Crank Up the Grumpalodean!

Bill O'Reilly says some crazy stuff, but in this video he really goes off the rails, and is resoundingly mocked by John Stewart for it. Here is the link for the segment titled "Burn Notice."

The argument in this video is so nonsensical that it is actually a bit difficult to identify which fallacies are being committed. The most obvious candidate is the Non Sequitur as it is virtually impossible to understand the connection being drawn between marijuana and text messaging. I am also inclined to identify this as a False Analogy, since some sort of comparison between them is being made as well. Don't ask me what the comparison is supposed to be because I can't figure it out, but O'Reilly seems pretty convinced that there is a problem. If I had to guess, I would hazard that this segment is targeting elderly viewers who are upset about the kids of today. By linking up a bunch of things that kids do (at least in the minds of O'Reilly's elderly conservative viewers) O'Reilly can produce a story that will resonate with these viewers and reinforce their already existing prejudices. This is speculation, but it is the only way I can make sense of this clip.

Obama's Katrinas (Yes, there's more than one)

This looks like a failed website right?

So far we have seen Obamacare compared to Hitler and to Slavery, events that took place before most people in the US were born. Now I want to look at a more contemporary comparison in which the Affordable Care Act is seen as Obama's Katrina. Here is the New York Times:

The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency.

This is a completely mistaken analogy as it utterly misses why Katrina was such a disaster for President Bush. As Digby put it, "The reason Bush was tarred with his Katrina response is because he acted like he didn't give a damn. And it came out of a long series of problems in Iraq and after revelations that his administration had blown off warnings about 9/11." By contrast, Obama clearly cares about the Affordable Care Act as it is the defining piece of his presidency, and will likely be remembered decades after he has left office. In addition, it is unclear how problems with a website can be legitimately compared to a natural disaster that destroyed a city. Furthermore, Obamacare appears to be at least the 8th Katrina that Obama has weathered. From Think Progress: 

1. BP Oil Spill
“[I]t’s getting baked in a little bit in the media that BP was President Obama’s Katrina.” [NBC News, Brian Williams, 8/29/10]
2. Bank Bailout
“A CHARMING visit with Jay Leno won’t fix it. A 90 percent tax on bankers’ bonuses won’t fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner won’t fix it. Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans’ anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed. It would be foolish to dismiss as hyperbole the stark warning delivered by Paulette Altmaier of Cupertino, Calif., in a letter to the editorpublished by The Times last week: ‘President Obama may not realize it yet, but his Katrina moment has arrived.’” [New York Times, Frank Rich, 3/21/09]
3. Benghazi Consulate Attack And The IRS
“When House Republicans decided to reopen investigations into the White House and State Department response to the attacks on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, few thought it would inflict any serious damage to the president. Then came an admission from the IRS that it had unfairly singled out conservative groups for scrutiny during the 2012 campaign…This is President Obama’s Katrina moment. If he cannot regain control of the narrative, he will face the same loss of public confidence suffered by President Bush.” [Baltimore Sun, 5/19/13, Todd Eberly]
4. Hurricane Sandy
“I want to show you this report by our own David Lee Miller of a public housing unit in New Jersey, and — I’m sorry, in Brooklyn — devastated. This is Obama’s Katrina. And now the people are seeing that the gas lines and the suffering and the millions without power, the millions without heat, the millions — the ten and thousands that have lost their homes, and the cries for help.” [Fox News, Sean Hannity, 11/5/12]
5. Unemployment
“‘Will The Unemployment Crisis Be Obama’s Katrina?’ There’s a Category 5 storm about to make landfall, and the president and the officials in charge of preparing for the approaching disaster don’t seem to be particularly worried. Sound familiar? Just as Katrina exposed critical weaknesses in the priorities and competence of the Bush administration, the unfolding unemployment disaster is threatening to do the same for the Obama White House.” [Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, 11/23/09]
6. The Underwear Bomber
“To the list of phrases it may be best for political leaders to avoid after a major security incident, add ‘the system worked’ right after ‘Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.’ Just as the public did not really share President George W. Bush’s assessment of how things were going after Hurricane Katrina, so too was there a good deal of skepticism when President Obama’s homeland security secretary declared faith in a system that failed to stop a guy who tried to blow up a passenger jet on Christmas Day.” [New York Times, 12/29/09]
7. Haiti Earthquake
“‘Haiti: Obama’s Katrina.’ Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry federal efforts was immediate and fierce. Unfortunately, the response to the latest international disaster in Haiti has been no better, compounding the catastrophe.” [Wall Street Journal, 1/25/10]
8. Obamacare
“‘Health Law Rollout’s Stumbles Draw Parallels to Bush’s Hurricane Response.’ President Obama is now threatened by a similar toxic mix. The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency.” [New York Times, 11/14/13]

At some point, journalists need to stop trotting out these tired cliches. They don't really shed any insight into the issue, and just serve to confuse the readers and watchers of these various media outlets. Clearly the Affordable Care Act has problems, but these problems can't be effectively addressed if people continue to make historically inaccurate comparisons that just obscure the real problems. Then again, maybe that is the point of all these false analogies. 

The Many False Analogies around Obamacare

A small tax penalty is clearly equivalent to the extermination of 6 million jews, homosexuals and other "undesirables."

Today I thought I would do a roundup of the some false analogies related to the Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as "Obamacare." As a quick reminder, a false analogy is when one makes a comparison that isn't really apt or correct. The examples I am going to look at below are all versions of hyperbole in which the comparison is inappropriate because it is wildly exaggerated. 

The first comes from an interview between Steve Inskeep of NPR and conservative political columnist George Will. In discussing the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act Will makes the following comparison:

I mean I hear Democrats say the Affordable Care Act is the law, as though we're supposed to genuflect at that sunburst of insight and move on. Well, the Fugitive Slave Act was the law, separate but equal was the law - lots of things were the law and then we changed them. And this is a part of the bruising, untidy, utterly democratic technique for changing laws.

For those who don't know, the Fugitive Slave Act was a law passed in the US in 1850 that required that all captured slaves (even those captured in states where slavery was illegal) had to be returned to their owners. Furthermore it enacted various penalties for those who harbored escaped slaves or failed to return them to their owners. Overall it was one of the more shameful pieces of legislation passed in the US. Will, naturally, compares this law to a law that gives everyone access to healthcare. That this comparison is completely hyperbolic should be fairly obvious. What is surprising is that other conservatives have made the same analogy.

This story from Salon gives another example, this time from Rep. William O'Brian of New Hampshire. In an interview with the Manchester Union Leader he made the following comment, “Just as the Fugitive Slave Act was an overreach by the federal government, so too we understand that Obamacare is an assault on the rights of individuals.” The author of the Salon story, Steven Lubet, does a very nice job of explaining why this analogy is so bad, writing:

So let’s get this straight. The Fugitive Slave Act facilitated one of the greatest wrongs in human history, while the Affordable Care Act imposes a small tax penalty on individuals who choose to forgo health insurance. There is no “just as” relationship between the two statutes, other than in the fevered imagination of Tea Partyers like William O’Brien [or conservative commentators like George Will - Ian]. Even if one philosophically opposes Obamacare’s individual mandate, the imposition on personal liberty is minimal. Nobody who truly understands slavery – or who cares about honesty in American history – would ever compare the rendition of slaves to national health insurance.

The upshot of all of these is that in order to compare the Affordable Care Act to slavery or Hitler requires a willful ignorance of history. And that is why these analogies are false.

Syrian False Analogies

John Kerry having dinner with future Hitler Bashar Assad in 2009

With public opinion strongly opposed to a US intervention of any sort in Syria, government officials who back a US attack are turning to ever more strained analogies in an effort to drum up public and Congressional support. Coming as no surprise, Secretary of State John Kerry has gone ahead and invoked Godwin's law by comparing Syrian President Bashar Assad to Hitler, and has claimed that anything less than a military strike on Syria would be comparable to the 1938 Munich Agreement between Hitler and Chamberlain. As reported by Politico:

Secretary of State John Kerry told House Democrats that the United States faced a “Munich moment” in deciding whether to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government.
In a 70-minute conference call on Monday afternoon, Kerry derided Syrian President Bashar Assad as a “two-bit dictator” who will “continue to act with impunity,” and he urged lawmakers to back President Barack Obama’s plan for “limited, narrow” strikes against the Assad regime, Democratic sources on the call said.

As noted by Scott Lemieux, this is clearly a False Analogy:

Here’s the thing: for this to be a “Munich moment,” Assad would have to, you know, have both the desire and capacity to conquer most of the region. Since in fact it’s far from obvious that Assad will even be able to maintain power in his own country — let alone have the ability to overrun the Middle East — Assad isn’t a new Hitler and whatever he does Obama won’t be Chamberlain. And in this particular case the analogy goes beyond stupidity to being self-refuting — if Assad poses a threat comparable to Hitler in 1938, why only “limited” “surgical” airstrikes? Really, let’s leave these dumb analogies to fourth-tier winger bloggers, please. 

I couldn't have put it better myself.

h/t to Atrios

The gun control opponents go there.

In the wake of the horrors at Sandy Hook, many gun owners in America have gone off the deep end. Not wanting to acknowledge the clear correlation between gun ownership and gun violence in the US, these individuals have taken to arguing that even a modest attempt to limit the accessibility and availability of drugs guns is tantamount to a fascist takeover of the US. This phenomena is, oddly enough, not just a product of folk on the right wing (as evidenced by the Drudge Report headline) but also folks on the left. For example, Mike Adams, the "Health Ranger" has made a similar claim in a blog post titled, "Obama to follow in footsteps of Hitler, Stalin with 'executive order' disarmament of the American people."

In both cases these authors are guilty of a variety of fallacies. First up is the Slippery Slope fallacy. All these authors are explicitly arguing, "Restrictions on guns today, totalitarian dictatorship tomorrow." In fact, Mike Adams begins his post by making the following claim,

It's official. President Obama is going to march America down the dark halls of history by following in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and all the other gun-grabbing madmen who have exploited fear to achieve the total concentration of power in the hands of dictatorial government.

Adams further goes on to suggest that the Government wants to take everyone's guns so that they can then exterminate the entire population. Lest you think I am strawmanning Adams, here are his own words:

It's all coming out. This is their true agenda: mass murder and / or genocide. Those who support gun disarmament of the American people are supporting mass murder: Michael Moore, Piers Morgan, Biden, Obama, Cuomo... they are all proponents of mass murder. They are the very same kind of people who once supported Hitler and Stalin, and now they're creating a new Hitler in Barack Obama, the would-be dictator who is thrusting America straight into a new civil war.

If we think about the claim here for just a second, it should be clear how absurd it is. Why would the government need to take guns in order to kill the populace (ignoring for a moment the question of why the government would want to eliminate its tax bases)? The US military spends more money than every other military in the world combined. The military has no shortage of extremely powerful weapons (far more powerful than anything even the most hardened gun lover might have). If they wanted to exterminate the population, they could just do it. Why would they need to confiscate guns first? What use is an assault rifle against a tank or a predator drone? For these reasons and others, it is clear that this larger argument is a good example of a slippery slope.

Moving on, these articles are also nice examples of Straw Men in that they seem to be grossly misrepresenting the gun control position. As far as I know, the gun control debates are not about handguns or hunting rifles. The debates are about assault rifles with high capacity magazines. The government is not trying to take everyone's guns away, they are merely debating the possibility of limiting access to devices whose only purpose is killing large numbers of people very quickly. This is obviously a contentious issue for many people, but it is unclear to me what purpose making such weapons available to the general public could possibly serve other than ensuring that people are killed by them. In any case, to claim, as Adams does that the government wants to get all your guns is a straw man.

I will conclude by noting the obvious False Analogy of comparing Obama to Hitler or Stalin. Not much needs be said here, but the situation Obama is confronting today is radically different from the situations confronting Stalin and Hitler. To suggest that there is a similarity between the two is to commit a false analogy. 

Justice Scalia: Towering Intellect or Homophobe?

In a lecture series at Princeton promoting his new book, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was asked about his opinion on homosexuality. In answering this question, Justice Scalia commits an excellent example of the False Analogy fallacy. This is a fallacy in which one makes a comparison that isn't really apt or appropriate. As reported by the Associated Press, Scalia responded in the following manner:

 “It’s a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the ‘reduction to the absurd,’” Scalia told Hosie of San Francisco during the question-and-answer period. “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?”

Regarding the first part of Justice Scalia's comment, I must admit I am a bit confused as to what he is actually claiming. I am familiar with the reductio ad absurdum or reduction to the absurd as a style of argument. It involves showing that commitment to a particular belief or position will ultimately lead one to a contradiction, but I fail to see how it applies in this instance. I guess Justice Scalia is trying to claim that supporting homosexuality generates the contradiction, but I am not sure what the contradiction is or how it is generated by support for homosexuality.

Regarding the second part, here we have a nice example of a False Analogy. Justice Scalia seems to be arguing that there is some sort of equivalence between the bans on murder and homosexuality. I must say, try as hard as I can, I really can't see Justice Scalia's point. As near as I can tell, these two activities have almost nothing in common. One involves the permanent taking of another person's life and the other involves two people having consensual sex. In the question that Scalia poses, it seems that a perfectly reasonable answer would be, "Yes, we can have moral feelings about murder and other stuff." The fact that Justice Scalia seems unable to recognize this difference between laws against homosexuality and murder is deeply disturbing and raises serious questions about the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Electoral Denialism on the Left: The Case of Proposition 37

This will be a long one. Though I have written many posts in the past few days looking at Right-Wing denialism regarding the election, I want to pivot a bit and look at some denialism from the Left. In particular, I want to focus on a series of articles written by Jon Rappoport and posted at NaturalNews.com which claim that the election results for Proposition 37 (a proposition that would have mandated labeling of food with GMO ingredients) in California have been fixed. The articles in question can be found here and here, and I intend to unpack them in some detail because they are a treasure-trove of factual errors, fallacious reasoning and conspiracy mongering, and they reveal how a failure to think critically can lead someone to make some rather absurd and nonsensical claims.

More dishonest Fox graphics

Fox News continues to use misleading images to mislead and deceive its viewers. A latest example, identified by Media Matters, is the following:

The misleading aspect of this image is that the numbers used to compare the unemployment rate in in 2009 vs. the present day were not derived in the same way. The 7.8% number is the official unemployment rate which represents the percentage of unemployed people who are actively looking for a job. By contrast, the 14.7% figure is the real unemployment rate and also includes people who have stopped looking for work and part-timers who would like a full-time job. By taking two numbers that were calculated using different methodologies and then pretending that they are actually the same, Fox is able to make it appear as if unemployment has almost doubled under the Obama administration. This is an example of a False Analogy (because they are comparing two things that aren't really comparable) and Suppression of Relevant Data (because we are not being told the truth about these numbers and how they are calculated).

In fairness to Fox, they did issue a correction, noting that the number that should have been used for the real unemployment rate in January 2009 was 14.2%.

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

Bain or Bane

When I first started writing this blog, I knew eventually I would be talking about Rush Limbaugh. I don't listen to his show, but he is such an influential political personality that it he is impossible to avoid. I am fine with this as I know Limbaugh is a great source for fallacies and rhetorical errors. 

Well, the time has finally come as Rush Limbaugh has been discussing the latest manufactroversy (manufactured or made-up controversy) concerning the similarities between the name of the villain in the latest Batman film, Bane, and Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney's former private equity firm Bain Capital:

Have you heard this new movie, the Batman movie, what is it, The Dark Knight Lights Up or whatever the name is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, B-a-n-e. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time. The release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire-breathing four-eyed whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bain?

Let's unpack the fallacies. First, there is a very nice Loaded Question in the last sentence, with Limbaugh at least hinting at the possibility of some conspiracy or collusion between the Obama campaign and the makers of the film. As many have noted the possibility of any kind of collusion here is nonsensical. The character of Bane was created in 1993, and the film began principle photography over a year ago working from a script that had been in development from at least 2008. The idea that there was some grand conspiracy or collusion among the Obama campaign and Hollywood simply boggles the mind. At best, it seems we have a coincidence: the film happens to be coming out at the same time that the Obama campaign is going after Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital.

And this brings me to the next fallacy we can identify here, the False Analogy. To be fair to Limbaugh, he isn't really making a false analogy himself, merely discussing a false analogy made by other commentators, primarily the Democratic strategist Christopher Lehane, who appears to be the first to link Bane with Bain. That this connection is a false analogy should be obvious.

h/t to the Sean O'Neil

No, it's nothing like rape.

One of the most horrendous and insidious False Analogies is to compare something to rape. Rape is, perhaps, the most heinous of crimes as it involves a complete subjugation of the autonomy of one person to another. In this sense it is very similar to torture (and one could probably make a good case that rape is a form of torture).  Given how abhorrent rape is, many people nevertheless feel the need to describe any personal insult or idea they dislike as a form of rape. As just one recent example, Michael Reagan, eldest son of former president Ronald Reagan and syndicated radio show host, argues that President Obama's recent Department of Homeland Security directive preventing the deportation of DREAM-Act eligible individuals is comparable to the rape of young boys. As he writes:

Emperor Obama obviously could not care less about helping the Latino population. When Democrats had control of both houses of Congress he did absolutely nothing for them.
Now he’s doing to Latinos what Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky allegedly did to the children of Pennsylvania — using and abusing them. With his short-sighted politicking, Emperor Obama has hurt the Latino cause in the long run. [emphasis added]

Now whatever one thinks of Obama's actions or motives here comparing them to rape is clearly ludicrous. Obama did not sexually violate anyone under his supervision in a locker room shower, and to compare his action to that is, quite simply, wrong and shameful. (It is also somewhat disturbing how Reagan seeks to subtly minimize the severity of Sandusky's crimes. This is another object lesson in the use of euphemism)

Another common version of this particular false analogy is the claim made by a fan that some revamp or sequel to a beloved work from their youth "raped my childhood." This is a charge most commonly leveled against George Lucas and his Star Wars film series, and is nicely summarized in this NSFW clip from Brian Posehn's stand-up routine:

Now this is a rather funny bit, and there is a certain expectation that a comedian (unlike say a radio broadcaster) will be over the top and hyperbolic (see also this NSFW episode of South Park). However, unless George Lucas acquires a time machine and travels back in time to sexually assault you as a child, he didn't rape your childhood.

This general trend of comparing things one doesn't like to rape is extremely disturbing. In addition to being an obvious False Analogy it has a tendency to trivialize rape. The line of argument these false analogies suggest is as follows:

1. Seeing a lousy film isn't very pleasant, but it is no big deal. 
2. Seeing a lousy film is equivalent to rape. 
3. Therefore, rape must not be that big of a deal either.

And this of course is exactly wrong. I think people who use this False Analogy think that because rape is so awful, a comparison will show how awful the thing they dislike is. Unfortunately, they fail to realize that analogies go both ways. You may be trying to argue that A is similar to B in some respect, but you are just as likely to end up making the case that B is similar to A in some other respect. Thus, when one employs analogies, one must do so with great care and sensitivity to the terms of the comparison being made.

Piling on the Santorum

I must admit, I do enjoy writing about former Pennsylvania Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum. He seems so obsessed with the sex lives of other people and he is a great source of logical fallacies and terrible arguments. Witness the following video:


(the link to the vid)

The fallacy I want to focus on in this video is False Analogy. Before getting to the fallacy, I should quickly say that an analogy is a comparison between two things, one well-understood, one less so. The point of an analogy is to aid in comprehension of the less well known thing by comparing it to something that is more familiar or understandable. In practice analogies can often be tricky because  there can often be as many similarities as dissimilarities between the terms of the comparison. Nevertheless, there are clear instances when a fallacy goes awry, and this is the False Analogy: an analogy in which the comparison isn't really apt or appropriate.

In the clip above Santorum makes the following analogy: calling a same sex-union marriage is equivalent to calling a napkin a paper towel in that a napkin has certain metaphysical or ontological properties that make the label 'paper towel' incorrect in the same way that marriage has certain metaphysical or ontological properties that make allowing same-sex couples or polygamous/polyandrous groupings incorrect (I think I reconstructed that accurately, Santorum is not the clearest speaker in the world, and he seems to be speaking extemporaneously in the video).

Putting aside Santorum's shaky grasp of metaphysics, it should be pretty clear why this is a bad analogy. In particular, the case of a physical object and a societal contract are very different. Despite Santorum's claim that marriage predates civilization, it should be obvious to any clear-thinking person that marriage (particularly the kind that is sanctioned by the state, which is what these debates are about) is ultimately a contract, and contracts don't exist without a society and some sort of legal or cultural framework for the enforcement of those contracts. In addition, societies set rules regarding what kinds of contracts are and aren't legitimate as well as who is allowed to enter into a contract. In the US, for example, one can't enforce a contract that sells one person into slavery. Even if one were to draw up a piece of paper with legal sounding language spelling out the terms of the arrangement and both parties signed and were notarized, this contract would be considered null and void because one isn't allowed to make that kind of contract in the US. Similarly, in many states one can't enforce a marriage contract between members of the same-sex. In either case, there is no ontological or metaphysical component to these contracts, they are merely conventions adopted by particular societies, and as with any social convention society can decide to change or modify it. Prior to the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virgina in 1967 it was illegal in many states for a black person to marry a white person of the opposite sex. In that decision the Supreme Court redefined the legal conventions around marriage making such unions legitimate. Again, marriage is nothing more than what states or societies define it to be. It is this important difference between social conventions and physical objects that renders Santorum's argument a False Analogy.