Obama Pulling A Fast One? Last night, he presented what logicians call a "False Dilemma"

[grahamhgreen]

He gave us two options, either the so-called balanced approach (some cuts) or the Republican approach (more cuts). In truth, there are many more solutions to this manufactured crisis.

Here is the definition of "False Dilemma" from: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html

Note the EXAMPLE AT THE END IS THE SAME AS THE DEBATE!

Fallacy: False Dilemma

Also Known as: Black & White Thinking.

Description of False Dilemma

A False Dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses the following pattern of "reasoning":

Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false).
Claim Y is false.
Therefore claim X is true.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because if both claims could be false, then it cannot be inferred that one is true because the other is false. That this is the case is made clear by the following example:

Either 1+1=4 or 1+1=12.
It is not the case that 1+1=4.
Therefore 1+1=12.

In cases in which the two options are, in fact, the only two options, this line of reasoning is not fallacious. For example:

Bill is dead or he is alive.
Bill is not dead.
Therefore Bill is alive.

Examples of False Dilemma

Senator Jill: "We'll have to cut education funding this year."
Senator Bill: "Why?"
Senator Jill: "Well, either we cut the social programs or we live with a huge deficit and we can't live with the deficit."

[midnight]

1. I wonder why they have been distracting us with this crap, what has really

been going on....

[FourScore]

2. Thank you grahamhgreen! n/t

[MyshkinCommaPrince]

3. Cut the knot.

This Gordian knot exists because both sides want to use the debt ceiling to achieve something greater. It doesn't have to be that way (or so I understand), but neither side wants to discuss that fact. I suspect that's the source of any apparent logical evasion.

I'm not sure whether or not our side's insistence on doing more here is a good thing.

[Fearless]

6. Exactly!

[Capitalocracy]

24. Also: SS doesn't add to the deficit!

Everyone seems to conveniently forget that point, too.

[blue neen]

4. No, it's more like Boehner (the World's Saddest Tangerine--John Stewart) is pulling the fast one.

Also, the word is "dilemma". The Republicans have created this debt ceiling dilemma.

[greyl]

5. Can you provide a quote from his speech illustrating that? nt

[grahamhgreen]

13. "the debate has centered around two different approaches. The first approach says,

the debate has centered around two different approaches.

The first approach says, let’s live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. Let’s cut domestic spending to the lowest level it’s been since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Let’s cut defense spending at the Pentagon by hundreds of billions of dollars. Let’s cut out the waste and fraud in health care programs like Medicare – and at the same time, let’s make modest adjustments so that Medicare is still there for future generations. Finally, let’s ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to give up some of their tax breaks and special deductions....

The only reason this balanced approach isn’t on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a cuts-only approach – an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all." - Obama - http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/07/transcript-obamas-speech-debt-limit#ixzz1TAg3zJI0

______________


There are far more choices:

We could simply raise the debt ceiling routinely, without debate, as has been done in the past.

We could solely increase taxes on the rich, which is supported by the majority of Americans.

We could have the Bush tax cuts expire immediately.

We could simply get out of Afghanistan and Iraq and reduce military spending.

Obama could take President Clinton's suggestion and simply raise the ceiling stating 14th amendment authority.

The false dilemma he's presenting is that we have only the two choices he listed in his speech.

[greyl]

19. But it has. nt

[Bluebear]

26. But it has what?

[greyl]

46. "centered around two different approaches" nt

[ClarkUSA]

7. Funny how some people always cast Pres. Obama as the conniving liar but never the Republicans

This is Democratic Underground not Free Republic, after all.

[msongs]

11. this is Democratic Undergound not Obama Underground after all. nt

[ClarkUSA]

17. How ironic you should say that. It's not as if Skinner is hawking Obama pillowcases, after all.

[Desertrose]

20. What the what?

What kind of lame response is THAT?

Obama pillowcases??????

[Bluebear]

27. +

[EFerrari]

12. That's because we all already know the Republicans are scum buckets.

It's assumed. That a Democrat would use these tactics is not assumed and worth mentioning.

[hulka38]

33. Maybe the poster you're responding to

doesn't understand that.

[aquart]

15. Republicans lying is a given like water is wet.

A Democrat lying is damned annoying.

[Ignis]

43. +1

[indurancevile]

16. I think 99% of the people who post here believe the republicans lie & connive regularly.

Thus there's no point in arguing about it, since there's near universal agreement.

(and the 1% are republican troll-moles)

[FLAprogressive]

18. +1

[grahamhgreen]

34. +1

[Raine]

21. It goes without saying that repugs are liars. EVERYONE here knows it

there is no need to debate it. It seems though some here are blind to the dishonesty and games coming out of the Obama Administration.

[LWolf]

42. +1

[SusanaMontana41]

8. Thanks. Haven't heard/seen any commentator or journalist point that out. n/t

[Shandris]

9. Well, to be fair the False Dilemma is a mainstay of political argument.

Very, very seldom is any 'issue' only possible as the two sides present it.

[eShirl]

23. +1

[msongs]

10. "either I must give republicans most of what they want...or all of what they want" n

[grahamhgreen]

36. And please call your representative and advocate for the first position.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Yep but that is politics for you

The problem with this MANUFACTURED crisis is that it has become REAL...

And yes I am quite cynical by now... they don't care about you and me.

[quaker bill]

22. The dilemma becomes less false

as the likelihood of alternate resolutions trends to zero. It is within the realm of possibility that Eric Cantor will simply pull 2 trillion dollars out of his backside to resolve this problem, it is very unlikely, but the probability is likely a microscopic fraction greater than zero.

All sorts and kinds of imaginable alternate outcomes exist, each with a similar probability of being enacted. Why the President would be obligated to waste hours of our time discussing them is not known to me.

Intellectual integrity and reality testing makes philosophy meaningful.

[grahamhgreen]

38. Since the Presidents proposals have already been firmly rejected by the other side, and many Dems,

some of the other options become equally valid.

[Motown_Johnny]

25. He explained the two approaches that were being taken, he did not

say that those were the only possible choices.


Although, given the time restrictions there really isn't time enough to develop new choices.



IMO you are misrepresenting the situation.

[Fire1]

48. Amen! As usual. n/t

[bvar22]

28. They did it, and they did it well.

NOBODY offered a traditional Democratic Party solution to the "crisis",
(INCREASE Government Spending & STRENGTHEN the Safety Net)

America was given the choice between a Moderate Republican Plan, and a Hard Core Republican Plan.

A False Dilemma indeed,
and it worked.

Today, at Obama's request,
Democrats are calling Congress to support having their Social Security/Medicare "trimmed",
and slashing Government Spending during a Recession & Jobs crisis.
THAT position if standard Republican Boiler Plate.



Who will STAND and FIGHT for THIS American Majority?
You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

[KittyWampus]

29. The amount of stupid in that premise is mindblowing. Count on Reactionary Screamers to never account

for Republicans.

[grahamhgreen]

40. Is the only way for us to solve the debt crisis by cutting SS, which added not one nicke to the debt

????

I don't think so.

[Maven]

49. Truth hurts.

The president is selling a lie.

[alcibiades_mystery]

30. Nonsense

Certainly, there are a near infinite variety of possible approaches to both the debt and the debt ceiling. The problem is which solution on this near infinite continuum is doable given the current political configuration. Hell, Aristotle knew that there was a distinction between problems of logic and problems of politics: it's why he wrote the Politics and the Rhetoric to supplement the Topics, and the Prior and Posterior Analytics. The actual dilemma here is default or do not default. That's the only "dilemma" that gives itself up of logical consideration. Obama was not presenting a "dilemma" at all: he was not saying that here are two logical options among which we must choose. He was presenting a problem of the possible and probable, which is properly the realm of rhetoric rather than logic strictly speaking (as Aristotle insists). Obama was outlining two strategies that he sees as possible given the concrete conditions. Now, you might think that other options are possible, and I'd be happy to see an argument for how the other possible proposals pass the House of Representatives, which can't even bring itself to pass Boehner's obnoxious plan, but you actually have to do that work. You can't simply look up logical fallacies that don't even apply on the internet and pretend that that's a sufficient answer. It is not, and never will be.

[grahamhgreen]

32. "The actual dilemma here is default or do not default."

I agree 100%.

He could easily have asked us all to call and ask our congress to raise the debt ceiling without any pre-conditions - there would be no debate, and every Dem I know would have done it.

Instead he is asking us to call to advocate cutting programs like Social Security that do not contribute one nickel to the deficit, and represent core Dem principals - this is illogical.

[onenote]

37. + a big number

[PATRICK]

31. Mind numbing

if you don't accept the Foggy Bottom economic credo. You could almost write a treatise on how believing false assumptions leads to false argumentation of a necessity. That is what you have. How could such inflexible minds ever have slouched their way to power over the economy? because that diehard faith was a precondition for their acceptance and anointing by corporate kingmakers, in a way that seems murky but ever so similar to the pope choosing bishops or cardinals based on orthodoxy, control and continuity of current ruling principles.

It is hard to argue against the president for those fifteen minutes because of the enormous divide between error and real crisis. You have to make a better argument for him to make sense of any of it, yet that would be political nonsense. The political plea is simply wrong, yet effective. Now a person facing contradictions like that would be telling lies for a purpose, but neither is that the case. This is the natural descent into illogic because Obama believes in the big economic falsehoods more than real humanity or real world facts.

Not only is that scary, but consider he is not at all alone despite protests from his nervous party about the purity of his bi-partisan debt paydown intent. Most of them are roped into the game. The sane will protest. And then what?

[DearAbby]

35. It's like Mom

giving your young daughter a choice of dresses to wear. You don't say to your daughter, "Go to the closet and pick out a dress you want to wear." You will be late. You pick out two dresses, then ask your daughter "which one would you like the wear." Gives your daughter a sense she is making decisions.

Smoke and mirrors.

This shit was manufactured under a crisis deadline to force us to again, eat more buckets of shit.

[Sheepshank]

45. Your response is the smoke and mirrors.

discussions with 100 possibilities and how is it you want everyone to settle on one?

Discussions narrow doen the possibilities. It's how it goes.

[Doctor_J]

39. Unfortunately at this point these ARE our choices

at the beginning they weren't but now they are

[grahamhgreen]

41. Why is Clinton's 14th amendment option not an option?

Why not threaten to reduce the deficit by ending the wars immediately, bringing the troops home and freezing all military contracts?

[Jakes Progress]

44. They are not our choices. They are boehner and Obama's choices.

[Octafish]

47. The unmentioned option Rove's bosses don't want known is RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH.

Then, again, that's why they've bought (so much of) Washington.