Sunday, February 17 2008: This Place is so Great, that You can Leave
My brother showed me today on his BlackBerry a forwarded email he had received about an Iraqi women being reprimanded for speaking up in a grocery checkout line that she hoped American troops would stop bombing her relatives soon.
The response, by an old man, in support of the innocent babe-in-the-woods serviceman standing behind the "burqa-clad" woman who was the intended recipient of her barbs is that America's military defends her freedom of speech and is bringing that great gift to other countries in the world and that if she was more outspoken in her home country, then our military may not have "needed" to go there in the first place.
There are numerous problems with the email, which snopes does a handy job pointing out, but what really struck me were two things. First, the re-iteration of the myth that by executing wars of imperialist domination throughout the world, the American military is protecting my freedom when the fact is that our forces are currently spread so thin in Bush's quest to find and fight "al Qaeda" that we are ill-prepared to defend against another domestic attack. Second, the structure of the argument makes absolutely no sense when you break it apart and wash away all the bullshit, ra-ra-ra rhetoric.
1. America is great because the military defends our freedoms (including speech) and kills brown people in the name of spreading these freedoms to other countries in the world.
2. Malcontents are only free to voice their concerns because of the military's actions around the world.
3. If you exercise this freedom to express ideas that the Wal-Mart set disagrees with, you are obliged to leave.
Number three clearly shows that those advancing the argument don't really believe in the freedoms mentioned in number 1, or are too stupid to appreciate the deep implications of liberty. It's sort of the opposite of a circular argument, because the conclusion repudiates the premise rather than assuming it. What is that called?
The response, by an old man, in support of the innocent babe-in-the-woods serviceman standing behind the "burqa-clad" woman who was the intended recipient of her barbs is that America's military defends her freedom of speech and is bringing that great gift to other countries in the world and that if she was more outspoken in her home country, then our military may not have "needed" to go there in the first place.
There are numerous problems with the email, which snopes does a handy job pointing out, but what really struck me were two things. First, the re-iteration of the myth that by executing wars of imperialist domination throughout the world, the American military is protecting my freedom when the fact is that our forces are currently spread so thin in Bush's quest to find and fight "al Qaeda" that we are ill-prepared to defend against another domestic attack. Second, the structure of the argument makes absolutely no sense when you break it apart and wash away all the bullshit, ra-ra-ra rhetoric.
1. America is great because the military defends our freedoms (including speech) and kills brown people in the name of spreading these freedoms to other countries in the world.
2. Malcontents are only free to voice their concerns because of the military's actions around the world.
3. If you exercise this freedom to express ideas that the Wal-Mart set disagrees with, you are obliged to leave.
Number three clearly shows that those advancing the argument don't really believe in the freedoms mentioned in number 1, or are too stupid to appreciate the deep implications of liberty. It's sort of the opposite of a circular argument, because the conclusion repudiates the premise rather than assuming it. What is that called?
