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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....

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To: Sully- who wrote (1985)	4/30/2004 8:29:45 PM
From: Sully-	of 35834

Tu Quoque (a retort charging an adversary with being or doing what he criticizes in others) By Jay on Political Philosophy Jay Reding Blog Steven Den Beste has yet another lengthy but brilliant piece on the common fallacies of the left which he proceeds to utterly demolish. One of the larger points he makes is one that bears repeating and illustrates the most common fallacy used in political debate today. That fallacy can be described in two words: Tu quoque. <font size=4> Tu Quoque is one of those wonderful Latin terms that describes a way of dodging an argument by making an accusation against the person making the argument. One of my guilty and occasional pleasures is watching Hannity and Colmes. Every night they pose a question and the GOP flack blames Bill Clinton and the Democratic flack blames George W. Bush. In the end the question never gets answered by either side. That's an example of a tu quoque style of argumentation - and it's almost completely worthless. It doesn't serve any purpose, it doesn't illuminate anything, and it wastes large amounts of time. The Kerry campaign is tu quoque writ on a national scale. Most of the Kerry argument is that "Bush policies are wrong" no matter what the question. For example, if Kerry is asked a question about his economic plans, 9/10ths of that answer will be an attack against President Bush and perhaps 1/10th of it will be a description of what Kerry would actually do. The pattern has been consistant from Kerry (and the rest of the Democrats) since the beginning of the Bush Administration. The job of the opposition in politics is not merely to say that something is wrong. A critic or a dissenter is not automatically brave, noble, or intelligent. Some of the dumbest people one can meet are the ones who are self- described "non-conformists". Rather than being truly innovative they simply conform to a different lifestyle that's just as stultifying (and usually more so) than the one they left. (Coincidentally, Steven Den Beste has piece on that very same topic). The real job of a principles opposition party is to provide realistic alternatives to current policies. On this front, the Kerry campaign is a miserable failure. Kerry has promised to create 10 million jobs, which is something that is beyond the scope of the Executive branch (or government in general). He's promised to "internationalize" the reconstruction of Iraq despite the fact that it is already as international as it can likely get. (As well as the fact that the UN has already screwed up in regards to Iraq with their pull-out this summer and the Oil-for-Food scandal.) He's promised to spend trillions of dollars in health care while saying that he's more fiscally responsible than Bush. He's promised to support the troops 100% despite a clear policy record that indicates quite the opposite. So what does one do when they can't run on policy? Tu quoque. It didn't work for Bob Dole in 1996, and I doubt it will work for Kerry in 2004.

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