Saturday, January 27, 2018

AN APPEAL FOR CLEAR THINKING

I’d like you to take a minute to watch this video, not because of its message, but because it illustrates perfectly some of the strategies that people use to bypass clear thinking about all kinds of things.

First, it takes guy who looks like he just graduated from SEAL training & starts talking about patriotism. He then alters the meaning of the word & uses it to promote ideas that are either not related or irrelevant.

Second, He appeals to emotions, not logic or rationality. Ask yourself how long a culture can last if it’s based on diverse & contradictory values. Just as a cracked foundation can’t support the physical weight of a house, so a divided culture can’t indefinitely support the weight of internal contradictions.

Third, he equates agreement with an idea with love & seems to want us to believe that disagreement with his view is neither loving nor patriotic. In doing this he cuts off any prospect of discussion. How can there be love without rational discussion?

Fourth, he mixes various kinds of "identities" together which shouldn’t necessarily be mixed. For example, ethnicity, physical gender, & disabilities are not things that can be chosen. If gender identity is chosen, that should be considered in a different category.


Let's not twist the meanings of words. Let's think rationally & follow ideas to their logical conclusion. Let's learn to reason together.

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