New propaganda words "Broken Logic": what does it mean

[applegrove]

Broken logic:

My best guess is that 'broken logic' implies that the string of thinking has been interrupted by a feeling and a value added to the outcome of the thinking. Also known as 'thinking things through'.

For an example of the term 'broken logic' in action see:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=103400#


Anybody else want to try and come up with a definition?

[adwon]

1. I use it politely

when what I really mean is "That's the fucking stupidest shit I ever heard in my life and you need to get a fucking clue."

But that's just me. :P

[John Q. Citizen]

3. That's a pretty god definition. I was going to define it it as..

"I'm OK, your a shit head."

[Cadence]

2. Probably similar to fuzzy logic.

Using exaggerated facts, half-truths, or jumping to conclusions to make a point rather than basing it on supportable fact.

[ixion]

4. broken logic implies logic that was once working, now not working

which mean's that 'broken' as it's used in GOP talking points is arbitrary and misleading -- as in logic chains that have been established as true are difficult to otherwise prove false.

[lostinacause]

8. The problem is that unless you think that you can arbitrarily change

logic, that definition doesn't work. Even if logic is synthetic, the points the Republicans make hardly justify as a paradox that would require changing logic.

[TWiley]

5. Well, Postmanx's logic is flawed.

<<<Broken logic has led us to the belief that if we have zero weapons allowed in our schools, we will have safer schools.>>>>

There is a principle of logic called "reducto ad adsurdum". Lets reduce his argument to the "absurd" and see which is more true.

1) Schools will be safer if every elementary school child and adult is armed with a concealed handgun.

2) Schools will be safer if every elementary school child or adult is NOT armed with a concealed handgun.

Obviously, 2 is more true.

The poster also assumes that the "hero with a handgun" will always be in the right place at the right time. He also assumes that he will be able to fatally wound the "villain" before he can harm a child. This is simply bad reasoning. Obviously, you would have to have a gunman in every classroom to prevent a catastrophe.

He expands upon the threadbare conservative idea that weapons proliferation makes the world a safer place. Obviously, this is not true either. It is more common to find guerrilla warfare, usually republican guerrilla's trying to overthrow a democratically elected liberal or socialist, in an area where large quantities of weapons are imported.

In a nutshell he believes:

High crime areas are found where no guns are present.
Low crime areas are found where everybody is armed.

hmmm, Following his reasoning, shouldn't Detroit or South Central LA be the safest places in America to live?

[Toots]

6. How does his broken logic explain foreign countries

"High crime areas are found where no guns are present.
Low crime areas are found where everybody is armed."

Japan very low crime rate virtually no guns available

Brittain low crime rate, low gun availability.

Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc..

[TWiley]

16. Yes, that is the insanity of the NRA argument.

one would think that the ghetto would be a "low crime area" and a small town would be a "high crime area".

You are right. His "broken logic" is far more flawed than what he was assigning the label to.

[applegrove]

7. I agree. I think it is just another propaganda term. It means that

we are placing emotion in our argument (like kids dying by accidental event is a bad thing) and that breaks down the logic.

Just another word for bullshit in my book.

[TWiley]

17. Well that sums it up nicely in only two syllables.

The problem is that evangelicals put a premium on emotional experiences. Emotion is the empirical evidence which proves the existence of God. Unfortunately, the Republicraps have learned how to exploit this flaw in their faith big time.

[applegrove]

18. I was coming at it from the vantage point that emotion is a good thing.

To me "broken logic" is repuke propaganda word that means "oh you are putting emotion into the argument for gun laws..." to which I say "yes - because I am a human being discussing laws to make other human beings safer".

'broken logic' is right up there with "oh - you are just imagining that argument in your head" (which means that is an original point).

Repukes try and reframe things in our discussions with them using vague negative words like 'broken logic' so that we hesitate or feel we have done something wrong.

Check out the link at the start to see how the word was used.. to imply that somehow there is something wrong with democratic or anti-gun law reasoning. There isn't.

[TWiley]

24. I have seen republicans use this tactic often

<<<<Check out the link at the start to see how the word was used.. to imply that somehow there is something wrong with democratic or anti-gun law reasoning. There isn't.>>>>

I wonder if it is a shrewd and directed propaganda technique, or if republican thinking in general so flawed that they will readily accept and formulate these arguments.

BTW, instead of "anti-gun", how about "gun safety"? Then repukes would be "anti-gun-safety"

[applegrove]

20. All normal human beings put a premium on emotional experience.

People living in democratic countries put a premium on empathy..otherwise you could never get together and have pluralities. Religions put a premium on empathy too. Otherwise people could never have functioned together in large countries and cities. It is a universal human thing.

It is a neocon & sociopathic thing to demand the emotion be taken out of any argument involving governance.

Don't paint evangelicals as overly emotional.. because neocons paint liberals as just that. And they are creeps. I think the devout have an extra emotion that I don't have..religious faith. And like many emotions it mixing in with others. We human beings have alot more in common with each other than we have with the 20 sociopaths currently running the USA.

Don't get me wrong. I agree with the religious man who wrote that best-selling book that power & TV corrupt religion. And I think many evangelicals are being used. And some are probably lovely people. Who hurt gay people on the one hand and get blood transfusions on the other. Some day I hope monotheistic religions will have a more holistic approach the science vs. the bible. Many already do.

No the overly emotional ones are just as likely to be victims of manipulations in the USA as anything else. Emotion isn't the enemy (though corporations & the neocons will tell us to leave the emotion out of our expectations of governance - but they think it is okay to use emotion to get an unpopular president re-elected or to sell soap on the TV). As with all their bullshit it is one set of rules for the neocons and their followers ... and another set for their opposition to follow.

I truly could not believe someone was advocating loaded guns in every classroom in school. Now that is cold. ***holes

[TWiley]

25. Emotion should add meaning to experiences.

All by itself, however, emotion should not be used to constitute "fact". It is easy to be highly emotional about an issue, and to be dead wrong at the same time. Just because I feel a certain way does not make it "truth" outside my own skin. This is the loophole I was thinking about.

Salvation would be meaningless without some type of "appropriate" emotion attached to it. What would happen if the "appropriate" emotion was disgust?

It is true that I painted evangelicals with too broad a brush. I was thinking of a subset who equate emotion with spirituality. Jesus becomes their Prozac, and if they feel bad, then either they have sinned, or the devil is attacking them.

To some extent, we can assign whatever moral value we want to an "emotional experience". This is the handle that the bushtapo has learned how to pull.

Folks who live in a world where emotion is fact would be easy to manipulate with this tactic. Think about Terri Schaivo, and try to honestly say that the republicans are not using this tool.

[applegrove]

27. But empathy is how you overcome the lack of objectivity in some

emotions. You accept that other people will have legit emotions too and you take into account the emotions of all people when you set policy (that is how you get to "war is bad" & "when I vote I don't always get everything i want in a leader..but I get what I need". Both of these seem to be lacking from the elites behind Bush.

And they encourage tribalism (they give the rich tax cuts & hope for a sales tax to replace income tax and further make the tax system way regressive...that way the middle class will carry a much bigger burden for social programs and thus want them to end and reduce their practice of sympathy with the poor.. because they will buckle under the weight and collapse as an empathetic class). Tribalism is just encouraging the practice of empathy to be directed only at people exactly like you (Terry Schiavo was a upper middle class white girl).

You are right that emotion gives meaning to it all. And that is exactly why we face such propaganda. So that there is no longer 'meaning' in our arguments and we loose touch with the great human beings we are.

That is the plan.

[TWiley]

28. Religion justifies "tribalism" which is actually a form of "paganism"

That is the mystery of it all. They fight against the pagans while becoming one themselves.

Our culture is tribal by nature. Think about sports. Uniforms equate to race or nationality. One is superior to the others due to physical attribute. Religion is among the greatest divisors.

Right now, the tribe of white married conservative republican protestant christians with children and 3 flags, one fishie, and one support the troops ribbon on the SUV are the top "tribe".

We need to get back to "human rights" and the rights of all living creatures versus "the rights of capitlaists". This is where the debate should be. They have us all divided up.

[applegrove]

29. The British used something called "Indirect Rule" to control all their

colonies. It allowed for an elite on top that could skim the wealth of the country off the top, all the while the people down below were divided up into various tribal groups (defining yourself only with people exactly like you and having no empathy for those outside your group.. and following local leaders). If you are kept so busy following customary law (as in religion) and fighting and causing skirmishes with your neighbors (gay marriage, reproductive rights) then you are kept busy with each other and do not get together long enough to form a plurality and get rid of the elites.

They used Indirect Rule (divide & dominate) in India (Hindus & Muslims are still going at each other 50 years after independence), in Quebec (that was an explosion when the quebecors finally stopped listening to the church that dominated them long enough to see all the rich English only speakers living in mansions on a hill), in Nigeria independence brought the Biafran Civil War ( three groups in Nigeria were encouraged to be hierarchichal..even though one group was primarily egalitarian.. the Brits forced them into hierarchy so they could rule through chiefs (Ibos chiefs had been sort of benevolent symbolic elders who worked only for the good of the tribe previously).

That is what Bush is doing in the USA. Because the uber elites require tribalism below them in order to exist.. the elites in the USA have power and have been trying to create tribalism among the voters for 30 years. They have succeeded a bit. In a sense tribalism is the opposite of democracy. And in order for huge Elites in the USA to exist.. they require growing tribalism and a weakened democracy.

How do you defeat tribalism in the form of Islamist Arab Fundamentalist Terrorists? You force their countries to be democratic and thus spread the money around so no elite exists to fund terrorism or tribalism. In democracy people use empathy to cross boundaries and share the wealth.

Empathy is what ties democracy together and it is what the freepers online are trying to undo in us and in how we see the world. Any argument that includes empathy for your fellow man is called 'wrong' in some vague way by the freeper you are trying to discuss things with. they never stop trying to get us all tribal . They want so much for empathy to only be felt for people in a narrow group.

That is who Terry Schiavo was.. she was a white woman from a religious family that was a victim. So empathy within your group is fine.

They will not win. Because they are adolescent & Utopian.

There is nothing wrong with a family being a family or driving and SUV (okay my bad SUV are terrible of environment). There is nothing wrong with family values but to assume Liberals do not have any is a crime. Liberals love sports too (who said there was anything wrong with adolescents going through adolescence or adults enjoying a game here or there. We all do the 'play' thing in one form or another in our time out from being adults. There is also nothing wrong with capitalism (every country in the world with the exception of Cuba is a capitalist mixed market economy). Human rights and capitalism are not enemies at all. If anything the wealth capitalism creates (if you don't live & eat off only what you can make yourself off your land - you are in the market & a capitalist) opportunities for democracy and the better lives that brings. The existence of the middle class is wholly as a result of getting the monopolies away from the elites and making the market work better for all: the result was capitalism.

The human rights problem with Bush is with this Utopia ideal of perpetual markets given to the USA via perpetual War. Also torture. So Rumsfield goes into Iraq with not enough people to win the peace. Now - did he really want to win the peace? I DO NOT KNOW IF THE INSURGENCY IS NEEDED or if it was just bad planning. But to put a people through a perhaps decade long insurgency in order to have an excuse to have your army base there ..is colonialism. And yes - human rights will be destroyed a lot longer than just during the war. Actually if they went into Iraq with no intention of winning the peace though they claimed that that is what they wanted.. they are war criminals. IMHO. So Rummy is either incompetent or a war criminal. Those are the two choices. He plays up the incompetent - repentant.. one these days. I actually hope he is as incompetent as he claims because it means he (they) would be capable of learning from their mistakes.

So the whole thing about them (and all sociopaths) is that they are not adult or human. And they have to take our adult ability to take responsibility for our actions (votes) away from us using tribalism & the accompanying patriarchy. So that their needs for more power or wealth (addictions to them) will be the only goal. They need Americans to behave like brown-shirts and be ready for one perpetual war after the other.. petty bickering with local neighbours so that national political issues are burried in the local struggles ... and ready to be patriotic and not feel anything for the people who are suffering due to American Action abroad. All so that the uber rich do not for a day have to face a failing market.

[Plaid Adder]

9. I prefer "insane troll logic" n/t

[H2O Man]

10. I believe it means,

when used by the republican right, "shut the fuck up, or we will crush you."

[callous taoboy]

11. Getting a ticket on the clue bus. n/t

[applegrove]

13. Did you read the post? Where if we arm all classrooms with

a loaded & quickly accessible gun ... then more children will be saved (from teenagers with AK-47s I guess though not from accidental death or deaths involving the teacher's weapon). I getting that no student will then be allowed to be in a classroom without the presence of a teacher. Man - can you imagine the number of gun runners who would break into schools overnight to collect - twenty weapons?)

Apparently my logic that says that is not a good idea is 'broken'.

[applegrove]

12. I still think it means: I can't follow your logic because you include

'one of the feelings of being human' in how you make decisions and I have not feelings because I am a neocon.

And then I will ask them why it is okay for them to use emotion in the corporate advertising when we as consumers make decisions..but it is not okay to use feeling when we decide WHAT SORT OF COUNTRY WE WANT TO LIVE IN!

[lostinacause]

14. Ok, here goes

Broken logic implies that the logic is broken. Thus the simplest definition that we could make is that a statement is broken logic if; given set of implicit and explicit premises we would find a conclusion stated by supposedly combining them that can not be achieve using logic. Most of what people seem to call broken logic is when they believe there is a problem with one or more of the premises.

To simplify broken logic is when someone states a conclusion that may seem to follow by logic but doesn’t.

An example of broken logic is “If you’re not with us, you’re against us”

An example of a faulty premise (not broken logic)
- Going to war is good. We should be good
- Therefore: We should go to war.

[lostinacause]

15. WHY do my posts seem to kill just about every thread.

It's seems that I wreck the momentum of any thread I post on. Does my breath smell bad or something?

[applegrove]

19. No - I smell nothing. I just went on a little outing. Are you saying you

have heard the words 'broken logic' before? Is it just me who has never heard it used before?

[lostinacause]

21. I've never heard of it before.

If someone did say it to me I would have a field day with it as those who would say something like that generally don't have the knowledge of the true extent of what they are saying. If they would they would likely choose different words.

[applegrove]

22. I just find that on other bulletin boards the freepers/gop types are

forever trying to get out of discussions (because they know they cannot win them on the facts) one way or another. And it usually involves making us feel less confident, confused, etc. You know..all the usual sales/sociopath techniques.

I think this is just more of the same.

[lostinacause]

23. There are certain signs that you have already lost a discussion,

this is one. It they do for some reason have an advantage, they have lost it. Anytime you can convince someone they are wrong about something you're better off. In political discussions most people have walls because they do not understand why they believe what they do. They will be more willing to accept the possibility that they are wrong once you have proven the wrong once before.

[applegrove]

26. In my experience they are willing to prove 'one' wrong even when

you are right. It goes to the whole thing where if you can make someone feel weak about their assumptions.. you can shut them up. Yes very true what you say.

They need to shut up the discussion. They rely on tribal feelings to make followers rather a rational discussion about how we are better off when we work together to share (risk, empathy, defense, etc.). Democracy is better than tribalism at delivering good lives to people.

Yes - I often have been hit with one 'accusation' about my arguments and it is all just so much re-framing.

The context in which is was used yesterday had to do with guns and trying to make us feel small about our logic when we didn't want an explosion in gun sales to public schools. I have too much experience to do anything but thing "hey - new propaganda words from the right". Who knows if I am right. I'll keep an eye open in my future 'gun' discussion to see if it is language only particular to the NRA types.