for logic's sake . . .
A
week ago I wrote that I wasn’t writing any more about the national election
because there were “only so many ways to describe what a disaster the election
of Donald Trump would be”; and I couldn’t “think of any that [my readers
hadn’t] read or seen ten times over.”
I went on to say that “his gaining the Republican
nomination and the support . . . of
44% of the electorate” had already done more damage, especially to our image overseas,
than could be mitigated by his losing the election. But I didn’t lay the blame
for our marred image – among our friends, our enemies, I would add among
ourselves – entirely at the Republican Party’s and Donald Trump’s doorsteps. “That
we could nominate two people so
unpopular for a position that requires bringing us together” was unfathomable
to me.
 |
| Before you shout me down, listen (please). - Demosthenes* |
I
would vote for Hillary Clinton, I wrote, because I live in a battleground
state: “The morning of November 8, I’ll drink a double Scotch for breakfast,
hope I don’t get arrested driving to the polls; I’ll stuff my nose with cotton
and mark the box next to her name.”
The
column – you may read it in its entirety here
– did not sit well with the many Mrs. Clinton supporters among my few readers. “There
was no comparison between the two candidates,” most of their arguments ran: “Trump
was . . . [imagine the adjectives you would insert here].”
In
short, the arguments were almost all ad
hominem. But that is not the only logical flaw of the pro-Hillary arguments
I have been bombarded with this week. And – I’m only trying to help out here –
it is the illogic of these arguments that dooms them to fail; they will convince
no one’s common sense.
That
no reasonable person could vote for Trump does not mean that said reasonable person doesn’t have reasons not to vote for Clinton.
That “you can’t vote for him, so she must be your choice” is illogical on its
face. (That you love apple butter because you hate blueberry jam does not
follow.) That “a vote for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein is a vote for Trump” –
also illogical on its face. (If I had one schilling and I gave it to Jill, I cannot have given it to Jack. A vote for Johnson or Stein is a vote for Johnson or Stein.)
In sum, to argue – however loudly, indeed however
cogently – that one of two choices is – or even three of four choices are –
unreasonable, dangerous, or even insane is not to prove that the other choice
is reasonable, safe, or sound.
Also,
while I’m at it – that is while I’m stepping in shit, let me wander deeper into
the morass: To argue there is bias does not mean that the one discriminated
against is fit. The conclusion does not inevitably follow the premise.
So,
I reek. Which is why I’m holding my nose. I m holding my nose, and I am still voting for
the former Secretary of State.
But you’re not making it easier.
_______________
* From my friend Ted Riich. For daily doses of wisdom from the Romans and the Greeks, like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.
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* From my friend Ted Riich. For daily doses of wisdom from the Romans and the Greeks, like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.
