No True Scotsmen: The moving goal post fallacy
Mel: All Scotsmen love Haggis
Ethan: My uncle doesn't like Haggis, and he is Scottish
Mel: Well, all true Scotsmen love Haggis
The problem in our politically correct world is the infatuation with this kind of thinking. When the term of dispute can be redefined in an ad-hoc manner, then we might as well be standing on political and ethical quick sand. When a Muslim terrorist says 'I want to blow up the airplane because Allah commands it', I tend to believe him. Liberals will tell us that he is confused, his theology is unrefined, he is not a true 'Scotsman'. They will tell us that the Islamist extremist concerns are political in nature, not religious, and that if he just had some of the nice things that we in the West have he wouldn't be so upset. I smell bullshit... I can think of only one human-created method of thought that allows for the existence pious hatred like we see in Muslim terrorists: faith. Yet we are called intolerant bigots for denouncing faith, by both the conservatives (who are faithful) and the liberals (who are pussies).
No society or individual has ever suffered for an overabundance of reason. Nobody has ever said, "Boy, that Mr. Bates sure isn't doing himself any good by thinking so logically!". Yet what system of thought convinces people its a good idea to murder abortion doctors, or inhibit free speech? What virtue, prized above all others in our society turns off the '1 + 1 = 2' section of our brains? Thats right.
Ethan: My uncle doesn't like Haggis, and he is Scottish
Mel: Well, all true Scotsmen love Haggis
The problem in our politically correct world is the infatuation with this kind of thinking. When the term of dispute can be redefined in an ad-hoc manner, then we might as well be standing on political and ethical quick sand. When a Muslim terrorist says 'I want to blow up the airplane because Allah commands it', I tend to believe him. Liberals will tell us that he is confused, his theology is unrefined, he is not a true 'Scotsman'. They will tell us that the Islamist extremist concerns are political in nature, not religious, and that if he just had some of the nice things that we in the West have he wouldn't be so upset. I smell bullshit... I can think of only one human-created method of thought that allows for the existence pious hatred like we see in Muslim terrorists: faith. Yet we are called intolerant bigots for denouncing faith, by both the conservatives (who are faithful) and the liberals (who are pussies).
No society or individual has ever suffered for an overabundance of reason. Nobody has ever said, "Boy, that Mr. Bates sure isn't doing himself any good by thinking so logically!". Yet what system of thought convinces people its a good idea to murder abortion doctors, or inhibit free speech? What virtue, prized above all others in our society turns off the '1 + 1 = 2' section of our brains? Thats right.
posted by doeman at
12:25 PM
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