“It’s only logical that if we can prevent advertisements from being run, we can prevent all kinds of speech.”
John Schwenkler May 11th, 2009
I’d really love to see what defenders of campaign finance reform can find to say in their defense after watching this:
Filed under: civil liberties, media/culture, politics
Uh, how about “It sucks to live in a plutocracy”?
From which it follows that the federal government is entitled to ban pay-per-view television programs … how exactly?
Oh, they’re not, of course. This law sucks. But the fact that we have so much influence peddling and quid pro quo in our system sucks as well, and I’d have liked to have seen that at least acknowledged.
I’ll gladly acknowledge that. But restricting political speech isn’t the way to solve it – and indeed, the CFR restrictions we got are arguably as good an example of “influence peddling and quid pro quo” as you could ask for.
[...] John Schwenkler, via Rodney Balko, approves of this video from the Cato Institute. [...]
Well, first off, you have Steve Simpson reading minds. How does he know what the finance reformers want to do? Quite obviously, it is not what he says.
Second, error of fact. The FEC did not “shut down” the broadcast. They put a moratorium (I think it was 60 days) when it could not be shown. That is a big difference.
Ms. Hayward then postulates a slippery slope argument, which is used as the basis for most of the rest of the movie, speaking of “banning books” as if it were a done deal rather than a hypothetical.
Overall, a slick piece of sophistic propaganda.
Oh yes, that makes all the difference. So long as the government isn’t outright banning speech, but just deciding where and when things can be spoken, there’s no real problem!
And what’s wrong with appealing to slippery slopes? If an FEC representative outright admitted that the law could be modified so as to ban books – and used as-is to ban transmission of certain books to wireless devices – doesn’t that suggest that something has gone badly wrong?
Sophistic propaganda, indeed …
Yes, it is propaganda if someone uses the wrong word to describe something with the intent of portraying a falsehood. In fact, the government did not “shut [it] down” and to say that is incorrect.
Furthermore, that the fimmakers object so strenously to a couple of months’ postponement of the film is an indication that it is, in fact, an electioneering piece and not a true documentary. True documentaries often have postponed or delayed air dates — a delay of two months is hardly a reason to complain.
What’s wrong with a slippery slope? Well, for one thing, it is a logical fallacy, so the use of it is not a true argument against the FEC’s decision in this instance. The fact that an FEC representative refused to rule out a non-existant hypothetical is irrelevant today.
Yet, it is worse than a simple use of this fallacy: virtually the entire argument made in this Cato piece is built around the slippery slope. If they have an argument against this particular ruling, they do not present it. If you look at the actual discussion of this ruling, it basically begins with Simpson’s projection into reformers’ minds and ends with the false statement that the film was “shut down.”
And how often are they postponed or delayed by the government, because of the political content of what they have to say? What a bunch or Orwellian nonsense.
Huh? Here’s an argument:
1. Policy X will lead inexorably to outcome Y.
2. Outcome Y is unjust/unconstitutional/etc.
3. Therefore, policy X should be overturned.
How in the world is this fallacious?
“And how often are they postponed or delayed by the government, because of the political content of what they have to say?”
Of course, and the point of my preceding sentence was that this “documentary” seems to have been more of a political ad in nature, rather than a documentary. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough for you: documentaries get pushed around for lack of funding, lack of interest, the Olympics and many other factors. That the filmmakers objected to a minor delay implies that the timing (release during the election campaign) was important. I infer from this that it was more like an ad than a documentary.
“1. Policy X will lead inexorably to outcome Y.
2. Outcome Y is unjust/unconstitutional/etc.
3. Therefore, policy X should be overturned.”
I am not sure if you are being disingenious or you really are ignorant. Saying “Policy X inexorably leads to policy Y” is a clear statement of slippery slope. I am sure you have seen this same fallacy used before: “marijuana inexorably leads to cocaine use,” “losing Vietnam inexorably leads to losing all Asia,” and “life inexorably leads to death.” In any event, it is a fallacy of long standing, and is a clear mark of an invalid argument. I won’t go into the specifics of it: it is a common feature of any freshmen Introduction to Logic course — or is easily found on the web.
Hoo boy, we’ve got a stubborn one here. Appeals to slippery slopes are fallacious only if the claims about where things (likely or inexorably lead) are false. Given that the FEC representative admitted that the policy could be used to ban books or at least e-books, you haven’t got a leg to stand on.
Unbelievable. Introduction to logic, indeed …
“…the FEC representative admitted that the policy could be used…”
Could: ” Used with hypothetical or conditional force” (American Heritage)
According to this piece of propaganda (care to reference the original testimony), the FEC representative refused to rule out a dubious and vague hypothetical. That is a far cry from “inexorable.”
In essence, it is that this Cato fluff argues solely about the hypothetical, and speaks not at all to the current case (except to lie about it), that highlights the fallaciousness of this “argument.”
Wow you really do keep at it, huh? Well in any case there’s a point at which one let’s a blog commenter go away gladly, and this is it.
“there’s a point at which one let’s [sic] a blog commenter go away”
And that point for you seems to be when you are floundering away at a losing argument. You had already abandoned debating on two or three other points, now you give up on justifying your use of the word “inexorably” and have failed to show that this is not a fallacious argument. And, yes, I am sure that you can find an introductory course in logic to be useful.
No, that point for me is the one at which said commenter makes it obvious that s/he has no fucking clue what a logical fallacy is. If you want to disagree with the slippery slope claim, then that’s fine. But here, let me let Wikipedia help:
Now shove the hell off. What a frigging moron.