Comments on: They’re behind you!

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Tue, 10 Feb 2004 03:08:13 +0000

http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=11447 “A move by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to subpoena the medical records of 40 patients who received so-called partial-birth abortions at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago was halted—at least temporarily—when a Chicago federal judge quashed the information request. The ruling is the first in a series of subpoenas by the U.S. Justice Department seeking the medical records of patients from seven physicians and at least five hospitals, Crain’s sister publication Modern Healthcare has learned. Besides Northwestern, Mr. Ashcroft is seeking patient records from University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers in Ann Arbor; Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia, owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp.; Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medical Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital both of which are part of the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System; and an unidentified San Francisco-area hospital.”

By: jasminedad

jasminedad — Tue, 10 Feb 2004 01:30:24 +0000

Hitchens is, as am I and as he says George Bush is, for the “tenacious and unapologetic defense of civilized societies against the intensifying menace of clerical barbarism.” The problem is that whatever degree of barbarism one might attribute to Saddam Hussein, it is certainly not “clerical barbarism.” Baathist barbarism, secularist barbarism, etc., etc., but not clerical barbarism. In fact, many of us object to Bush’s adventure in Iraq precisely on these grounds: it is a distraction from the defense against the menace of clerical barbarism. It is disingenuous of Hitchens, the big supporter of Bush’s Iraq war, to imply that those who oppose the Iraq adventure have, unlike Bush, fallen prey to “doubt on the point” of this defense.

By: seth edenbaum

seth edenbaum — Tue, 10 Feb 2004 00:48:20 +0000

The difference between the Taliban and certain christian fundamentalist groups in the US is that the Taliban were larger in number and in control of a country. The difference between the Taliban and certain christian groups in other parts of the world, discounting details of doctrine, is minimal. “Severe lack if perspective”. not at all.

By: Gary Farber

Gary Farber — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 23:30:27 +0000

Point of order: I noticed quite a long while ago that Matthew Yglesias almost never comments or replies in his own comments threads. I find this a bit annoying at times, myself, but also entirely understandable, given the large number of comments he often draws, the large number of other calls upon his writing time (from which he earns his living), as well as the implicit impression he has given that he may be a slow reader (he has frequently commented upon how extremely “long” articles are that are over 500 words). It’s easy for me to understand, given those conditions, drawing a line against commenting/replying at all, given the easiness of being drawn into a fatal time-suck if one doesn’t have a strict policy. Also, Chris, you might consider that when “large numbers” of people “misread” you, that possibly the fault is not entirely all theirs. I very much do not wish to give you further offense, but I thought Sebastian’s comment here was rather spot-on. One problem in specific with “having a bit of fun at Hitchens’ expense” is that it assumes the necessary pre-condition that all right-minded people, of course, already believe that he is being perfectly absurd and has no valid point; it is possible that this is a questionable assumption. My own reaction is that while the premise of questioning defending or supporting Bush is perfectly valid, comparing creationist-fundamentalist Christians to the Taliban is inapt, disproportional, and suggestive of a severe lack of perspective. As they say on Usenet, your mileage may vary.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 20:10:14 +0000

For Hitchens to portray Bush as an defender of Enlightenment and civilization against backward theocrats was ridiculous (given Bush’s known association with another bunch of backward theocrats). That’s the only point I was making Sebastian. I thought I was having a bit of fun at Hitchens’s expense rather than elaborating a major geopolitical thesis. But nearly 50 comments on … Perhaps I need to signal a post like this with a special irony symbol or something! On the anti-semitism post, I think that was a different matter. Some people were upset because I characterized the view I attacked rather harshly. I still regard that view as largely false, but I probably would have done better to use different language. As for Yglesias: I pointed out in the 2nd comment to his thread that he’d misread me and plenty of other commenters did too. He didn’t modify his post or comment further in the light of those clarifications. I’ve drawn my own conclusions about that.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 19:42:34 +0000

On reading my post I want to make this sentence clearer: “This wasn’t directed at me, but this happened with your allusive anti-Semetism posts as well.” I speak of your post on the topic of anti-Semetism. I am not at all suggesting that it was an anti-Semetic post. I bring it up only because that post was apparently misinterpreted by huge numbers of people, including such non-right readers as Matthew Yglesias and Stintson. I think it was misinterpreted because of framing issues much like I discuss above.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 19:37:28 +0000

“to imply that the threat from extremist Islamists is similar to that from creationists is ridiculous. Your reading skills are in need of enhancement.” This wasn’t directed at me, but this happened with your allusive anti-Semetism posts as well. Your post consists of exactly two major parts. The first is a quote from Hitchens regarding Al Qaeda and other forms of modern Arab and Islamist terrorism. It implies that some (by implication from the rest of the article, these are mostly on the Left) are not sufficiently interested in dealing with these threats. The second part of your post transitions with: “Unlike many of his supporters it would seem, who think clerical barbarism would be an excellent idea….” Then it concludes with “Brian Leiter should be congratulated for his assiduous reporting of the activities of the Texas Taliban . The sayings of Pat Robertson , friend of Bush’s Attorney General, are worth a special mention.” Now I’ll admit that in my own posts I am occassionally guilty of odd transitions. But the transition as it exists suggests that: A) you believe that there is a sufficient conceptual link between the operations such as Hitchens wrote about and fundamentalist Christians (who in this case have odd worries about evolution) such that you think mentioning them offers some kind of refutation of the idea that the left is insufficiently attentive to fundamentalists. OR B) You believe there are sufficent conceptual links between the groups that mentioning them suggests that conservatives are inattentive to fundamentalists on their own side. OR C) You believe that there are sufficient conceptual links between the groups in each half of the post in some other way that is not defined by your post but which you want to allude to by juxtaposing them. With any of these three explanations, the commentor is not far off. With all three explanations you are suggesting that somehow mentioning Texas fundamentalists is a logical response to concerns about the terrorists which Hitchens mentions. The commentor is a bit harsh, but so far as I can tell he identifies the linkage which you have made by your own post. The cynical side of me suspects that you won’t make the conceptual link explicit because it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. But the side of me which has made lazy postings is willing to suspect that something else is going on. I also note that the idea that US fundamentalists ‘have’ their own president is an odd concept. If you (GMT) believe that fundamentalists want a theocracy or near-theocracy, they don’t have a president that is helping them acheive that. If you mean that they have a President who seems to be a Christian, you are of course correct. But in that case I don’t see why it is worthy of mention in this context.

By: Troy

Troy — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 18:31:27 +0000

“open loop” mondo, I always like your writing, but that criticism of conservative libertarianism is about as powerful and apt as can be imagined.

By: Oscar Chamberlain

Oscar Chamberlain — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 16:17:40 +0000

Problem with Hitchens: The problem with Hitchens is not seeing that a form of fanatical Islam is inspiring enemies. The problem is that Bush is incomeptent. His incompetence is discrediting American action in this area. What Hitchens is forgetting is that a nation like the US can discredit a good cause with idiotic actions. In Bush’s case, by the way, I would argue that his greatest incompetence is revealed in carrying out occupations. He is botching Afghanistan, and he may have botched our occupation of Iraq beyond redemption by any action short of 500,000 troops and a really lousy decade.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 16:15:33 +0000

About 20 or so comments back I was going to post to say that it surely should be possible to observe that there is something risible about Hitchens’s characterization of Bush (given Bush’s known associations) without it being thought that one is asserting “moral equivalence”, expressing a view about what America’s security priorities should be, and so on… But we seem to gave reached Godel’s theorem! “Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance.”

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 16:04:53 +0000

Oops – it looks like my exegesis was a little late.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 16:03:22 +0000

Keith is basically right about Godel’s Theorem, but it does have one consequence that might explain what Mondo was getting at. One of the statements that is true but we can’t prove is “Arithmetic is consistent.” (On a particular but reasonably natural interpretation of ‘arithmetic’.) Well, I’m cheating a bit here because we can’t prove that’s true, as noted. This doesn’t undermine the law of non-contradiction, since we can still say that if arithmetic is consistent it is false. But it does mean that if you are committed to the truth of arithmetic then you can’t prove that your beliefs are free of contradiction.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 16:01:11 +0000

Ah. Thanks for the explanation and I retract my objection. :)

By: mondo dentro

mondo dentro — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 15:59:05 +0000

That does have profound implications, but the destruction of the very concept of deductive reasoning is not one of them. No offense taken, Keith. What you say is without question true, but I certainly didn’t say that. I understand, though. In a comment thread, we all have to attempt to get a Gestalt from inadequate information. I was attempting to do the same with the post to which I was responding. It’s open to interpretation, and takes some dialogue to sort out… I was referring to the philosophical implications of a theorem that states that either of these two options must hold: either the formal system has internal contradictions (one can “prove” a falsehood); or the formal system will be unable to prove many true things. (Paraphrasing, of course.) Now, can we apply this directly to this thread’s discussion? Not directly, that’s for sure. But my point to the previous poster was that, if one thinks of human believe systems as sort of like formal systems (very much open to argument, I would admit), the search for perfect internal consistency is problematic at best, and in my opinion wrong-headed. Fundamentalists are precisely people who do not grasp the limits of their own internalized “formal systems”. FYI, I am actually a mathematical scientist, FWIW. I spend a lot of time trying to model the logical structure of nature. That doesn’t mean I can’t be full of shit—but it should indicate that I’m not an “irrationalist”. But I understand the unavoidable centrality of the irrational in all human activities. Even science! (Hell, maybe especially science.)

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Mon, 09 Feb 2004 15:42:38 +0000

“In any case, there is no “law of non contradiction”. See Godel’s Theorem.”—Mondo

Your earlier response to my post was extremely polite and thoughtful, so I’m loathe to offend you. But…I think you misunderstand Godel. The very point is that he constructs a well-formed theorem—i.e., it does not violate essential rules of a formal system such as the law of non-contradiction—that, nevertheless, asserts a “truth” that by its very nature is undecidable within the context of said system. It doesn’t violate non-contradiction. It simply illustrates that every sufficiently expressive formal system is capable of expressing, validly, a particular statement that is “true” but necessarily unprovable within that system. No more and no less. That does have profound implications, but the destruction of the very concept of deductive reasoning is not one of them.