher with a microscope supposed to somehow improve the speed and efficacy of that research? The exact mechanism here isn't very clear, but then it isn't supposed to be. Bilbray is hoping that our pity and sadness at his daughter's tragedy is sufficient to block a rational assessment of the ad.

I must also comment on Bilbray's boilerplate at the end when he says, "I approve this ad because some things are more important than politics." This is probably the most insulting part of the whole ad. How can Bilbray claim that some things are more important than politics when he is clearly using his daughter's cancer to try and win a political election! Frankly, I find the whole thing rather sordid and disgusting. If Bilbray's daughter is genuinely suffering from terminal cancer (A claim I have no reason to doubt), then perhaps he ought to suspend his political campaign and his congressional aspirations in order to spend more time with his daughter during her final days. To use her in a campaign ad, however, raises serious questions in my mind about the kind of person Bilbray is.

h/t to KPBS

An ad baculum from a rich asshole

An Ad Baculum is a version of the appeal to emotion, and it is a fallacy in which one substitutes a threat of force for an actual argument. One might imagine that such a fallacy is uncommon because a brute threat seems like such an obvious error to recognize. Nevertheless, an excellent example of this fallacy can be found in an email that this man, David Siegal, billionaire owner of the massive timeshare company Westgate Resorts, sent to his employees.

In the email, Siegal threatens his employees with a loss of their jobs if they fail to elect Mitt Romney president of the US. Siegal writes:

As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best. [Emphasis added]

This is about as clear a threat as one could imagine. Siegal then concludes the email by writing:

So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.
[...]

You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about. [Emphasis added]

Leaving aside the absurdity of someone actually claiming that a slight increase in the top marginal tax rate will have any effect on whether or not that person continues to work (if Siegal wanted to retire he could, he already has lots of money and doesn't need to work), the general Ad Baculum in this email should be obvious, and in fact the whole point of the email was to threaten his employees to vote a certain way. In fact, Siegal has employed similar tactics in the past. As Gawker notes:

The Florida-based Westgate Resorts is not a public company. It is the domain of David Siegel, a staunch Republican. In fact, Siegel has publicly claimed credit for George W. Bush defeating Al Gore, saying "I had my managers do a survey on every employee [8,000 total]. If they liked Bush, we made them register to vote. But not if they liked Gore."

So, once again we see wealthy individuals exploiting that wealth in an effort to sway elections in directions that they think will be beneficial to them, often using underhanded and deceptive tactics to do so.

h/t to Digby

They're coming to cut your throat! And they have Korans!

On the September 18th edition of the Fox News show Your World with Neil Cavuto filmmaker Michael Lynch was interviewed about his new movie about illegal immigration. In the course of this interview Lynch commits a number of fallacies:


The most obvious fallacy is the use of Scare Tactics. Note that the video start with a news report about a prison break on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border. Cavuto and Lynch then imply that all 130 of these prisoners are extremely violent and that they are making a beeline for the US. Note as well that we are told nothing about the prisoners. For all we know they may all have committed the Mexican equivalent of white collar crimes and are non-violent offenders. Even assuming that they are violent offenders, there is no evidence that every single one of them (or any of them) will head to the US. For all we know these escaped prisoners may make an effort to reunite with their families in Mexico. Furthermore, it is even possible that some of the prisoners are US citizens. We have no idea, the report gives us no information, but tries to scare us and make us afraid of all the murderous violent immigrants who are heading are way.

Lynch then almost immediately invokes 9-11, attempting to draw a link between illegal immigrants snaking across the US-Mexico border and terrorism. At this point it is worth noting that none of the 9-11 hijackers entered the US this way. All of them exploited legal means of entry. This is clearly an example of a False Analogy, as it is wildly inappropriate to invoke 9-11 when discussing the status of the US-Mexico border. Lynch doubles-down on this false analogy when he claims that someone is finding Korans and prayer rugs in the middle of the desert. I have no idea if this claim is true, but I find it highly suspicious. If in fact Muslim terrorists were sneaking across the US-Mexico border, I doubt that they would be scattering their holy book across the middle of nowhere.

From this Lynch then employs another Scare Tactic, claiming that not everyone is coming to the US to cut your lawn, some of them are coming to cut your throat. Again, no evidence or statistics are provided for this claim, Lynch just asserts it with the obvious intention of scaring the Fox News viewers into buying his movie.

We then see a nice example of Inconsistency when Cavuto asks Lynch why immigrants are coming to the US and Lynch responds, "Jobs," thereby directly contradicting his earlier assertion that at least some of the immigrants were coming to commit murder.

Lynch then transitions to an Appeal to Authority citing a positive review from some Fox News celebrity as evidence that his movie is worthwhile and important.

Finally he concludes with the classic huckster's pitch claiming that he has secret information that "They" (whoever "they" are) don't want you to see. In this connection Lynch implies that there is some large-scale conspiracy devoted to suppressing the truths that he, as a normal, hard-working American, is trying to expose. In general, when someone cites a conspiracy as the reason why no one will show their movie, we need to seriously consider the possibility that no one will distribute or screen the film because it sucks, not because it reveals some uncomfortable truth.

h/t to Media Matters

Why aromatherapists are not (and shouldn't be) doctors.

In a guest editorial in the MansfieldNewsJournal, George Cox, an aromatherapist, attacks the status of current health legislation in the US. In particular, he objects to those provisions of US law that prohibit unaccredited individuals (people who aren't MD's) from making unverified health claims (making claims about products when there is insufficient evidence of efficacy). In laying out his argument Cox commits several fallacies: a version of the Ad Hominem and several Hasty Generalizations.

I will begin by looking at the ad hominem. In his article Cox uses a particular version of the ad hominem known as poisoning the well. This is when one introduces negative claims about a person or group as a way to discredit anything that this individual or group might claim in the future. In a sense it is a sort of preemptive ad hominem. We can see this at work when Cox writes:

Traditional doctors and the AMA are not infallible, despite what TV shows have shown us over the years. All you have to do is think of a couple of instances to prove that. Remember, butter is the worst thing you can eat, eat only margarine. Then a few years later, margarine is bad for you, eat only butter. Huh?
Eggs were the worst thing you could eat for a while, or so they told us. Your cholesterol would go sky high and you would die. After a bunch of poor chicken farmers lost everything, they came back and said eggs aren't so bad after all.

Basically, Cox is arguing that because the medical community has made mistakes in the past, we can't trust anything they say in the future. This is a classic rhetorical technique of turning an opponent's greatest strength against hm and treating it as a problem.  One of the greatest benefits of medical science (and science generally) is that it is evidence based. When a doctor makes a medical recommendation, that recommendation is generally based on the best evidence available at the time. However, because the recommendation is evidence based, when new evidence comes in this sometimes forces a revision in the current understanding, leading to new recommendations. If science thinks something is going to work and then it doesn't, the scientist doesn't stick his head in the sand, he bites the bullet and revises his opinion. This is exactly what we would hope for from any medical practitioner: a recommendation based on the best evidence currently available. This is in sharp contrast to many alternative medical modalities in which the recommendation stays the same regardless of evidence. To try to suggest that this responsiveness to evidence is a defect rather than an advantage is simply poisoning the well.

Cox then goes on to commit a hasty generalization when he writes:

To the people who say that aromatherapy -- my business -- is just a bunch of hooey, I would point out that dentists still use clove bud essential oil for dry socket and root canal pain. They have access to all of the narcotics that MDs do, but they still use clove bud oil because it works. It stops the pain.
So if it stops the pain in a tooth, wouldn't it, shouldn't it be helpful for arthritis pain? Both are technically bone pain.

First, it is worth noting that Cox has greatly over-simplified the dental uses of clove oil. Orac has a great deal more to say on this topic, but suffice to say that the picture is significantly more complex than Cox makes it out to be.  Furthermore, dentists use clove oil because there is strong evidence that it serves the purposes for which the dentist uses it. Despite what many alternative medicine practitioners claim, doctor are not opposed to natural or nature derived-remedies so long as there is adequate evidence of efficacy. Regarding the hasty generalization, Cox's argument seems to run like this:

1. Clove bud oil treats dry socket and root canal pain.
2. Dry socket and root canal pain are forms of tooth pain.
3. Teeth are bones.
4. Therefore, clove bud oil can treat bone pain.
5. Arthritis is a form of bone pain.
6. Therefore, clove bud oil can treat arthritis.

Again, ignoring the factual errors discussed by Orac in the above link, this is clearly a hasty generalization. Assuming that clove oil does work as an analgesic, it is being applied directly to the bone (or in the case of a root canal, directly to the nerve). This is very different from a topical application to the skin. To assume that because it works in one very specific situation involving teeth that it will apply to all situations involving bone is a clear hasty generalization.

Cox, however, does not stop there and goes one further, writing:

I need to watch my language and say things like, "it's been shown to" or "historically, it has been used to." Even though there are small clinical studies that prove it and we have tons of anecdotal evidence, it doesn't matter.

In effect, Cox is arguing that because there are small, preliminary clinical studies and anecdotal evidence, he should be able to make the same claims of efficacy for his products that doctors are only allowed to make for products for which there have been large-scale, double-blind, placebo controlled studies. This is a very common hasty generalization that alternative medicine practitioners make when they assume that anecdotes have value. The simple truth is that, for a variety of reasons that I can't go into here, anecdotes are worthless. To draw any conclusion about efficacy for a product based on anecdotes is as clear cut an example of a hasty generalization as one can possibly find.

h/t to Orac

Scare Tactics

For this post I want to talk about an interesting article I came across a few years back with the following headline:

Feds release chilling footage of damage Faisal Shahzad could have done if Times Square bomb worked [emphasis mine]

This is an excellent example of the Appeal to Emotion, specifically Scare Tactics. As the name suggests, an Appeal to Emotion is a fallacy in which one tries to convince people to endorse some claim by stirring up the emotions of her audience rather than provide a reasoned justification. There are lots of different kinds of Appeal to Emotion, depending on what emotion is being appealed to. One of the most effective versions of the Appeal to Emotion is Scare Tactics in which the emotion appealed to is fear. As anyone who has been paying attention to post 9-11 US politics will know, Scare Tactics are one of the favored methods politicians use to win elections and gain support for the policies they pursue. This headline and the article that accompanies it are a good example of how central scare tactics are to US policy. As the article notes, a major component of the prosecutions argument for life imprisonment is a video purporting to show what could have happened if Shahzad had succeeded. Shahzad did not succeed, and the article even suggests that Shahzad was incompetent. However, fears about what could have happened were stoked by the prosecution and then amplified by the media in articles such as this one. The point of all this should be obvious: keep the American populace in a state of fear and terror so that they will continue to support politicians, their policies, and the growing police surveillance state.

Whenever I think about this issue, I often think of the following clip from Family Guy. It is always surprising to me when real life is just as absurd as a cartoon.