Sardonic Ex Curia

July 30, 2016

CathCon Saturday - 7/30/2016

The Hillary Recession - Larry Kudlow, NRO

Presidential Abuse of the Pardon Power - Hans von Spakovsky, Daily Signal

Everyday Life in France, AD 2016 - Robert de St. Jacques, The Catholic Thing

Body-Shamed a Plus-Size Model for Losing Weight - Katherine Timpf, NRO

Gary Johnson Is Still Terrible On Religious Liberty - David Harsanyi, The Federalist

How Democrats View the Transgender Bathroom Debate - Kelsey Harkness, Daily Signal

Critics Don't Hate Hillary Because She's a Woman - Charles C.W. Cooke, NRO

Popular Narrative About Financial Deregulation Is Wrong - Norbert Michel, Daily Signal

Fantasy Epics and Real-World Politics - Ilya Somin, Learn Liberty

Student Suing Columbia for Allowing Sexual Assault Investigation - Eugene Volokh, Volokh

Divine Rights and Human Rights - Marc DeGirolami, Liberty Law Blog

Democracy: How Does it Work? - Jason Brennan, Bleeding Heart Libertarians

The False Promise of a “Conversation” About Race - Jeremy Willinger, Heterodox Academy

July 29, 2016

CathCon Daily - 7/29/2016

Liberalism and the Five Natural Inclinations - Edward Feser

When Assisted Suicide Becomes Coercive - Hans Von Spakovsky, Daily Signal

Clinton's Qualifications - Ramesh Ponnuru, NRO

Democratic Convention Helping and Hurting Hillary - Jim Geraghty, NRO

Against Cosmopolitanism - Brad Miner, The Catholic Thing

Abortion and Arrogance - Ramesh Ponnuru, NRO

When Voting Your Conscience Became a Political Liability - Timothy J. Gordon, Crisis

What They Didn't Tell Me in Sex Ed - Leah Libresco, First Things

What Can Discrimination Explain? - Walter Williams, Human Events

"How, When, and Why Procreation May Be Permissible" - Melissa Moschella, Public Discourse

Obama’s Claim That It’s Easier to Buy a Gun Than a Book - Fred Lucas, Daily Signal

What We Can Learn From Tocqueville’s Insights Into Crime - Craig DeRoche, The Federalist

Calling All the Young Fogies - James Baresal, Imaginative Conservative

U.S. History As Told By Young Democrats - Katrina Trinko, Daily Signal

Conservative Professor Takes On Boulder, CO - Brian Domitrovic, Pope Center

The Politics of Solidarity - David McPherson, First Things

Historic Night Marred By Contradiction And Dissent - John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist

July 28, 2016

Logical Fallacies, Facebook Style

Every day, I notice logical fallacies on Facebook. In fact, if you combined Facebook and Twitter feeds, and you had only a moderate amount of friends (let's say....400 - 600 each), I think you would have a decent chance of illustrating every major logical fallacy within 60 minutes...perhaps within 30. I use examples from my feed below, and definitions from: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

Let's see - looking at my Facebook feed for the past hour, we have:

What do we have here? How about the following possibilities:

1. Genetic fallacy - "Judging something good or bad on the basis of where it comes from, or from whom it comes." Christianity's religious laws include: "Thou shalt not kill," and "Thou shalt not steal" and so on. But, because those are religious laws, and Christians believe they should be included in the laws of the land, apparently, that places them in the same camp as ISIS.

2. Appeal to emotion - "Manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument." ISIS is bad - they want their beliefs to be law. You also want your beliefs to be laws, therefore you are as bad as ISIS.

3. Or, Reducto ad Hitlerum, updated.

Note how none of these deal with careful arguments, presenting evidence, etc. Returning to the Facebook feed, we find:

Strawman - "You misrepresented someone's argument to make it easier to attack." The Church does not argue that being a lesbian is a sin. Sin is all about action - sex with someone of the same sex, and to whom you are not married, is sinful, provided it meets other criteria.

And from the feed:

"Report: Trump to create super-PACs to attack Cruz, Kasich"

Comment: If this is true, this man is beyond a doubt filled with the impulses of a tyrant

1. See aforementioned "appeal to emotion."

2. Genetic Fallacy - Since lots of politicians form PACs to accomplish the tasks of attacking their competition, this cannot uniquely shows Trump to be a tyrant. Unless, of course, many politicians are tyrants...in which case this is not genetic fallacy.

These are but a few of the examples I have encountered today....