February 26, 2008
Arguments fall apart so easily
The political trend these days seems to be the flimsy argument. Everyone is doing it, spouting their case in the most justified tones and refusing to back down from it when faced with the complete lack of merit and sense to their point of view. Here’s but a few examples from the recent days.
Sunday morning, like the Leap Year groundhog he’s become, Ralph Nader emerged from his burrow to denounce the two big political parties and announce his latest run for the White House. Nader is back saying the same things about how broken the system is and how no one is talking about the real issues, and in some ways he’s right. However, his professed ignorance of his position as a siphon of Democratic votes rings hollow and his absence from working to achieve his stated goals between elections speaks poorly of the man.
If the ideas he’s here to bring up are missing from the public discourse, why hasn’t he been bringing them up in the meantime? If these two parties are broken, why hasn’t he been trying to build a third alternative by working with likeminded peoples in an unceasing effort? Nader’s presence deserves to be ignored at this point, but I don’t think it’s against any laws for him to embarrass himself publicly, because that’s what he’s doing at this point.
Next we come to another presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton who continues to push for the electoral delegates from Michigan and Florida to be seated at the big convention. If you recall, the Democratic Party set election rules about how early different states could hold their primary elections, and after being warned they’d be stripped of their delegates, Michigan and Florida went ahead and moved up their votes anyway.
The Democratic Candidates did not officially campaign in those states and all but Clinton removed their names from the Michigan ballot. She ended up winning both states and with the way she’s fallen behind, she could really use those delegates. Thus, Clinton is out on the stump calling for the two wayward state’s votes to be counted. Of course if to make the argument that those delegates should count, she makes the argument that if you disobey a rule you can get off with a stern warning and a threat of punishment. Those states knew the rules and broke them, and even though it is a secret ballot, I’m pretty sure they knew they’d get caught.
Finally, we get to Our Fine President. He’s a big fan of flimsy premises. In fact that wouldn’t be a bad way to describe him at any point in his life. But lately he’s been out hammering away about how Congress’s failure to renew his trumped up domestic spying authorities leaves the country in grave danger. Not only does he need the spying powers, but also the telecom industry needs legal immunity for their previous actions related to said spying.
Our Fine President tells us the telecoms did nothing wrong, but without this immunity they wont work with us in the future and thus we’ll miss out on critical spy information. This one is doubly wrong, but he is a pro at this. First, if the t-com companies did nothing wrong, why do they need immunity? They can rest assured in the legality of all their actions and thus will prevail in their suits and likely win their legal fees in a counter suit. Then of course there’s the little matter of the FISA law requiring their participation when a warrant is issued, so they really will continue to work with us if we follow the rules when asking them.
Tune in next time for another edition of flimsy arguments exposed…