If you read this blog for very long, you will find me talking about fallacies.  Fallacies are mistakes in the process of reasoning and critical thinking.  Another way to think of it is a fallacy is a logic trick, or as an attempt to cheat in an argument.  We encounter fallacies every day, it’s just that the majority of us do not recognize them for what they are.  The purpose of this series is to help us learn the most common fallacies, how they work and how to spot them in our daily lives.  The particular fallacy discussed in this post is called ‘False Dilemma.’

False dilemma can be thought of as the ‘black-or-white,’ or the ‘either-or‘ fallacy — mostly because this is the way the majority of us will encounter it.  Please read the full explanation of ‘false dilemma‘ by following the links I have provided.  They will give you a formal understanding of this fallacy.  However, I want to do my best to bring this down to ‘kitchen table talk’ for you.  I hope I succeed.

The most common way we will see this fallacy presented to us is in a news article, and editorial or a discussion where the person trying to persuade us to see things there way frames their point in a way that leaves us with one of two or three choices.  When they do this, they will usually present the choices so that one — the choice they prefer — looks much more acceptable than the other choice(s).  When they do this, unless these are — in fact — the only choices, and they have been presented in a totally factual way — the person who is trying to convince you to agree with them is using a fallacy.  In other words, they are using a logic trick, or they are trying to cheat to win their argument.  Here are a few examples:

Suppose someone shows you a story about the desperate plight of the homeless.  Then they tell you that no one is providing for their needs except the government.  Finally, they present you with the choice: either you should vote to help the homeless, or you are greedy or heartless.  This is a ‘false dilemma’ fallacy that I have paraphrased, but it came directly from actual news stories.

Here is another example:

Suppose I show you screen captures of several tweets from Donald Trump, and the screen captures I use are clearly outside the norm of typical Presidential commentary.  Then I tell you that these tweets prove that Donald Trump is either mentally unstable, or lacks the intellectual understanding necessary to be President.  This is also ‘false dilemma.’  Why?  Simple: there is another rational explanation.  It is possible that Donald Trump intentionally sends out these tweets just to aggravate and distract the media as well as his political opponents.  If this is the case, then that is an explanation where the President is neither intellectually nor mentally unqualified.  Here again, I pulled this example from recent headlines, and I will leave you with a thought that will demonstrate why the media has been intentionally committing false dilemma in this regard.  Have you ever noticed that there is a correlation between when President Trump puts out a crazy sounding tweet and when he is doing something behind the scenes that we only find out about after he succeeds in getting it done?  Well, that could easily be evidence that Trump is tweeting with a purpose, and that this tactic has — so far — been wildly successful. 

This is how false dilemma works and, now that you know how to spot it, if you start looking, you will find it being used everywhere — and by people on all sides of the political isle. So do that: start looking for it, and when you find it, decide however you want, but know that the person who presented that false dilemma is most likely trying to trick you.

This past week, I spent a great deal of time addressing a guy known as ‘Richard.’  ‘Richard’ is a regular caller to the Steve Nichols Morning Drive talk radio show.  ‘Richard’ is not his real name.  From what I have learned, this caller refuses to give his real name.  So I wrote two posts addressing some of the messages ‘Richard’ has sent me this past week.  Originally, my intention was to demonstrate how people like ‘Richard’ think, and how they respond when they are challenged by someone who knows how to deal with their fallacious reasoning.  I have also been listening to Steve and his audience and how they have reacted to my posts to ‘Richard.’  Well, as I listened to Steve wrap up for the week, it suddenly dawned on me.  I have instinctively understood the central point I was trying to make all along, but I failed to actually explain it to those who were reading my posts to ‘Richard.’  For this, I apologize.  I left it to readers to just figure it out for themselves, but — at the risk of sounding arrogant (and please, forgive me if I do so) — I should have known that there would be many readers for whom my real point would not be readily apparent.  So, if the reader will indulge me, I’d like to explain something I should have addressed all along — Liberal Misdirection.

Now, I also realize that it already appears to many as though I am just trying to beat up on ‘Richard,’ and I do not want to further this perception.  Therefore, I am going to use an entirely different example to make my point.  However, if the reader is familiar with ‘Richard,’ and how he operates, I have no doubt the reader will recognize ‘Richard’ in the example I am about to give.  Here is the example we will use for this post:

If we listen to the political commentary in our society today, we will hear a common refrain: ‘The system doesn’t work.’  If we listen closely enough, we will also discover that the ‘system’ is defined as the system of government given to us by our Founders (i.e. The Constitution), along with our Capitalist economy.  To put it another way, we will hear voices that claim our Founder’s system and the Capitalist way are old, antiquated, broken and no longer work for our modern times.  If the reader is honest with themselves — especially if the reader is sympathetic toward this particular opinion — then the reader no doubt knows that this is true: there is a common theme in our current political dialogue to this affect.  Now let me show you why all of this is misdirection.

I am going to come back to our example here in just a moment.  First, I want to ask you something.  Suppose you just bought a brand new Chevy, and it works great.  You love it.  but I keep telling you that your car is old and broken and doesn’t work anymore.  You try to tell me that Your car if fine, there is nothing wrong with it, but I insist you are crazy.  For whatever reason, you just want to hold on to your gas-guzzling, smoke-producing old, broken down car.  Finally, you tell me to show you what car you are talking about and I say fine, I will.  I take you outside and I point to my old, broken down Ford (sorry Ford O:-) ).  Then I say, “See, your car is old, broken down and does not work anymore.    It needs to be replaced.  Why can’t you see and admit that?  Now stop holding on to it and let’s buy a new one.”  How are you going to deal with me — especially when you suddenly realize I honestly believe my old broken Ford is the car you are driving?

OK, now let’s go back to our example.  In our example, the system our Founders gave us — including Capitalism — is actually your new Chevy!  In the whole of human history, your car has only been around for the last 200-250 years.  That means your car is new.  In fact, it is the newest car on the market today.  On the other hand, what I have is an old car that has been around much longer.  Truth be told, my car is as old as human history, itself.  I am the one driving the old, broken system, but I refuse to believe that.  I believe your car, your system, is the broken system.  Now, how do we deal with this — because this is actually the reality we are facing!

I imagine the average reader’s first reaction to my last words will be something like, “What?!  What do you mean by that?”  It’s simple: I mean we are not using the system our Founders gave us, nor are we operating under free-market Capitalism!  Everywhere we look, our leaders tell us we are, but they are me: they are telling you that your new Chevy is the problem when — in reality — it is my old, broken Ford that is causing everyone all the trouble we’re experiencing.  By this, I mean to tell you that our current system of government is closer to the old ways of human government than it is to the system our Founders designed, and our leaders are deliberately telling you the exact opposite is true.  In short, they are lying to us.  It is classic misdirection.  They feed us  lie, then they have us fight over that lie while they slowly build the system they want.

When people say, “America is exceptional,” what they mean is that America is the exception to the rule.  Before the birth of this nation, human history had been the story of one man or a small group of elites ruling over the masses.  Our Founders changed this; for the first time in recorded history, the People were allowed to rule themselves.  The system they designed is the new system, and it still works.  The problem is, since the late 1800’s, the Progressives have slowly been replacing the Founders’ system with a version of the old system (this is actually why they call themselves ‘Progressives:’ because they progress toward their goals a piece at a time, not all at once by revolution).  They have done this so successfully, and for so long, today, we are no longer under the Founders’ system; we are under a new version of the old ways — which is exactly why things no longer work.  The old ways are based on force.  Americans — as a People — are based in Liberty.  So, when people at the top start trying to force their will on freedom-loving people, it causes friction.  What happens when you have friction?  Things start to get hot.  Look at our society today: are things getting hot?

Now, I do not expect the reader to believe me.  This is because I know that our leaders have been knowingly and intentionally lying to this nation for more than 100 years.  I have read their words where they openly boasted that they would do exactly what they have done.  They have even done it the way they said they would.  But I also know — if the reader will take some time to look into this — the reader will find that I am absolutely correct in saying we are closer to Fascism today than we are to our Founders Classic Liberal system.  Fascism is based on the rule of authority; our Founders’ system is based on the rule of law.  The Founders system is new and still works.  The old system of control is just that — old — and it has never worked.  But the people who seek to rule over us have succeeded in convincing a large part of our society that it is the Founders’ system that is broken and needs to be replaced.  This is because they succeeded in lying to us.  They have used misdirection to focus our rage on the cure rather than their disease.  To use another analogy: by making us turn against the very things that could save us, they have given us an auto-immune disease.  Worse, they have even trained us to inoculate ourselves against any cure by teaching us not to look into or think about things for ourselves.

What I am going to ask the reader to do now is look into what I am saying.  Find out what the Founders actually gave us and how it has been changed by the thing we call ‘Liberal/Progressivism.’  Then I would ask the reader to start looking for signs of this practice of misdirection in their world.  Look for it in the news; in their entertainment media; in their schools or their children’s’ schools; from our politicians; even on our talk radio shows.  If you never see it, fine.  Then you have proven to yourself that I am wrong.  However, I do not believe that an honest attempt to learn our founding and then look for misdirection will fail.  I believe, if the reader does what I ask, they will start seeing this misdirection everywhere, because it is in just about everything they feed us to consume today.  This is all I ask, please…