THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
A GREAT PLAN BECOMES A DISTRACTION
By Jon Rappoport
Author of the LOGIC AND ANALYSIS COURSE
JUNE 19, 2010. In front of a small group, I once offered this as an example of illogical reasoning:
PREMISE: The sun is hot.
PREMISE: Postcards are made out of paper.
CONCLUSION: A Cadillac is a smart purchase.
One person in the group tried to argue that this made sense. He invoked some version of Quantum Theory. Another person said a Cadillac IS a smart purchase; therefore, the chain of reasoning was valid.
The state of education in America…
As every student of logic knows, a chain of reasoning begins with premises, also known as assumptions or first principles.
Then you argue your case and, down the line, you come to conclusions.
The problem is, there are few students of logic around these days. Therefore, a great deal of argument centers around lesser issues.
What do I mean by lesser issues?
Picture a bunch of football players who’ve forgotten the rules of the game battling with each other at the 50-yard line. Nobody advances the ball. Nobody tries to score a touchdown because nobody remembers what a touchdown is. And people who watch this pitched battle at midfield argue about the tactics being employed.
Can three players jump on the back of an opponent, or only two? Is it all right to bribe an opponent right there with a briefcase full of cash, or should that transaction take place under the stands before the game? Can a player cruise around the 50-yard line in a golf cart and throw cans of red paint at the other team?
The grisly entertainment that is the White House and the Congress and the Supreme Court is all about this sort of infighting—and very few remember the assumptions and first principles…in other words, THE CONSTITUTION.
That’s a thing of the past, a quaint and interesting document for simpler times and simpler people.
However, if one did, in fact, remember the Constitution and what is says, most bills that come before Congress would prompt immediate outrage. Legislators would say:
“We can’t consider this! It’s illegal! The federal government has no right to debate this. The proposal in this bill violates our system of limited government. We have no power to act on this.”
At this point in our history, you would expect many spirited and profound debates in Washington about limited government and what it means, what it implies, what it allows, and what it doesn’t allow.
You would expect truly vital and lengthy debates about the expanding power of the federal government versus the implications of the Constitution.
I’m not talking about shouting matches. I’m talking about open public debate, starting from the assumptions of the Constitution. I’m talking about politicians who are prepared to make their arguments.
There are, of course, reasons why these debates are not taking place. One reason? Few people know how to make a logical case anymore.
They don’t understand how it’s done.
They don’t understand, for example, that you need to state the assumptions of the Constitution, instead of merely glossing over them. In a real argument, you have to reveal the premises that are the starting point for the argument.
Then you move on and, for example, cite instances where the federal government has acted to support these assumptions—or has contravened them.
Eventually, people would see who is supporting the Constitution and who is effectively ignoring or denying that document.
Those who deny it would be forced to make an additional case explaining their denial. Call me old-fashioned, but I think this part of the proceeding would be far more entertaining than watching football players throw cans of paint at each other.
As many of us know, the “anti-Constitution” people make vague references to an “evolving interpretation” of the Founding Document.
Well, let’s hear that doctrine spelled out in detail. Let’s get a chance to understand the full meaning of this argument. Let’s discover how the principle of limited government can morph into a government that employs millions of people and intrudes into every corner of society—with force as its ultimate backup.
I think logic would start to make a comeback. I think people would dimly begin to remember what logic is all about and why it can be so useful.
I think many people would realize that the Constitution has been used to rationalize an avalanche of departures from the Constitution—and if that sounds like a contradiction, voila. You’ve just made a foray into the very heart of logic.
Perhaps the next step would be a complete “mock court” re-writing of the Founding Document, a re-writing that would show what we have actually been following all these years.
That strategy actually has a name. It’s called reductio ad absurdum, a Latin phrase that means reduction to absurdity. You take your opponent’s premises and show they would lead to something absurd or contradictory.
Twenty-four hundred years ago, in ancient Greece, Plato used this strategy over and over in his Dialogues. It would help to remember it now.
But I should refrain from deciding that no one can make a case for Big Government. Let’s see someone try—not merely in a piecemeal fashion, defending a bill here and a bill there. Let someone argue the merits of Big from the ground up and define what this sort of government stands for and how far it is willing to go in the pursuit of its aims.
Is it “from each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs”? Is it taxation without representation? Let’s see the blueprint. Let’s see the whole thing.
Sleight of hand is an essential component of a magic show, which moves from one trick to another, but in government it’s a method for concealing the larger driving philosophy that gradually replaces what we thought the nation was supposed to be all about.
I once had a long conversation with a person who professed to be a church-going Unitarian. He explained that, for him, endless Giving was the guiding force in his life—and he said government should be based on the same theme.
When I inquired about the Constitution, he merely shrugged and said, “It’s a wonderful generous document.”
I asked him to expand on that, and he said, “The Founders were charitable souls.”
I love non-sequiturs. They allow you to run battleships through holes in your own thinking.
Jon Rappoport has been working as an investigative reporter for 25 years. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize early in his career, he has published articles in LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, CBS Healthwatch, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. He has taught in several private schools in New York and Los Angeles, and has tutored extensively in remedial English at Santa Monica College. At Amherst College, where he graduated with a BA in philosophy, he studied formal logic under Joseph Epstein, a revered professor of philosophy. He is the author of the LOGIC AND ANALYSIS course, and can be reached at qjrconsulting@gmail.com