In my latest Epoch Times column I parse modern efforts to hide what we celebrate on Dec. 25 behind “Season” and “Winter” greetings, lights and other obvious clues.
“An acquaintance, hearing someone speculate that some of the advocates of defunding the police may be less than transparent about their motives, asked, ‘Isn’t that just a conspiracy theory?’ Another fellow I spoke with reacted to someone’s suggestion that not all sexual acts are morally equivalent by demanding, ‘Isn’t that just homophobia?’ And a student responded to the reasoning of a religious author by sneering, ‘Isn’t that just a religious argument?’ What’s I find interesting is that although all three persons thought they were heading off fallacies, actually all three were committing them. The kinds they committed were fallacies of distraction. Each one deflected the question instead of considering it, then considered the deflection a rebuttal. My acquaintance didn’t inquire into whether the people in question really were concealing their motives – much less whether someone who suggests concealment is necessarily suggesting cooperation in the concealment – much less whether anyone ever does conceal his motives – much less whether anyone ever does cooperate in the act – much less whether that could have been happening in the case at hand. The second fellow didn’t consider whether the motive for making a suggestion automatically disqualifies it – much less whether the only possible motive for making moral distinctions among sexual acts is a pathological fear or ‘phobia’ – much less whether all such acts really are morally equivalent. And the student didn’t reflect upon whether the religious writer’s argument really was premised on his faith – much less whether an argument might be valid even if it were premised on faith – much less whether the argument at hand was valid. I sometimes hear that people need more training in formal inference. Maybe so. But we have a much greater need to learn about ‘informal’ fallacies, errors that occur not because we violate the rules of inference but because we are distracted from the point we are discussing.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” December 9 2021
In my latest National Post column I praise the retired general who blasted woke culture in front of Canada’s elite, and the serving officers who dared applaud him.
In my latest Epoch Times column I recall and honour all including those who vanished in the long, unending fight for liberty and decency.
“This girl reminds me of Dreyfus. The army does not believe in her innocence.”
A joke apparently from Sigmund Freud, quoted by Michael Potemra in a review of F.H. Buckley’s The Morality of Laughter in National Review June 30, 2003
In my latest Epoch Times column I defend the desire of normal people to protect pleasant neighbourhoods from social engineering cement.
“Of late years wealth has made us greedy, and self-indulgence has brought us, through every form of sensual excess, to be, if I may so put it, in love with death both individual and collective.”
Titus Livius (aka “Livy”) The Early History of Rome
“People tell me they get depressed reading about the Middle East. Well, I get depressed writing about it. There’s supposed to be progress in human history, but the Middle East is moving backward.”
Leonard Stern in Ottawa Citizen January 17, 2009