Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Who knows the Rules?

It hit me in a double-clutch punch...right between the eyes and in the gut at the same instant.

Like a supercharged jolt of electric shock, it shook me

"Coulter won't buy Lauer's liberal logic..."

Well, now there is only Logic, you know.

It may be Aristotelean Logic, or it may be William F. Buckley Logic, but those two are the same, because logic is like pregnancy and life itself.

It either IS or is NOT. It is pristine and incorruptible.

What the writer should have used, whether describing the Left or the Right was the word "illogic".

Whatever is NOT logical, whether from the pen or tongue of a conservative or a liberal theoritician, is by definition illogical.

There are rules.

The fact that most journalists know nothing of these rules is certainly disaffecting, if not, indeed, criminal.

But there it is.

A great example of this is a pathetic case of some woman namee Busby who exhorted a group of illegal immigrants to help in her political campaign.

"You do not have to have papers to vote", a video shows her saying.

Now comes the multitude, in defense.

"Well, that is not what she MEANT, so it is ACTUALLY NOT what she SAID", they whine.

Well, I fancy myself a logician, trained in academia, and I say it is nonsense to declare someone did not say something because that is not what she / he MEANT to say.

In the U.S. congress, that may be the norm. But when you approach MY intellect, it's bogus.

And, no matter how hard the demagogs try, they cannot change the immutable rules of syllogism.