Isn't that the fallacy of special pleading? "I don't want unelected judges to overturn my favorite laws, just the laws I don't like."

I don't know the name of it, but this problem shows up a lot on political debate. In reality there are many, many options, but the speaker acts as if there are only two. Since the other one sucks, the speaker's option wins.

Sigh.

@ unelected judges--I agree that is the point. They are unelected so they don't have to worry about the imminent beauty contest, they can focus on doing what they believe is the right thing.

As long as the process to select them is moderately good--as long as we get people capable of critical thought--I definitely want unelected judges checking the work of the elected beauty contestants.

@ special pleading: that sounds like the right term to me.

Spock, you are looking for "fallacy of false alternatives."

I've never heard of the fallacy of special pleading. In fact, I don't think special pleading even is fallacious, if you can show some reason for it ("I was speeding because I was trying to rush an emergency victim to the hospital"; there's no fallacy in asking for leniency in that case).

That's usually not what people are doing in these cases, anyway. Look at Obama's speech again. He's not arguing that this is a special case in which the Court shouldn't be allowed to act, even though they should in other cases. He's trying to pretend that this is the way it ALWAYS is. If he does a 180 turn on the next case he'll pretend that THAT'S the way it always was. There's no attempt to justify the shifts in position in cases like this. They're never acknowledged at all.


Haven't heard of the fallacy of false alternatives either, but there is a fallacy called Faulty Dilemma, that's similar. It usually involves trying to get someone to choose between one of two possibilities when in fact there are many other possible choices. That's where they get the metaphor about the horns of the dilemma. You can try to either go through the horns (by showing that one is not all that bad), or go around them (by finding a third alternative).

Hey Petro,

I'm a bit tired so I can't go into detail. "Special Pleading" is exactly what you describe Obama doing. "False Alternatives" is a different form of "False Dilemma". There's another one but I can't remember the name now.

Obama didn't say "This is a special case, where it would be wrong for the Supreme Court to overturn a law even though they might in another case". He said that this should be a normal case in which the Supreme Court shouldn't overturn a law because they never do. His problem wasn't in his reasoning, it was in his facts. For "Never do", substitute "FREQUENTLY do".

I think he also followed up with some special pleading about how this is such a good law, that it would be wrong to overturn it. That part could be considered special pleading, but isn't necessarily fallacious. Again, his problems were with his facts. It wasn't passed with a strong majority, it barely passed the House, over strong public opposition, with no bipartisan support in the Senate, and more than half the states are suing the government over it. I dno't think that even now Obama would agree to the proposition that "Unconstitutional laws should be upheld if they are good ones". Part of what he said might seem to infer that, but it's all razzle-dazzle. He might have intended to create that feeling, but he would never endorse those words.

What is this, like three days and no comment on Santorum's dropping out of the race?

I don't know what to say that everyone doesn't already know. Here, Dick Morris has a column on it. I doubt the contents are a surprise to anyone, but this will save me from stating the obvious:

What Santorum Did Wrong…And Right


I usually don't just spam links. I'm only phoning it in this time because I think it's all stuff we already know.

The article didn't even touch on Santorum's alternate reality in which he thinks a wide-ranging century long global conspiracy is hiding the truth about some issues. If he had made it into power he'd have made GWB look progressive and liberal. Fifteen years ago, Santorum would have been seen as one of the fringe loonies. Now fringe loony is mainstream, but the pendulum does seem to be swinging back slowly.

It's pretty clear in saying that he identified so strongly with the religious right that he failed to identify with anyone else. It's only intended as a quick checklist of right things and wrong ones, not a complete sermon on each one.