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November 26, 2014

Neither Cause Nor Effect

Worse than Mere Madness (1) start with a reasonable and obvious good, say, the moral good of charity to the poor, or equality between the races, as a major premise.

(2) Without drawing attention to it, slip in a doubtful but not insane minor premise, say, the economists think inflating the currency will create demand which in turn creates meatpies falling from clouds, or that concerned and thoughtful people have concluded a strong central government armed with the power to read men’s hearts will abolish race hatred. (3) Derive an utterly Lovecraftian noneuclidean shrieking horror of insanity conclusion from it, such as that the you must surrender your liberty and dignity to achieve this obvious good in the first case, or, in the second case, that you must surrender your liberty and dignity to achieve this obvious good. In fact, in all cases, the conclusion is always the same: you are being asked to surrender your liberty and dignity, to adopt absurdities of speech and behavior, and invite halfwitted bureaucrats or perverted or crapulent politicians to pester, belittle, and rob you, in order to achieve some obvious good which has no possible cause and effect relationship to the liberties and dignities you are surrendering.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at November 26, 2014 7:14 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

The remedy and the preventive for this kind of brain draining, mind binding, and thought noughting is to simply add to the typical 2-year old's question, "Why", the question "How do you know that?" Or, better yet, the 1.5-year old's, "No!"

Then in reply to the tyrant-in-training's, "Huh?", respond, "What's your evidence for your position?"
Or, better yet, say simply, "It should be alimentary, my dear canal; your ASSumption is excremental."

Posted by: Stug Guts [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 26, 2014 3:10 PM

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