Day: August 20, 2012

Was Romney jiving us, as Obama said?

On July 17 in Cincinnati, Obama took as a talking point, without denying it had been said, the question of Romney as felon, offering in the process a malapropism of some magnitude:

When asked whether he thought Romney’s actions were criminal as a top aide implied a few days earlier, the president steered away. “I think that the issue here is simply for Mr. Romney to talk about his business background in a way that jives with the facts,” he said. [italics added]

Jibes.

Moreover, discussing in this interview what makes the economy work, he opposes Romney for saying if big investors do well, everyone does well, offering his position that if middle class does well, everybody does well — probably a fair capsule statement of supply-side vs. consumption-side economics. 

Question is, however, what makes middle class do well?

The Sgt. Friday approach to knowing things

Have been wondering about fact-checking operations, which claim to have the strict facts when it’s often a matter of argument threads, as opposed to spelling a name or getting a date right — except, of course, when there’s argument about a name or a date. 

Hence, I much support this from Red Statesman Erick E. in piece about Rep. Todd Akin’s rape comments.  (And is E.E. sure about spelling of his first name?) 

Erick (sp?):

Politifact disagrees with the statement about Obama and infanticide, but as is often the case, Politifact is obfuscating what Barack Obama said to help a Democrat. Politifact is, after all, the Walter Duranty of fact checkers complete with a Pulitzer Prize.

Oh, and would Sun-Timeswoman Lynn Sweet, recommender of Politifact, take note?  Thank you, Lynn.  And Lynn, please broaden your list of resources.  Better recommend rabid promoters pro and con any position, keeping in mind Norman Mailer’s comment to Chicago 7 judge Julius Hoffman many years ago, “But Your Honor, facts without nuance are nothing.”  

Another point, Hegel, and Plato long before him, had it right about dialectics.  It’s a jungle out there, full of charges and counter-charges.  You have to be good at sifting things.  These fact-checkers claim a lot for themselves but sometimes offer a cookbook approach, comforting to some, indeed a naive approach. 

What we have here is a problem of communication, true, but more specifically one of epistemology. 

Think about it.

Argument detective caught in act

Faulty principle proposed by faulty-argument detective:

. . . why does the rarity of the issue have any sway in this debate? Especially when we’re talking about rape victims? Your justification for controversial action should not be: “Well, it only affects a very small minority of the population.” Instead, you should stop dodging the question and give a firm answer with rationale justification. Otherwise you are just using extremely faulty logic which shouldn’t be taken seriously . . .

Rarity-sway matters often, as when rarity-threatened public funds are allocated to prevent occurrences of a problem or even to remedy effects of bad thing.  Which is where big problems deserve more attention.

It’s a public-policy question that should not be dodged.