A Just So Militia

Introduction: This is a video posted to Youtube on October 26, 2021 by a social media personality going by the name Cramersez. The original video was clearly developed for TikTok, though I cannot find a direct link to it.

Key Facts: Militias figured prominently in the thinking of America’s leadership in the American revolution and the early years of American government. They were a significant theme in the development the Second Amendment. Modern paramilitary organizations in the USA often present themselves as militias, but they lack the institutional connections of colonial militias, Modern militias are often associated with right wing extremism and in some cases, domestic terrorism. Anti-(Federal)-government themes are a prominent part of the rhetoric coming out of modern militia.

Text: This Youtube video does not come with the option to produce a transcript, so this is my transcription. Anyway, the argument runs as follows:

“I’m going to say it again. Do you know why the Federal Government and state governments are so afraid of militias? Because militias, their only purpose for existing is to protect our rights. That’s it. They don’t want to take power. They don’t want to be governors. They don’t want to be presidents. They are only there to protect people’s rights, in case the government refuses to do so, like in Michigan, where a lady at a school board meeting begged the sheriff to protect their rights, begged the sheriff to intervene, and protect their children, and the sheriff said; “Fuck you.! I’m not going to do that; I’m going to side with the people who sign my check.” That’s why the militias are there. So when the law, when our politicians, when our so-called leaders, when they stop abiding by the Constitution, that’s what the militias are there for. And that’s why they are afraid of them.”

ANALYSIS

Comments: I spent a few minutes trying to find the specific incident in Michigan to which Cramer was referring here, but I couldn’t determine whether or not any of the stories I found were the specific story in question. This too is one of the features of sloppy rhetoric like Cramer uses here. His laziness makes work for those critics who might take him seriously enough to check. Conversely, it doesn’t take much effort to agree with him.

Statements: There is a lot of grouping here. The redundant assertions are obvious enough. Cramer also makes use of parallel construction, but that still leads to separate statements in at least one instance (statements 3-6). In others, it means, the opening clause of a single statement is repeated with minor variations. These must be grouped up (statement 8). Finally, I grouped up all of the elements of the story he told about a woman in Michigan (statement 7). Were I to go into detail on that story, I would of course prefer to break that up into distinct claims.

[a] I’m going to say it again.

[1] [This is the reason] the Federal Government and state governments are so afraid of militias.

[b] Because

]2] militias, their only purpose for existing is to protect our rights.

[2] That’s it.

[3] They don’t want to take power.

[4] They don’t want to be governors.

[5] They don’t want to be presidents.

[6] They are only there to protect people’s rights, in case the government refuses to do so,

[7] like in Michigan, where a lady at a school board meeting begged the sheriff to protect their rights, begged the sheriff to intervene, and protect their children, and the sheriff said; “Fuck you.! I’m not going to do that; I’m going to side with the people who sign my check.”

6] That’s why the militias are there.

8] So when the law, when our politicians, when our so-called leaders, when they stop abiding by the Constitution, that’s what the militias are there for.

[c] and

1] that’s why they are afraid of them.

Diagram: The specific conclusion of this argument poses an interesting question. It’s tempting to see the claim (statement 1) that the only reason governments are afraid of militia is their sole purpose is the conclusion, because he seems to frame that as his central thesis. Yet, the notion that militia exist solely to protect the rights of American citizens (statement 2) seems to be a more robust claim with more direct relevance to actual political questions. So, I am inclined to treat that as the conclusion of the argument. From there, we get two major sub-arguments; one focusing on the motives of militia (4+5->3) and one focusing on the specific way Cramer things militia activity might be triggered (7->8->6) Both lead to statement 2.

The second of the two main arguments is worthy of a little comment. I take statement 7 to provide anecdotal evidence for the conclusions Cramer wishes to draw about the purpose of militia. It (putatively) establishes the need for extra-governmental action. Statement 8 is describes the principles he thinks would apply in cases like that, and this then leads to statement 6, which is simply a more succinct expression of the same thing. This then leads to statement 2, which is even more succinct.

Discussion: This argument raises the following themes; Anecdotal Evidence, Begging the Question, Cherry Picking, Inference Indicators, Just so Narratives, Misplaced Concretism, Suppressed Evidence, Redundant Assertions, Unsupported Claims.

Anecdotal Evidence: Cramer’s use of a single story to support his claim is an example of anecdotal evidence. That his story is unsourced and told in highly partisan terms is an additional problem. Even if his account of the Michigan example is accurate, this does not prove that militias would help in the matter, and even if they could, this does not prove that they pose no threats to others or that their sole purpose is protecting people’s rights.

Begging the Question: Cramer is trying to prove to us that militias are not dangerous, but his central argument consists merely in the assumption that their only purpose is benign. This is a circular argument. Likewise, his anecdote assumes the woman in his story was right about the issue and that the sheriff in question was refusing to do his job. This too begs a number of questions about the actual dispute in his example, questions made more difficult to nail down by his complete lack of any concrete reference to the actual story. Insofar as a just-so narrative is his central stratagem in this argument, the whole thing hinges on his ability to frame the narrative in terms which match the desired outcome. The entire post is an exercise in begging the question.

It does seem quite likely that militia members will describe their intervention in any aspect of American politics as being warranted by the defense of individual rights, but this merely means that is the story they will tell. Whether or not individual rights are being infringed upon is another question, and whether or not militia activity is likely to help is yet another. In effect, Cramer is telling us about the narrative that militia will bring into a conflict, but this does nothing to reassure us that they will not do so for specious reasons.

Cherry Picking: Everything that makes this anecdotal evidence, also makes this argument an example of cherry picking.

Inference Indicators: The use of ‘because’ indicates an explanation indicates an explanation is forthcoming. It does not introduce a reason as would normally be the case. It could be viewed as a conclusion indicator if this were abductive reasoning, but Cramer doesn’t really give us a reason to believe this is the best explanation for government fear of the militias. He simply presents that as an obvious fact. In the end, this ‘because’ isn’t really an inference indicator at all.

Just So Narratives: Cramer offers no real argument for his claims that the only purpose for the militias is the protection of rights is to protect people’s rights. He does not examine other possible motives for joining a militia, or other possible uses for militia, nor does he present any reason to dismiss concerns about domestic terrorism. He simply tells a story in which their single-minded purpose is assumed rather than proven. Cramer does give us an anecdote in support of the possibility that militia could be used for such purposes, but that does nothing to answer other concerns about militia. In effect, the single-minded purpose of militia enters this argument as an artifact of story itself. No evidence in support of that single-minded purpose enters into his argument.

Misplaced Concretism: Simply put, governments are not afraid of militias. Governments are not afraid of anything, because governments do not have emotions. Government officials may fear militias, but so can individual citizens. Cramer’s decision to treat governments as though they had the qualities of persons allows him to recontextualize the fears of actual people in unrealistic terms, effectively attributing them to an abstract and malevolent entity. This makes it much easier to deny the fears.

A similar problem applies to his references to the purpose of militias. Cramer makes a seamless transition from talking about their purpose (which could be understood as formed by actual people) to claims about what ‘they’ want, His comments on this theme are not precisely about the goals of membership, but neither are them limited to the characteristics of organizations. In effect, he is still talking about militias even as he is talking about them in terms of real human motivation.

Suppressed Evidence: Cramer’s account of militia does not address the connection between militia and domestic terrorism which is a large source of concern . The exact nature of this connection is of course debatable, but Cramer does not address it in any way. He simply ducks the issue.

Redundant Assertions: Statements 1 and 2 are both repeated twice.

Unsupported Claims: Cramer provides no evidence in support of his specific take on the anecdote. Neither does he support his assumptions about the exclusive purpose of militias. His claims on these subjects remain unsupported.

Evaluation: The argument fails for multiple reasons, most of which have already been mentioned above, but to address the specific argument.

Statement 7: There is no reason to believe Cramer’s account of the story is accurate. There is less reason to believe it establishes a need for militia action, and still less to believe that this is the only reason militias exist.

Statement 1 commits the fallacy of misplaced concretism. It also remains unsupported insofar as Cramer provides no reason to believe that the sole purpose of defending rights is the specific reason governments (or actual people) are afraid of militia.

Statements 4 and 5 also commit the fallacy of misplaced concretism, and there is no reason to believe they are true, Neither would their truth prove that militias constituted no threat to anyone who wasn’t taking people’s rights.

Final Thoughts: Neither the Federalnor the state governments fear anything. Actual people do, and it is actual people who suffer the consequences of domestic terrorism which is intimately connected to the modern militia movement. Oklahoma City should have established this once and for all.

When “They” is One or Two or Maybe Legion

Introduction: This argument can be found on a Youtube presentation by James Lindsay entitled, “Stealing the Motte: Critical Social Justice and the Principle of Charity.” It is one of many arguments he directs against what he calls “critical social justice theory.” It is part of a larger series of audio-clips published under the title of “New Discourses.” This is the parent-site for the publication.

Key Facts: I believe Lindsay is referring to the this paper, published in Hipatia Press. It’s title doesn’t entirely match his own description, but it’s close enough that I do believe this is the one he has in mind.

Text: This is a small portion of text taken from the transcript provided by Youtube. He goes on to elaborate on the details of the article and on his own reasons for referring to social justice as a virus.

I want to focus on the claim that social justice critics refer to their own movement as a virus, treating that as the conclusion of his argument for purposes of this argument.

“I’ve both written and 16:50 spoken in fact about how critical social 16:53 justice is like a virus on our liberal 16:55 societies and I have to do that again 16:56 here because it’s just the best metaphor 17:00 for understanding it but before 17:02 reminding you of that I have to remind 17:06 you also that I’m not characterizing 17:08 them as viruses I’m not making a case 17:11 about them that they don’t make about 17:13 themselves they call themselves viruses 17:16 as well and compare the theory to it 17:19 anyway in activism and so I’m not in any 17:22 way trying to untie him unfairly here as 17:25 I’ve noted before in 2016 to feminist 17:29 scholars Bram foz and Michael Carter 17:31 published an academic paper in a 17:32 relatively small academic journal and it 17:35 carried the title women’s studies as a 17:36 virus institutional feminism effect in 17:39 the projection of danger in that paper 17:42 Falls and Carter make the point that 17:44 women’s studies should see itself 17:45 through the metaphor of the virus 17:49 comparing the discipline if you will in 17:51 favorable terms to other plagues like 17:54 Ebola and HIV and unless you think I 17:57 exaggerate I can quote 17:58 them on this…”

ANALYSIS

Comments: Yes, I found it while reading up on Motte and Bailey doctrines.

Statements: Using the claim critical social justice activists refer to themselves as the conclusion of the argument means we leave a lot of this passage out of the argument (hence the unnumbered statements below). Were we to address the accuracy of Lindsay’s treatment of the article in question, we would need to add a great deal more to the analysis. What I have included here is sufficient to address the relevance of this one article to Lindsay’s generalizations about social justice activism.

I also cleaned up a few things the transcript appears to have gotten wrong. In any event, I believe the argument is as follows.

***

I’ve both written and spoken in fact about how critical social justice is like a virus on our liberal societies and I have to do that again here because it’s just the best metaphor for understanding it but before reminding you of that I have to remind you also that I’m not characterizing them as viruses I’m not making a case about them that they don’t make about themselves.

[1] they call themselves viruses as well and compare the theory to it anyway in (or possibly ‘and’) activism

and so I’m not in any way trying to characterize them unfairly here. as I’ve noted before

[2] in 2016 two feminist scholars Breanne Fahs and Michael Karger published an academic paper in a relatively small academic journal.

and

[3] it carried the title “Women’s Studies as a Virus; Institutional Feminism, affect, and the Projection of Danger”

[4] In that paper Fahs and Carter make the point that women’s studies should see itself through the metaphor of the virus,comparing the discipline if you will in favorable terms to other plagues like Ebola and HIV…”

Diagram: If statement 2 here draws our attention to an article in which two feminists refer to women’s studies as a virus, statements 3 and 4 elaborate on the significance of the paper. These combine together to form the claim that social justice theorists refer to themselves and their own movement as a virus (statement 1). This is then taken as evidence that Lindsay is not characterizing social justice advocates unfairly when he himself describes their movement as a virus, but that is a part of the larger argument which I do not purport to analyze here.

2+3+4 -> 1

Discussion: This argument raises the following themes: Ad Hominem, Anaphora, Anecdotal Reasoning, Authority, Cherry Picking, Hasty Generalization, Poisoning the Well, Principle of Charity.

Ad Hominem: Whatever the reasons Fahs and Karger have for describing feminism as a virus, Lindsay’s own goal is convince his audience that anyone associated with critical social justice theory is a terrible person engaged in terrible things. It is a sustained attack on a broad range of scholarship. Lindsay does not make an effort to show that social justice critics are wrong, so much as that they are dangerous and positively evil. To suggest that his approach to the subject constitutes an ad hominem-circumstantial is putting it mildly.

Anaphora: One of the distinctive features of this presentation is the undisciplined use of anaphoric reference. Lindsay’s use of ‘they’ and ‘them’ throughout the audio enables him to skip a lot of interesting questions about why he is really talking about at any given time. In this passage, the shift from two specific authors publishing a single paper in a “relatively small academic journal” to the claim that social justice theorists as a whole characterize their work as a virus leans rather heavily on Lindsays use of ‘they’ and ‘them.’ In this case, the shift from his evidence to his conclusion entails a jump from feminism to critical social justice theory and a jump from a sample of two to the whole of critical theory. Using this language enables Lindsay to presuppose the relevance of his evidence to his conclusion without stating its terms explicitly.

Anecdotal Reasoning: Insofar as Lindsay is providing a story about a single paper in support of a sweeping generalization about a broad range of scholarship, this constitutes a good example of anecdotal reasoning.

Authority: One of the more charitable ways of interpreting this argument would be to treat it as an authority-based argument. I say it’s charitable, because the alternative is to suggest that a same of two authors is sufficient to speak for the entirely of scholars identifying themselves as critical theorists, which invites the Hasty Generalization comments below. If on the other hand, Lindsay wishes to suggest that Fahs and Karger have authority to speak on a nature of this trend because they are part of it, that is at least a little more interesting. Still, there is little reason to believe these two scholars have the authority to define the entirety of social justice scholarship. Even their own article falls well short of such a claim, being focused on women’s studies.

Cherry Picking: The selection of a single article employing language comparable to Lindsay’s own smacks of cherry picking.

Hasty Generalization: A sample of one article and two feminists simply is not enough evidence to demonstrate, as Lindsay claims that this is how critical social justice advocates describe themselves. Its not even close.

Interactional Eclipse: One big problem with describing any human beings or movement of human beings in terms of a virus is that any descriptive value this account might have is likely to be overshadowed by the pejorative implications. Fahs and Karger may have been happy to use an exciting narrative for feminism, but for his own part, Lindsay is even happier to use a metaphor that effectively dehumanizes Fahs and Karger, and if he has his way, everyone associated with social justice or critical theory. In effect, the insult here is is the point. The argument, for Linday, at any rate, is little more than a pretext for that insult.

Poisoning the Well: This entire Youtube presentation is an effort to convince Lindsay’s audience that social justice critics are out to destroy liberal society, and hence, they are unworthy of the principle of charity. To say that this is an exercise in poisoning the well is also putting it mildly.

Principle of Charity: I can think of two ways to interpret the use of a single article by two scholars within one sub-field associated with social justice to characterize all of the social justice movement. One way is to think of it as a representative sample, and the other is to think of it as an authority-based argument. Either way, the argument fails.

Evaluation: The argument fails because this one article simply isn’t sufficient to warrant a generalization about social justice critics as a whole.

Final Thoughts: This is of course part of a much larger argument. Independent of his claim that social justice theorists characterize themselves as a virus, Lindsay does offer his own reasons for thinking of critical social justice theory as a virus. Whether or not these are worthy of consideration is another question.

There is another angle here insofar we could try to unpack Lindsay’s phrasing. The term “critical social justice activism” fuses together quite a few different things. I don’t think he is wrong in suspecting that these things are related, but the effort to just fuse them all into one term is a little disconcerting, particularly when it is couple with clear efforts to poison the well for anyone associated with this amalgam. Whether or not Lindsay’s work is worth the effort is also another question.

Dinesh Does What He Does

Introduction: On the 6th of May, Dinesh D’Souza posted this on twitter.

Key Facts: On January 6th, 2021 Congress met for the purpose of verifying the certified votes of the 2021 Presidential election. Joe Biden had received the majority of certified votes, making him the presumed President elect, though Donald Trump had challenged the election in a number of court cases as well a variety of popular fora. He consistently lost the court challenges before election officials and courts, but successfully developed a significant following of his own base unwilling to accept the legitimacy of the election.

On January 6th, Congressmen from several states challenged the legitimacy of votes reported from their own states Outside, as they were expected to do, thus triggering a debate within Congress. Donald Trump spoke to a rally of his own supporters which he had encouraged to come to Washington DC on the day in question. Following his own speech, Trump supporters stormed the Congressional buildings and shut down Congress. five people were killed and process of confirming the votes was delayed for a time. This is a rather dry description of events, but it must be stressed that the riots included a number of disturbing events, and the rhetoric of Trump and his supporters leading up to the event contained many elements suggesting violence intent all along. Some have suggested that this riot would be better described as an insurrection, an attempted coup, or even domestic terrorism. At least some of the participants do appear to have come prepared to engage in acts which would normally be described as domestic terrorism. In the wake of all this, many have argued that Trump incited the riot himself, and that this is grounds for impeachment.

Dinesh D’Souza is a far right wing political commentator. He plead guilty to a felony charge of making illegal campaign contributions during the 2012 political campaigns. His conviction was pardoned by Donald Trump in 2018.

Text: “Does this look like an insurrection? A riot? A coup attempt? If it doesn’t walk like a duck or talk like a duck then it probably isn’t a duck.”

ANALYSIS

Comments: Dinesh D’Souza is far more influential than he ought to be, so he merits attention for reasons unrelated to the quality of his thought.

Statements: This argument requires us to rewrite a rehtorical question as 3 different statements (Sttements 1-3) and supply a missing conclusion (statement 5).

[1] [This does not] look like an insurrection.

[2] [This does not look like] A riot.

[3] [This does not look like a] coup attempt.

[4] If it doesn’t walk like a duck or talk like a duck then it probably isn’t a duck.

[5] [The events of January 6th were not an insurrection, a riot, or a coup attempt.]

Diagram: There are a few ways, you could represent this, but the easiest thing to do here I think is just treat statements 1-3 as the minor premise(s) in a mixed hypothetical argument and 4 as supplying the major premise. We could translate the ‘duck’ metaphor into the language specific to this event, which would create an extra step or two in the reasoning, but that seems unnecessary. This argument is modus ponens with 3 minors instead of one, and also a qualifier (‘probably’). Also, the negatives in the antecedent are a little weird. …Okay, it’s an unusual MP, but hopefully you can see the form.

1+2+3+4 – > [5]

Discussion: This argument presents the following issues: argument from ignorance, cherry-picking, micro-reasoning, missing assertions, modus ponens, qualification, red herring, rhetorical questions.

Ad Ignorantiam: One way of explaining the problem with this argument would be to focus on the misuse of evidence here. D’Souza is calling our attention to the apparently mild nature of the image in the picture. Because this image doesn’t look like a riot, he wants us to conclude that this was not a riot, but that ignores the many other reasons we have to think of this as a riot.

Cherry Picking: While this image may seem fairly unthreatening (although it certainly does document crimes, one of them being theft), this ignores the many images and videos of the incident which depict actual violence quite clearly. D’Souza has chosen a convenient sample which supports his own conclusions while ignoring others.

Micro-Reasoning: As with any other tweet, this argument has a small amount of space to develop the point. Whether or not D’Souza could produce a better argument with more space is another question, but the medium certainly does constrain the possibilities here.

Missing Assertions: D’souza does not spell out his main point in explicit terms, so this argument contains a missing conclusion.

Modus Ponens: This argument has elements of Modus Ponens to it, at least if you ignore the qualifier.

Qualification: D’souza includes the word probably in his major premise, which would seem to transform this largely deductive argument into an instance of inductive reasoning.

Red Herring: Another way of getting at the problem with this argument would be to say that it is simply a red herring. The fact that a couple people don’t seem to be engaging in violent acts at one moment in the events simply does not address questions about violence in others or even the intent of those who planned it. Of course, the ‘argument from ignorance’ and ‘cherry picking’ may give us a better sense of the diversion tactic D’Souza is using, but the bottom line is that this argument is inviting us to focus on a red herring.

Rhetorical Questions: The quest sentence is not really a question of course. D’Souza is implying that the picture does not at all look like an insurrection, a riot, or a coup. He puts his point here in the form of a question for rhetorical effect. Frankly, I don’t think it helps much as the statement does not look true, even as an assertion of probability. It would be worse if D’Souza left this as a categorical statement, but this little qualifier just doesn’t help.

Evaluation: The argument fails by virtue of the irrelevance of the assumptions in question. This is clearly a red herring and an appeal to ignorance; that it takes the form of a modus ponens doesn’t change this. Most likely, the biggest way to address the issue would be to simply deny the truth of premise 4, both in the abstract and as regards this specific subject matter. Just because you can find a relatively peaceful image occurring in the midst of a riot doesn’t mean it isn’t a riot. The consequent does not follow from the antecedent in this statement. not categorically and not probably.

Final Thoughts: If it appears that I have not shown much respect for Dinesh D’Souza, the author of this argument, that is not an accident. Please accept my apologies for the lapse in decorum.