Perhaps I should first preface my meaning of the word sophistry. I am referring to the Greek classical meaning of the word. Protagoras created the Sophist philosophy not to arrive at any great truth, rather to create a school to teach effective argument skills. The opinion does not matter, what matters is that the sophist win the argument.
From at least the seventeenth century, lawyers have been taught this fine art. Today it has been honed to a high art form. President Obama has been educated in this philosophy his entire life. Thus when he formulates an argument, he is simply drawing on his educational background all the tools necessary to win in the court of public opinion.
But what happens when sophistry runs counter to empirical data? How does one lead, when his argument is not based on history or even reasonable theory, but based instead on his skills as a rhetorician?
If the sophist (political leader) wins his argument, and his "opinion" runs counter to the facts, we are left with a less desirable outcome. Let's look at a real world example. During his campaign Barack Obama stated that he would like to raise the capital gains tax rate. This is based on no history, or sound economic theory. In fact, history shows us time and time again that raising capital gains tax rates lowers capital investment, lowers revenues to the government and stifles economic growth.
The Republicans running for office around the country were clear on this point. They wanted to keep capital gains tax rates at current levels, or reduce the rate further. But they lost. How can this be? The obvious answer is that the rhetoric and sophistry of the Democrats was better than that of the Republicans.
One issue does not normally make or break a campaign, so lets look a little deeper. One area of the current cause of the recession that is often overlooked is the price of oil. When the housing collapse first started to accelerate, it didn't accelerate in a vacuum. Higher oil prices were pinching the middle class. Thus as interest rates were adjusting and house payments were going up, the cost to fill up your gas tank went up as well. Supply and demand is the basic tenant of any economic theory. Yet Democrats were able to win the argument against increasing oil supplies which would have lowered costs. In a strange twist, the collapsing economy has caused demand to fall, and oil prices fell accordingly. There was no logic at all to the Democrats enviornmental concerns as there hasn't been a spill from an off shore oil rig in decades, and the small foot print of a rig in Alaska in AnwR would have been all but unnoticeable. Excellent argument was able to overcome empirical evidence. This same dynamic is played out in global warming.
No issue is more harmed by this Protagorian Sophistry than science itself. Those who master the art of rhetoric have succeeded in removing intelligent design from classrooms across the country. But increasing empirical evidence has rendered Darwins evolutional theory as hollow. The evolution of the species may not be in doubt, but how was life created? What cosmic accident cause the perfect aligning of all of these protein strands and amino acids to create the first strand of DNA? Mr. Dawes, a world famous atheist says it is in fact intelligent design. Surprised? How is this possible? Dawes says that aliens from another planet were the intelligent designers. The logical man of course asks the natural follow up; "Who created the aliens?".
My point in all of this is that while sophists make for excellent corporate lawyers, they in fact don't make good leaders. Leadership from Alexander, to Elizabeth, to Obama must always carefully consider logic and reason. In political history, logic and reason are best derived from a thorough understanding of history.
To quote Socrates: "Who would you hire to fix your shoes?" A cobbler of course. So I ask you; "Who would you hire to fix your sink? A plumber of course. Who would you hire to fix a technical problem in government?"
Author is Eric Gurr
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gawd .... i can't write worth a darn tonight.
I agree with you on that Brinmat but I that doesn't interfere with reality. God is ... that basically means that everything fits with scientifically proven reality. God defines science and all the natural principles so its not hard to believe things as being. It is just a matter of perception and what you attribute reality to. The force of creation is God in my mind.
Emotions can be measured and observed through brain activity and release of certain chemicals that stimulate parts of the brain. Do we fully understand it? Of course not. But it is measurable and quantifiable biochemically. Much like gravity is still a very mysterious basic force of physics which we don't really understand *why* it happens, but we can clearly see it and observe it.
Exactly Berni, I think we are in agreement on that.
Emotion can be proven. Someone I love dies, I cry. I show grief and sadness. Therefore visible prrof via tears, audible from the sounds of sniffling, one can touch the tears, smell is out and I do not recommend tasting ones sadness. That is weird to me. I refuse to believe in the mystical man in the sky, be it any religion.
Quantum physics has determined that we are made up of energy and God is made up of energy and everything in this world is made up of energy. Can energy be seen? Not really. Can it be felt? Not really. Does it exist? Yes in everything.
So you believe in things that can't be proven as long as you don't call those things God?
One can feel love, Lucky. I cannot feel God. Let me rephrase it in not so general terms. I believe in science and things that I can experience via one of the 5 senses or emotional experience. I feel love, therefore it exists.
Demo- Can scientist prove that I loved my father who is now dead? The fact of the matter is that love can't be proven which is very similar to the concept that God's existence can not be proven to a scientific certainty. In science, for a theory to the be proven you must demonstrate the idea to be true by a mathematical proof, for example, or perhaps by some sort of experiment, like boiling water to prove what temperature water becomes steam. Because I can't prove with science that I love my father would that mean that my love did not exist?
I busted my parents when I was 8 Progress.
I did not like Silent Movie, I admit that. I remember getting a kitten when i was like 6 or 7 and I asked if we could name it "titwillow" (Blazing Saddles) and my parents either laughed at or with me. I am still not 100% sure there. I did not get in trouble, nor did we name the cat that.
Aside from DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT, everything Brooks ever did was gold. He's one of the few who could do cl***ic comedy fifty years ago (The 2000-year-old Man) and still be relevant today (The Producers on Broadway). I only hope, so long as there is such a thing, the line DON'T BE STUPID, BE A SMARTIE, COME AND JOIN THE NAZI PARTY will always be spoken by Brooks, no matter how they have to paste it in.
Ahhh, the Santa analogy. I recall finding out Santa was my parents. (Sorry, Jamescart! Don't read this! LOL!) I was devastated.....I even brought this up in a Sunday School setting once; and thought I was going to get lynched. (People can be so intolerant of critical thinking at church.) That is why I wonder if the whole concept of Santa Claus is questionable. But I digress.....
Mel Brooks is awesome. Though I should not have found it humorous but my eldest child quoted SpaceBalls to me and I laughed. Though, I was admittedly in the wrong there. :) I was raised on Brooks' work and am proud of it.
Lucky, and Progress. I see your points, I just see the "choice" as an easy one. WE choose as children to believe in Santa Claus and then have that taken away from us. I see God as Santa and I do not like surprises.
Actually, if I thought anyone would go for a Mel Brooks reference it would be Wiz. But I'll take a pat on the back from Demo any day. Thank you.
Hmmm....interesting point of reason, Demo. I have heard many make that claim. Unfortunately, when it came right down to it; it was not so much about God existing, but just what that would entail if in fact He did. It makes me think of the story of Joseph wrestling w/ an angel. For God to exist, we must accept all the other things in this world that are inspired, and suppressed, among the m***es. Then we ask why God can not just reveal Himself to everyone so that all would believe?.....Unbelief, in itself, is a choice. The cliche that "seeing is believing" is actually contrary to the way the human mind works. As breakthroughs in Neural Psychology are finding out today, the scientific proof is overwhelming that we interpret what we see according to what we already believe. Those who choose to not believe in a god do so by choice; and thus everything that they sense (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, etc.) is interpretted into a reasoned justification to reinforce that choice. The same is true for those on the other side-that believe in a god.........So, what then is the litmus test? Who decides if God exists? No one does. He either exists; or He does not. Our human reason and understanding has no bearing on the matter. Even science itself can not answer this question since, according to most theologies, their god created science, and all the rules thereof, in the first place. Therefore, He/She can not be bound by it.......So, in point, we can play this gotcha game with one another until the Milky Way implodes on itself; but I guarantee that no one side will win unless it is by pure extermination alone-a practice in which both sides, unfortunately, have attempted in less-civilized times.......Arch.
why go anon friday?
Lucky,
Lower capital gains tax rates bring in money because they are lower than marginal rates on income, and because they lower the risk level of an investment. If you have to put up one million dollars in an investment, and you stand to make $500,000, you make a decision based on two factors, the cost of the taxes, and the ***essed risk. If the risk is a bit high, and taxes on your investment are 25%, or 30%, you might as well just generate the income. You will find no case studies that show higher cap gains rates increase government revenues and increase economic growth.
That is where the sacrifice comes in.
Not true demo. Plenty of people do have their manmade gods ... but I believe in god not any sort of manmade god. To me ... God is. I don't personify god to rationalize it. In my mind ... God is nature.
I know but I do not think that it will fit in the apartment.
Well, if you are going to get a pet and name it Yahweh .... why don't you get a bull? In particular ... make sure it is a golden one. That is where the worship of yahweh comes from.
god and that statue have one thing in common. they are both manmade
lol. not good enough. though i may get a pet for cubs and i's place and name it yahweh
I have a statue. I call the statue God. God exists. There is your proof.
Until i have undeniable evidence that there is a God and that he does not meet the criteria that the "God sucks" profile and I posted on the "Why Christians are Stupid" caucus, I will gladly tell my kids there is no God. There is however science and i can see that working daily.
*LUCKY: Obama wants to wealthy to pay more for the "well being" of everyone.* ARCH: Uh oh! Here we go again with that whole "redistributing the wealth" stuff!
Arjay, you officially get a 10 from me. You heard it here folks... Sorry for any misspellings or whatever right now, but the percocets are kicking in nicely for this awful sinus infection.... Arjay gets a 10 for the following.....
"Whenever I hear of such "philosophers", I am reminded of the Mel Brooks character in HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART I, he is a philosopher having to file for unemployment, and Bea Arthur is his case worker. When Brooks tells Arthur he is a philosopher, Arthur says roundly, "Oh, I see, a bu11sh1t artist. Did you bu11sh1t last week? Did you try to bu11sh1t last week?"
THAT IS MY FAVORITE SCENE IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE! With the whole "Spanish Inquisition" musical segment being a VERY close second. For this moment in time, Arjay rocks.
Let me be devils advocate for a second. On capital gains taxes - you stated that "history shows us time and time again that raising capital gains tax rates lowers capital investment, lowers revenues to the government and stifles economic growth." That is not so cut and dry. I am not sure where there is evidence in lowered revenue to the government but it seems to me that less taxes = less government revenue. To raise revenue over the long run, capital gains tax cuts would need to have extraordinarily huge, positive effects on saving, investment, and economic growth that virtually no respected expert or institution believes they have. Experts are not even sure that the long-term economic effects of capital gains tax cuts are positive rather then negative. As for Obama's point of view, I can understand it. It is a matter of perspective. The minority of middle-cl*** Americans who do benefit from capital gains and dividend tax cuts only receive a very small benefit. This is because capital gains and dividend income is highly concentrated at the very top of the income scale. The Tax Policy Center estimates that the highest-income 5 percent of U.S. households receive 83 percent of total capital gains income. From a Democratic perspective, capital gains tax cuts either make the nation’s long-term budget problems even more severe or consume scarce resources (primarily to the benefit of the most well-off) that could otherwise be used for purposes such as moving toward universal health coverage or improving the educational system (hence ... Obamas plan). It is usually the most wealthy that benefit from these capital gains tax cuts and they do not necessarily re-invest the income gained from these cuts. They put the money into savings. Most Americans stock is in the form of 401(k)s, IRAs and other tax-preferred saving accounts. They do not pay taxes when their stocks within those accounts go up, so a change in the tax rate doesn’t affect them. Obama wants to wealthy to pay more for the "well being" of everyone.
Right, if they're lusting for power they're in it for the wrong reasons.
and doesn't asks for the position either berni. if they do have to ask, they won't be that good. at least in my experience. Look at George washington, never asked for it, and then walked away after 8 years.
I think a good leader is someone who has the best interests of all concerned in his heart.
FNG, when my kids ask me if there is a God, I always tell them that's something they have to figure out for themselves. I have no problem telling them why I believe there is a God, but I never tell them they have to believe the way I do. As such, in my house, my wife is a Jehovah's Witness, I am a Red-Letter Christian with Buddhist tendencies, my sister-in-law is Wiccan, and the kids are all over the board. And I kind of like it like that.
I would include almost every professional politician. They're all full of it, and can make even clearly stated laws sound like it means something else. It's what they do..... The question remains - Who in politics would make a GOOD leader? I don't know if that can be answered. There are a few who come closer to the idea of a good leader than most. Even the military is mostly political now.
Sophistry must be a euphamism for Bull****. in all seriousness Gurr, the fact remains that it is not fats which elect a politician but the message. As you yourself pointed out, on all issue it was Ron Paul that actually had the broadest appeal. But do in large part to an apparent "black out" in major news outlets, he fell far short in the polls. this is more a demonstration of the ruling elite dumbing down the m***es thru government intervention than it is skill in arguement. you should read my last blog that was an exert from Road to serfdom.
Well nice debate, Goodnite all.
Limiting royalties to big fat Saudi Oil shieks by producing more at home is probably a good idea.
The country doesn't drill for oil. Oil companies do. They do it to make a profit. Not to lower oil prices.
TheWiz,
That is a static view. At some point when the economy recovers, demand will recover and price will rise.
To Arjay's point, the purpose of the article was to foster a discussion on how you think, and thus formulate your opinion. One thing you gotta give U4prez credit over huffpo, dailykos and other sites is that the debate is usually fairly logical. At times it devolves in to politics, but I believe the debate on this site is much more intelligent, logical, and reasonable than what goes on in Washington. I think that's because we are not lawyers trained in formulating arguments regardless of the truth.
Wiz well - there's only so many oil tankers that can wait off the coast. Producing more oil here is probably a good idea no matter how you look at it, as long as the country can benefit economically from it.
I heard just now On TV that you can't bring guns or ammunition to the inauguration. Is that true! hahahahahahahahahahaha. It's nice to be so well-informed.
When my children ask me if God exists, I tell them I don't know and am quite comfortable in doing so.
I don't know why you guys think increase in oil supply has much to do with price. Price dictates the supply, not the other way around. Right now oil is trading at $37 a barrel. Oil tankers are sitting off the coasts waiting for the price to increase. And that requires an increase in demand. Demand is down, inflation is under control, intrest rates are low so they is a shift away from commodities and all of this has more to do with prices than supply. We already have an increase in supply coming from Iraq since 2006 and they are now drilling at prewar capacity. Any oil company would be crazy to start drilling new wells with all these factors in place.
Brinmat, you said there was an evolutionary argument, and I supposed you were going to say that life "evolved" which it could not do until it was created. So I'm with you on this. They are clearly distinct issues and Darwin should not, and cannot logically speaking be the foundation of an atheistic belief system. That would be sophistry.
It's not so much about those things, FNG, as it is about how people try to convince others on those subjects.
Arjay just a note: an important part of this essay was on creationism, evolution, intelligent design.
I'm always impressed with the directions a conversation goes. This one started with sophisty and Pre-Socratic spindoctoring, and now we're talking about God and Creation. I guess you can read a lot from just one article.
"Brinmat, the debate about evolution always devolves in to a debate about the evolution of the species." Which is what evolution is about... living organisms evolve. "Who created life in the first place is the real question." - That topic is abiogenesis, which is an entirely separate issue from evolution, biologically speaking.
Funny thing is, when it comes to God, anyone can say just about anything and it can't be proven or disproven.
The chances are only 1 in 9,123,233,766,201 that God exists, as defined by any one person, or as described in any religion. How's that for an opinion backed up with "fact"? Ü
fng, excellent question, and the funny thing is, I think the answer is, "no".
Is it necessary that we have an answer to these pressing questions?
No answer can fully answer the question of where everything came from, though. If a God created everything, then who or what created the God?
I should have logged in before making the two prior comments.
Brinmat, the debate about evolution always devolves in to a debate about the evolution of the species. Who created life in the first place is the real question. If I accept evolution, don't ***ume I am a creationist anymore than Dawes is. I also go back even further to the big bang. My question to the atheists is, "What blew up?"
Arjay, this is exactly why I prefaced "sophistry" in the first paragraph. The word doesn't mean fallacious in its original context. I also agree, and point out, that this approach to rhetoric in law goes back well before Obama, and indeed modern times. You are correct in castigating me for not including the entire American body politic, but I get lazy, and Obama is the news of the day, so I went with the more obvious cases recently in the news. I would have addressed McCain more, but he wasn't an attorney, and probably doesn't know either meaning of the word sophist.
I like how Gurr uses sophistry as a slam against Obama, when American sophistry has a long and enduring history. With a modern "right wing noise machine" devoted to the art of sophistry and living well under the tutelage of such sophists as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and, later, the Left's answer with Al Franken and Stephanie Miller, such hubris was long and strong long before Barack Obama hit the national scene. Such roadside philosophers would sell their abilities to the highest bidder, much as Fox News or Air America have stockpiled their scheduled with the best spindoctors they can find. While I dismiss Gurr as a partisan for slamming the incoming president, were he to expand his argument for the entire American body politic, he would be right on the money. Whenever I hear of such "philosophers", I am reminded of the Mel Brooks character in HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART I, he is a philosopher having to file for unemployment, and Bea Arthur is his case worker. When Brooks tells Arthur he is a philosopher, Arthur says roundly, "Oh, I see, a bu11sh1t artist. Did you bu11sh1t last week? Did you try to bu11sh1t last week?" That's pretty much what comes to mind when I watch The O'Reilly Factor or when Keith Oblermann goes a little over the top.
Well thanks for the eloquent essay, it's always a pleasure to read intelligent essays, and I will quit filling space after this one last comment regarding your Socrates quote -
I think our technical problem is, in fact, a lack of good leadership and has been for the last 20 years.
God? Darwin? Intelligent Design? Well, you quoted an atheist, and atheists are fundamentalists and I don't pay any attention to someone who portends to know whether there is or is not a God. How could they? I'd like to be quoted, ahem.... I'm clearing ny throat... I have a statement about God..... I will tell you who He is, why He is, what we are doing here, and where we go when we die....
"I don't know!"
-fatng***y 1/18/2009
Drilling for oil - well I can't argue that we should allow for more drilling, but let's gain some advantage from it as a nation. I propose that half of all oil recovered from ANWR or coastal drilling be sold to the government for $25 per barrel to fill a "Tactical Oil Reserve" (TAR) that can be used to combat speculative oil pricing.
Ahhhhhhh, thank you. Finally some pertinant things to debate. Let's go one paragraph at a time here.
1) No sound reason for capital gains tax increases? Well, if we are running a deficit, and income taxes and other forms of taxation need to increase, then so do capital gains taxes. In fact, many people live wholly or mainly on capital gains, and why would these people be treated any diffently than someone on a payroll. How about this - we treat capital gains as simply, income? Any sort of taxation lowers capital investment and/or economic growth.
"The Republicans running for office around the country were clear on this point. They wanted to keep capital gains tax rates at current levels, or reduce the rate further. But they lost. How can this be? The obvious answer is that the rhetoric and sophistry of the Democrats was better than that of the Republicans." - This is a false argument that presumptuously ***umes that the election was primarily or exclusively about the capital gains tax. While the economy was certainly a major issue, I doubt many people voted primarily or exclusively over the capital gains tax. And I'll be nice and not destroy you on the evolution argument... for now.
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