False Analogies and The Left

I haven't posted in a while, but I saw a trend and a thought coalesced as a result. What I saw were a slew of false analogies being used by the left to make their points. In logic, a "false analogy" is a fallacy: "The argument draws a conclusion from observed cases that are only superficially or apparently similar to the unobserved cases about which the conclusion is being drawn."

For example, Martin Luther King Jr. had his phone lines tapped. President Bush has the NSA monitoring calls from known (or suspected) al Queda operatives into the United States. The left uses MLK's phones being tapped as an analogy for President Bush's "domestic eavesdropping." The only problem is, the government (in this case, J. Edgar Hoover and Bobby Kennedy) snooping into the business of a US citizen for no reason other than a fishing expedition or to keeps tabs on him in peace time is not at all analogous to the CINC trying to gather information on our enemy's plans as they communicate to and from the US during war time. MLK was NOT a terrorist. Al Queda are terrorists. MLK was a man of peace. Al Queda has attacked US interests several times, including on 9/11. The government had no business listening to MLK's phone conversations, just as it has no business listening to yours or mine. It IS the government's business (actually, one of its most important jobs) to try to use sophisticated means to stop al Queda, or any other Islamofacist group, from attacking America or her allies. Making an analogy between listening in on MLK, or any other American, with no cause, and trying to gather information to prevent an attack by an enemy who has attacked us, is not only fallacious, it's stupid.

Another one: Right wing Christian groups getting upset over unflattering depictions of Jesus, or of Christianity, and Muslims burning down buildings and threatening bodily harm to publishers of cartoons. You simply can not compare raising someone's ire and having them respond with letters to the editor, complaints, or even protests and boycotts to raising someone's ire and having them burn down buildings, threaten to behead people, and kill all infidels (which means anyone who doesn't see things their way). The difference in scope is just too great to make the analogy. It's like saying being licked by a puppy is the same as being attacked by a wolf.

Similar: Comparison of the Newsweek article about flushing the Koran down a toilet and the publishing of the Danish cartoons. The only thing similar is the reaction. The events themselves are not analogous. One was supposedly a factual news story (that turned out to be false) reporting on torture of prisoners, the other was... cartoons. Satirical cartoons. Why would one decry the one and not the other? False reporting is NOT freedom of the press. It is antithetical to freedom of the press (wherein the press is free to express opinions, or, better still, to publish unvarnished facts--speaking truth to power, as it where). Satirical cartoons fall under the Freedom of the Press umbrella. As I said, the only thing similar between the two is the reactions of Islamists, who, apparently, take whatever opportunity is presented to call for death to infidels (again... meaning anyone who doesn't believe as they do--probably YOU and me).

Yet more: Carter compared MLK's struggle for equal rights (meaning equal Constitutional rights) for blacks to victims of Katrina, saying it proved we had a long way to go. Well, first of all, in a city that is majority black, would one not expect there to be a majority of black faces on TV when a disaster struck? Further, did Carter not look at the actual death stats and see that whites died in disproportionately large numbers compared to the percentage of the population they represented? Logically, one could conclude that if fewer blacks died than their demographics would dictate, then blacks were disproportionately represented among the rescued. MLK wanted equal rights. How does that have any relationship at all to Katrina? Yes, there were poor blacks in New Orleans. But were they oppressed by their black mayor, black police chief, or their Democratic governor? Rights had nothing to do with the tragedy of Katrina. In a place where a black mayor was elected, and blacks hold many high offices, it's difficult to say New Orleans wasn't a place MLK would've seen significant progress (if he didn't dig too deep into the corruption aspect that has been a historical problem). If the Democrats that have run Louisiana for umpteen years hadn't figured out a way to improve the quality of life for the population, that is hardly an equal rights issue, it's a government ineptitude issue, and probably a lack of personal responsibility issue. Remember, MLK spoke of equality in terms of judging people "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." He didn't say that equality meant GIVING people other people's wealth, if that is what Carter thinks equality means. If the implication is that the federal government is to blame and it was neglectful because the population was black, that is simply rediculous. Again, black mayor (in charge of first response), Democrat governor (also ahead of the feds in the response pecking order), and THOSE are the people who put, or left, people in peril, no matter what color their skin was. The whole thing was a mess from the bottom up, but it has nothing to do with the equal rights struggle of MLK.

My point is: just listen for the false analogies that the left has taken to using. It's insidious, because the unthinking will say, "Yeah, those things are the same." The stark nonsense of Bush=Hitler is easy to spot (at least for anyone who takes three seconds to think it over), but the more subtle nonsense is more dangerous, because they make it sound accurate. People who debate with slogans, ad hominem attacks, false analogies, etc. depend on the ignorance of the audience to believe their argument and not see through the fallaciousness of it. Fortunately, with the advent of the blogosphere, there will always be smart people out there tearing the arguments apart.