LOL...

I don't HAVE a reason, but I'm about to go get a pint of Crown and a bottle of coke.

Hey-
Any idea what 50 years in stir COSTS??
People who rape/murder
Need to be taken out in the yard and shot.
Preferably witnessed by the inmate population.
It does not need to be on TV.
...cc

The very same people that push the limits are still pushing the limits now.

Agreed. We'll see how long they last under the new regime.

. . . and thEn you have
Regime theory

"cooperation despite anarchy"

Take the naughtiest kid in the class, make him a prefect, end of problem....

Poachers make the best gamekeepers.

iX can you tell us what you name is supposed to mean? Besides 9?

Yes! I'd love to! It's simply the name of a planet from the Scifi book "Dune" by Frank Herebert. Ix is the machine planet which made many of the thinking machines that enslaved humanity, and then produced the hi-liners that allowed freed humanity to travel vast distances in space without moving; called space-folding. From here to the other side on any universe in the blink of an eye!

I reversed the capitalization to make iX, to make it mine. It was never meant to be 9. Because 9 is not the name of a planet LOL.

Breathing easy, or at least trying to..... (I really shouldn't have unfiltered).

That's always a double edged sword.

Ah, but you didn't specify 'entire groups' in your earlier quote. And in any case, the 'entire group' identified in the article about Australia refered to those advocating Islamic Sharia law....

I indicated that in my first post when I distinguished between extremists that might have ties to terror groups and innocent people. While that was what was stated in the article, I was responding to Chuck's opinion afterwards: "Seems like a good idea to me!
You know, I am reminded of the interment camps of WW2 where Japanese were enclosed by the government. Today we look on that measure with distaste, but man, it was the right thing to do! How can anyone assume an expatriate would reject their birth country?!? Even in the case of a second generation Canadian or whatever, how could the government take as granted that such a person wouldn't help the country their original stock came from?"

I could have sworn it was you...posing triumphantly high above the "last person" thread...A squirrel above all squirrels.

Nope, it's snot me! BTW, We have two "Last Person" threads. They're just spam threads for people to increase their post counts.

You get more money from Berkeley if you have a higher post count...

So SPAM DOES PAY???? I'm rich!!! I'm filthy rich!!!

The Chomsky Fallacy
By Keith Burgess-Jackson, 26 Jun 2006


Opinions, it's often said, are like anuses: Everybody has one. Should I pay attention to anyone else's opinion, given that I have my own, or given that I'm capable of forming my own? And if I do pay attention to someone else's opinion, whose? Peter Singer has an opinion about the killing of "defective" newborns. He thinks it's sometimes the right thing to do. Robert P. George, who is equally opinionated, thinks it's never the right thing to do. Paul Krugman has an opinion about tax increases on the wealthy to fund programs for the poor. He thinks it's the right thing to do. George W. Bush, who is equally opinionated (albeit more powerful), thinks it's the wrong thing to do.

Pick an issue. Capital punishment. The war in Iraq. Animal rights. Affirmative action. Homosexual marriage. Teaching Design Theory in public-school science classrooms. Drilling in ANWR. Cloning. Abortion. Nationalized health care. Climate change. Divorce. Opinions differ on all of these -- and on every other issue of public concern. What's a person to do?

Ultimately, each of us must make up his or her own mind on each issue. There are no moral authorities. If you decide to accept whatever the Pope says on moral matters, then you've made the Pope your moral authority; but the decision was yours. You decided to submit to the Pope rather than think things through for yourself. So maybe I should qualify what I said. There are no externally imposed moral authorities, i.e., there is nobody who, by dint of training, practice, or experience, has special insight into the good, the right, or the just.

There are experts in geology, musicology, linguistics, and physics, but not in morality. The reason we care about credentials -- having an advanced degree from an accredited institution, for example -- is that they are marks, signs, or indicia of expertise. They are not guarantors; they are indicators. If they weren't at least indicators, we would pay no attention to them. In fact, we pay a great deal of attention to them. Name one academic department that would hire someone without a Ph.D. degree for a tenure-track position. Is that irrational? I don't think so. Certainly those doing the hiring don't think so! They think it's eminently rational.

Noam Chomsky is, by all accounts, a brilliant linguist. Let me stipulate that this is the case, since I'm not a linguist myself. Let me also stipulate that he is a competent philosopher of language, although he has no philosophical credentials. Does either of these facts give his opinions on foreign policy (or political morality generally) any greater weight? (By "greater weight," I mean greater than that of any randomly selected individual.) I don't see how it does. Chomsky's training is in linguistics, which is a social science. He is familiar with the literature of that field; he understands and applies its concepts and methods; he contributes to it in accordance with discipline-specific standards. Qua scientist, his job is to understand the world, not change it. He is to conduct his investigations dispassionately, impartially, and without bias. Scientists who exhibit bias in their scientific work are violating a basic norm of the scientific community. They are injecting their opinions (values) rather than letting the facts speak for themselves. Science (from the Latin word for knowledge) is about getting things right, not setting them right. Its direction of fit is word to world, not world to word. It is informative, not directive.

I'm well aware of what's called "critical social science." With all due respect to its practitioners, it is not science; it's politics masquerading as science. Calling something science doesn't make it science. The same is true of "normative economics." To the extent that it's economics, it's not normative. To the extent that it's normative, it's not economics. I'm not saying that economists can't invoke norms in their work. They can and do. I'm saying that the norms they invoke are the object or presupposition of their study, not something they impose on it. For example, an economist might study the various ways (means) to full employment. The norm of full employment is a given, something assumed or taken for granted. The economist says, in effect, "Given this norm (goal, end, objective), how can inflation be minimized?" Economists are technicians. They supply means to ends, not ends. Their aim is to describe and measure the costs and benefits of each bundle of goods society is presumed to want, not to dictate what society should want. Not convinced? Then identify where in economists' training -- in which course or seminar, specifically -- they learn the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust.

Chomsky's expertise as a linguist (or as an amateur but competent philosopher of language) has no bearing on anything moral or political, including matters of foreign policy. These two aspects of his life are, quite simply, unrelated. That he has strong opinions about American foreign policy in general or the war in Iraq in particular is no more significant than that others, such as classicist Victor Davis Hanson, have equally strong but opposite opinions. So why does anyone care what Chomsky thinks? I suspect it's because people commit a fallacy. Expertise (or the authority that rests on it) is not transferable from realm to realm. It's realm-specific. Imagine if it were transferable. Stephen Hawking, the great physicist, would be authoritative on baseball, plumbing, and economics. Bill James, the baseball statistician, would be authoritative on the war in Iraq, botany, and campaign finance. David McCullough, the historian, would be authoritative on wine, women, and song. Expertise in any area would make a person expert in every area.

I'm not saying that Hawking, James, and McCullough don't, can't, or shouldn't have opinions about these matters. I'm saying that their opinions, if they have any, are entitled to no more weight than anyone else's. If I want advice about wine, I'll consult a vinologist, thank you. If I want information about plants, I'll consult a botanist. If I want to know about NASCAR, I'll consult a racing expert. If I want to understand some arcane linguistic phenomenon, such as anaphora, I'll consult Chomsky. On matters that require expertise, either become an expert yourself or consult someone who is. On matters that require no expertise, such as morality, make up your own mind -- after gathering all relevant facts. This is not to reduce morality to taste; for there is a logic to moral judgment. Moral judgments must be consistent. If I believe that war is always wrong, I cannot consistently believe that the war in Iraq is right. I can believe one or the other of these propositions, but not both. Philosophy, as an academic discipline, consists in exposing inconsistencies. Moral philosophy, as a branch of philosophy, consists in exposing inconsistencies in moral judgments. Philosophy can't do everything, but it can do a lot. The only leverage a philosopher has is the principle of noncontradiction, which prohibits believing both a proposition and its negation.

Several years ago, when Jesse Jackson was running for president, I heard someone say that if he weren't black, he wouldn't be criticized so harshly. The irreverent reply was that if he weren't black, he wouldn't be taken seriously as a candidate. If Noam Chomsky were not a famous linguist, nobody would care a whit about his moral or political opinions. That people do care shows only that they are committing a fallacy -- that of transferring authority from a realm in which he is expert (linguistics) to one in which he is not (political morality).

Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington, where he teaches courses in logic, ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of law, and social and political philosophy. He blogs at AnalPhilosopher. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily shared by others at his university.

There is good evidence that is getting ever stronger that Global Warming is very real and has been increasing for some time, and ever more quickly more recently. Whether or not Man is the sole cause is irrelevant. Man is very clearly a significant cause of forced global warming.

I'm not sure many of the posts in this thread denied that the earth may be warming. The question still remains: can we do anything about it, given that there are billions of people that do not want to live their lives in brutal poverty and struggle ever harder to make their lives better.

Wasting time and whining about Barbra Streisand like Kyoto will not, let me repeat that, will not solve the problem. The number of people involved will dwarf whatever minute cuts Kyoto couldn't even enforce now. The only thing that may do so is clean energy, for the foreseeable future that likely means breeder reactors with nuclear material recycling technology. It doesn't mean more hand wringing about what the U.S. isn't doing and allowing China, India and Russia a free-for-all.

An economic solution may work, anything else is just more wasted energy.

So, that's Holland out at the WC Soccer. With their play, it's no wonder. Good.

Similar to the previous LPG Gas rant, I get annoyed at PIN Number. PIN stands for Personal Identification Number. A PIN Number would be a Personal Identification Number Number.

One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it. - Martin Luther King Jr.

WRONG! Despite the respected source, this quote is just plain not true, imho. The one who commits the killing, (let's say), is FAR more guilty than one who does not even participate in it. This is rhetoric, not accuracy.

This is unacceptable - a fair fraction of the more pleasant posters have taken offense at something on the boards and left.

Would Beethovens treatment explain why so many posters have taken offense and left?

Do you mean the treatment of Beethoven or by Beethoven?

It may be neither....Fuzzy appears to have the answer.

Yes, I got another mail from Jennifer saying that she has explained in her profile. And she has let the right person know about her oppinion.

She also says that she has no intentions of posting here again.

Personally I hope she'll change her mind, but as things are I don't think anything or anybody can convince her to come back.

So, another person has chosen to walk away from here and never look back. :-(