Logical Fallacy #24 - Middle Ground

  

This is the big one, kids.  We get this one every day in every way.  This is what gives us the bullshit of "Both Sides" that we see and hear from the Press Poodles all the time.

It doesn't mean nobody should ever compromise on anything.  It just means that some things are in fact black or white, right or wrong, up or down, true or false.  And we have to be well-informed enough to be able to spot the Fallacy when it pops up.

Argument to moderation (Latin: argumentum ad temperantiam; also known as [argument from] middle ground, false compromise, gray fallacy and the golden mean fallacy)[1] is an informal fallacy which asserts that the truth can be found as a compromise between two opposite positions. This fallacy's opposite is the false dilemma

An individual operating within the false compromise fallacy believes that the positions being considered represent extremes of a continuum of opinions, and that such extremes are always wrong, and the middle ground is always correct.[1] This is not always the case. Sometimes only X or Y is acceptable, with no middle ground possible. Additionally, the middle ground fallacy can create the rather illogical situation that the middle ground reached in the previous compromise now becomes the new extreme in the continuum of opinions; all one must do is present yet another, radically opposed position, and the middle-ground compromise will be forced closer to that position. In politics, this is part of the basis behind Overton window theory.

Smelt It, Dealt It

The Daily Show
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hat tip = Raw Story

Today's Lovable Rube

The ice bucket challenge - redneck style.

Today's Pix

 

Thoughts On The Side

“It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.” --Judith Herman, MD - Trauma and Recovery

Mike Brown gets buried in more ways than one.

We jump up and down on it for a while, but then somebody blows up a building or there's a bus crash or another jack-wad celebrity gets caught nanny-humping, and suddenly we're heading back for the group rate on self-lobotomy at the National Center For Social Amnesia.

Maybe we can get some things done that need to get done in places like Ferguson once some of the glare fades away, but don't count on it.  

If it turns out that Holder and his merry band of FBI careerists find anything that substantively exonerates Darren Wilson, we're right back in some very deep shit.

But if they scorch Wilson, & / or if they confirm what looks to be a pretty obvious pattern of abuse and corruption in Ferguson, we're likely to hear a very loud chorus of Obama The Race Hustler on an endless loop.

Mainly tho', why does it seem like somebody's always pushing us pretty hard to get back to an "equilibrium" that ends up sounding like "Both Sides", and feeling like Paralysis?

You First, Lady

hat tip(s) = Crooks & Liars

Andrea Tantaros wants to lead the parade of Awesomely Slaughter-'Em-All American Exceptionality into northern Iraq to make ISIS respect us for goin' in there and mowin' 'em down.



No wait - she wants you to lead the parade...no wait - she wants your kids...wait...she says it's disgraceful that "we" aren't over there lighting them up, while she sits in a very comfortable TV studio being all 35-ish, and holding a college diploma, and looking for all the world to be in pretty good shape, and so she's obviously the near-perfect candidate for enlistment in the US Military branch of her choice, and with her eagerness and her Gung Ho fighting spirit, I'm pretty sure she could take a few good men over there and clean out every snake in the nest in a blaze of Sgt Rock-level glory that'd give Audie Murphy self esteem issues.

So, no, she doesn't want any of that really.  She's there (ostensibly) to sell Reverse Mortgage scams to the rubes who love to hear her slag Obama at every opportunity, even tho' her real function is to give the Viagra-munching DumFux News fans a little taste of the dark-haired dominatrix of their post-adolescent fantasies so they can rub out a quick one before scootering down to the mailbox to pick up their Social Security checks.

This game gets more than a little boring, but what really grates on my soul is that I have to agree with Dan Rather.



Fuck.

Monday Music

Stand By Me (cover) --John Lennon





Albatross --Fleetwood Mac





Hurt (cover) --Johnny Cash





Tell Me Why --Neil Young





Waiting On The World To Change --John Mayer





Violin --Amos Lee





Sad Eyes --Maria Muldaur

Would The Real Media Bias Please Stand Up

From the Twitter thing called #iftheygunnedmedown, asking which picture would the Press Poodles use to tell the story:

Now then - what do we usually see when the Librul Press tells us about what's goin' on?

WHITE SUSPECT

That's how the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal chose to present the story of Amy Bishop, a former college professor who eventually pleaded guilty to killing three colleagues and wounding three others at a faculty meeting in 2010.

BLACK VICTIM

And that's the headline AL.com ran about the shooting death of a 25-year-old black man in Alabama earlier this year.

WHITE SUSPECT

This is how the Staten Island Advance covered the case of Eric Bellucci, a mentally ill New York man who allegedly killed his parents.

BLACK VICTIM

Meanwhile, NBC News ran this headline during ongoing coverage of the Trayvon Martin killing.

WHITE SUSPECT

This Fox News headline quoted friends shocked that 15-year-old Jared Michael Padgett had entered his high school heavily armed and killed a classmate, injured a teacher and took his own life.

BLACK VICTIM

But in Florida, this headline in the Ledger focused on a police account that made the death of a black 19-year-old seem somehow expected, or at least unsurprising.

WHITE SUSPECT

In the wake of the mass shooting in Santa Barbara, California, earlier this year, theWhittier Daily News offered a headline showing one man's disbelief that Elliot Rodger could have committed such a crime.

BLACK VICTIM

Earlier this month, the New York Daily News ran this headline, carrying comments by the Ohio attorney general that appeared to defend police after killing a black man at a Walmart.

WHITE SUSPECT

This was the headline given to an Associated Press story at Mlive.com about an Ohio teen who later pleaded guilty to a school shooting in which three students were killed and two were wounded.

BLACK VICTIM

But when an unarmed father of two was killed by a police officer while entering a vehicle that contained his own children, the Los Angeles Times served up this claimfrom officials.

WHITE SUSPECT

In 2008, 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger was accused of plotting to bomb his South Carolina high school. Ohio's Chronicle Telegram wanted readers to know that he was a straight-A student, running an AP story with this headline.

BLACK VICTIM

And according to the Omaha World-Herald, this is what you needed to know about Julius B. Vaughn, a 19-year-old gunned down in Omaha last year:

WHITE SUSPECT

Kerri Ann Heffernan was charged in 2012 in a string of bank robberies and stores.This headline at Wicked Local wonders how she'd come so far from her days as a smart high school student.

BLACK VICTIM

Of 22-year-old black man Deon Sanders' killing in Ohio earlier this year, WKBN's headline said "gang member," and that apparently was enough.

Today's Quote

"If the poor could be organized to spit at the halls of power simultaneously, corruption would be washed away in a righteous flood." --anon

Ed Note: I can't find an attribution for this - if you know who said it, please let me know.

Today's Joke

A Jew, a Methodist, and an atheist walk into a bar.

They order a few rounds, and they have a good time - because they're not assholes.

They don't invite their Muslim friend because they know he's devout, so he doesn't drink, and they respect his choices.  They'll catch up with him later at the ballgame.

The End