Sapere Aude!

Study Finds McCain Voters Lost Testosterone After Presidential Election

Study Finds McCain Voters Lost Testosterone After Presidential Election.

(Oct. 21) -- Young men who voted for John McCain lost more than a presidential election last November. A study says their testosterone level plummeted.

Is it wrong that I find that hilarious?

Dear RightWingers, Do You Understand the Difference Between "Some" and "All"?

I'm a little late posting this clip from The Colbert Report.  In it Colbert takes on the "black-washing" of criticism against Obama.

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I remember a time not so very long ago when anybody that criticized Bush was labeled a "terrorist sympathizer" or "un-American" by many of the people who seem to have conveniently rediscovered their principles now that a Dem is in office.  Or they distort the claim for their own ends. Just check out how Morning Joe takes Carter's claim about some of the opposition to Obama and turns it into a claim about all the opposition to Obama.  What are we to make of somebody that takes a claim about some of the opposition to Obama and turns it into a claim about all the opposition to Obama so that they can accuse the person who made the original claim about some of it of falsely accusing people of racism?  I'm not inclined to think much of them as a critical thinker or a reliable source of information. 

Meanwhile back in reality it's pretty clear who is injecting race into our political discourse.  Limbaugh and Beck characterize Obama as prejudiced against white people and then claim that motivates his policies in order to generate opposition to his agenda.   Then they cry foul when somebody suggests that some of the opposition to Obama is racially motivated?  Seriously?  I'm supposed to think that Birthers, the folks that claim Obama is a Muslim, and think his policies are really a plan for reparations to take money from white people to black people have a "principled opposition" to Obama?  Give me a break.

I don't think all criticism of Obama is racially motivated or that there are no principled objections to his agenda. But, I very much doubt that people who refer to blacks as "niggers" or exhibit overtly racist attitudes about blacks have a principled objection to his policies since I imagine their racist beliefs and their political beliefs probably influence one another.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

A conservative philosopher writes:

Some philosophers (mainly progressives) seem uninterested in argumentation.They are not interested either in providing reasons for their beliefs or in finding fault with the reasons of those who disagree with them. What these philosophers tend to do, instead of arguing, is explain why those who disagree with them hold the views they do. It is said, for example, that people who oppose homosexual "marriage" are homophobes (or latent homosexuals). It is said that people who supported the invasion of Iraq are warmongers (or worse: brainwashed by the Bush administration!). I've even heard it said that philosophers should not discuss whether torture is justified in ticking-bomb situations, because that will make people think that torture is justified in other situations. (Dumb people!)  On questions such as whether the invasion of Iraq was justified, or whether there should be an absolute legal prohibition of torture, or whether homosexual "marriage" should be allowed, their minds are made up.

What empirical evidence supports his claim that mainly progressive philosophers are uninterested in argumentation?  Did he do a survey?  Making assertions about facts from the armchair seems hardly a good way to proceed with an argument.  Interestingly, we see that this conservative philosopher seems to fall short on this one too. Consider the following:

You hear a lot of talk among progressives about "deliberative" and "participatory" democracy. The idea is that ordinary people should come together to air their differences and deliberate about common ends. Nobody is beholden to anybody else; everybody is entitled to speak; everybody's interests are to be respected and, if possible, accommodated.

It's a lie. Progressives don't want to hear from ordinary people. They want to govern ordinary people. They want to do what they think is best for ordinary people, even if the people in question don't want it (or aren't sure they want it). Call it elitism; call it paternalism; call it the vanguard of the proletariat; it comes to the same thing, and it stinks.

The empirical research suggests otherwise.  It suggests that conservatives are more inclined to impose their morality on others.  See the Baylor study on American Piety.

Sarah Palin's Persistent Lack of Concern for Facts

After claiming that Obama's death panels would terminate her son's life, Sarah Palin called for civility in the debate over health care.  But, she's back at it again.

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin defended her claim that the Democratic health care

proposal would create “death panels” in a statement Wednesday night slamming President Barack Obama.

“Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system, these ‘unproductive’ members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care,” Palin wrote in a note on her Facebook page.

“The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled ‘Advance Care Planning Consultation.’ With all due respect, it’s misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients,” she continued.

“Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often ‘if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program.’"

Now, here is that section of the Bill.  Nothing in it implies involuntary euthanasia.  Palin is a liar.

G.I. Joe Movie Deemed Insufficiently "American" by Ideologues

Apparently, some people think that the G.I. Joe movie is just not "American" enough.  I guess Team America wasn't enough for them.

Police Break Up Screaming Crowd Outside Tampa Town Hall On Health Care Reform

Police Break Up Screaming Crowd Outside Tampa Town Hall On Health Care Reform.

Police officers were called to calm down an unruly crowd outside a health care reform town hall meeting in downtown Tampa, Florida on Thursday evening, according to local news reports.

Angry protesters screamed, yelled and banged on windows as officers hurried to guard the entrances to the facility, where U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor was trying to discuss the various health care reform proposals being debated in Congress. One photojournalist said that a fistfight broke out inside the building, reports WTSP.

It's gettin' real.  At least some of these folks do not want to discuss or debate health care, they want to fight about health care.  So, it's not really possible to have a town hall meeting about it.  Keep it up Republicans, you're going to drive that bus right over the edge.  Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh has been busy calling Obama a fascist.  To recap, then, health care reform is 'fascist,' but acting like a brownshirt at a town hall meeting is 'democracy in action.'

Maddow on Manfuctured Dissent

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I would not be surprised if they were doing this sort of thing. Although I had been studying political philosophy for a while, I do not think I had really become fully politically conscious until I watched the 2000 election go down. I was a registered Republican then, although I did not vote in that election. If they are orchestrating these protests, then effectively their political practices quite literally undermine the material conditions required for democracy, i.e. a public sphere where citizens can deliberate and engage in rational debate over the issues.

More Bad Commentary from a Conservative Philosopher

A conservative philosopher comments on Raymond Geuss' book Political Philosophy and Real Politics:

Does Professor Geuss think that only ordinary people, i.e., nonintellectuals, labor under illusions? (Recall Barack Obama's quip about the people of Pennsylvania "cling[ing] to their guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them.") What about the Marxist illusion of class conflict? What about the progressive illusion of the blank slate? What about the feminist illusion of the indistinguishability of the sexes? What about the egalitarian illusion that there are no races? Do intellectuals such as Professor Geuss see through their own illusions? If not, then they are in no better shape than the ordinary people on whom they look down.

What's with the Tu Qouque, numb-nuts?

Where is Orly Taitz's Birth Certificate?

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I'm never going to go to Taitz for legal services.

Jon Stewart on Glenn Beck's Irrationalism

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