The Hysteria Never Dies

Mahablog was kind enough to point out this piece of trash from JacK Schafer. It's actually pretty instructive -- it would be a sterling example to present in a logic or rhetoric class on how not to construct an argument. It's also a wonderful example of wounded self-righteousness.

It starts going really downhill here:

The lead spokesman for the anti-inflammatory movement, however, was Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, whose jurisdiction includes Tucson. Said Dupnik at a Jan. 8 press conference in answer to questions about the criminal investigation:

I'd just like to say that when you look at unbalanced people, how they are—how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths, about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

Embedded in Sheriff Dupnik's ad hoc wisdom were several assumptions. First, that strident, anti-government political views can be easily categorized as vitriolic, bigoted, and prejudicial. Second, that those voicing strident political views are guilty of issuing Manchurian Candidate-style instructions to commit murder and mayhem to the "unbalanced." Third, that the Tucson shooter was inspired to kill by political debate or by Sarah Palin's "target" map or other inflammatory outbursts. Fourth, that we should calibrate our political speech in such a manner that we do not awaken the Manchurian candidates among us.

Embedded in Schafer's "rebuttal" to the Sheriff's remarks are a series of flaws.

First, straw man: aside from the fact that the strident anti-government views coming from the right have, in fact, been vitriolic, bigoted and prejudicial, that's not really a valid conclusion to draw from Dupnik's remarks. Dupnik spoke of the rhetoric -- which has been deliberately inflammatory -- not the opinions behind it. Second, Dupnik never said that. He merely points out what anyone with two brains cells to rub together has already figured out: when major figures from either political party are spewing the kind of loaded terminology we've heard regularly from the right over the past couple of years, it stands to reason that someone whose grasp on reality might not be so firm is going to take that as a cue. The Tucson shooter may or may not have been "inspired to kill" by Palin's crosshairs map (which, again, Dupnik did not mention); he might have killed someone anyway. But let's not forget that he deliberately sought out a Democrat. Fourth, another straw man -- why shouldn't we expect our politicians to at least pretend they are adults? It has nothing to do with Manchurian candidates -- Schafer's contribution to the discussion, not Dupnik's. It's called civilized behavior in the interest of an instructive and useful public discourse. (Which, can we hypothesize, the Republicans have no interest in maintaining because they quite demonstrably have nothing positive to offer in such a discourse?)

I find it highly informative that Schafer has made the particular arguments he's made in the context of a comment by someone who mentioned none of of the points to which Schafer took exception. Little bit of an exposed nerve there, you think?