21 Oct Think of the Children Fallacy – FT#183
Show Notes
The Think of the Children Fallacy occurs when someone invokes an appeal to emotion involving theoretical harm to children to avoid addressing an actual argument.
Trump
We started out by discussing this clip of Trump attacking trans people while thinking of the children:
Then we looked at this clip of Trump lying about immigration while thinking of the children:
And finally we talked about this clip explaining how QAnon avoided scrutiny by pretending to think of the children:
Mark’s British Politics Corner
Mark talked about this clip of Kemi Badenoch:
Followed by these ones of Nigel Farage:
And he finished with this clip of Peter Kyle:
Fallacy in the Wild
In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from Beauty and the Beast:
Then we discussed this clip from A Bit of Fry and Laurie:
And we finished up with this clip from Futurama:
That Futurama clip was a parody of this amazing ad from the National Organization for Marriage:
Fake News
Here are the statements from this week’s Fake News game:
Mark got it right again this week, and is still on 51%!
Press freedom is not a logical fallacy
We talked about the Pentagon press corps walking out rather than signing an oath not to do journalism.
The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about
- Trump and his ilk have been claiming for a while now that Democrat cities are warzones, overrun with crime and burned down on the daily by violent far left protesters against his totally cool and legal immigration policies, who are either high ranking members of antifa, paid by George Soros, or both. The Mayors of those cities, and the Governors of the states they occupy have tried to fight back with ridiculous tools like facts, video footage of National Guard troops having nothing to do in their peaceful communities, and pointing out that Trump is a brainless cockwomble. None of this has worked, because the brainless cockwomble’s followers are easily led by malicious liars like Stephen Miller, or as I like to call him, Pee wee German. Finally, though, there’s a breakthrough in the info war, and it’s thanks to the wonderful weirdos of Portland, who have taken to protesting outside the ICE facility dressed in giant inflatable animal costumes. Frogs are the most popular, but there are unicorns, raccoons, peacocks, dinosaurs, and more. They dance and twerk joyfully in the street, and in doing so, make anyone who yells fearfully about the violent radical left protesters look like a giant fucking idiot. One bright spark has even set up a website called Operation Inflation, where you can donate to help them provide more inflatable costumes to protesters. It’s currently Portland only, but they hope to expand to other cities soon, and there will be a link in the show notes! Some of the attendees at the second No King’s Day protests on Saturday got the memo and showed up in their own inflatable costumes, while others went for the traditional irreverent signs. Estimates put the total number around 7 million across the US, and I know that includes some of our loveliest listeners. The GOP tried rebranding it as a hate protest, with Mike Johnson claiming it would just be Marxists and Hamas supporters, and various of his wingnut confreres calling it unAmerican. They’re wrong a lot, so it’s hard to be sure, but this might be the wrongest they’ve ever been. What could possibly be more American than peacefully protesting against the tyrannical rule of a king?
- I’d like to think that it’s the result of unforeseen circumstances coming to bite the arse of the Trump administration as the entire Office of Detention Oversight has been placed on furlough due to the Government Shutdown. But then I note that they’ve not all been laid off without pay or subject to Russell Vought summarily firing the lot of them, so I’m left with the chilling thought that it’s not despite, but rather because there are surging numbers of detainees. The Office of Detention Oversight, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, inspects detention centers to ensure they meet federal standards for the safe and humane treatment of immigrants. And whilst Trump officials have vowed that there will be no change to “essential” ICE operations thanks to the Department of Homeland Security using the $170 billion infusion of immigration and border funding to ensure the masked and out of uniform personal Trump militia arrest and cart away anyone who is not a member of the correct skin-colour demographic, there’s no money to ensure the rapidly deteriorating conditions in the detention centres as reported by lawyers and detainees are monitored or improved. Of course they’re not. This is the party whose New York Youth branch lol’d and rofl’d over gas chambers in their Whatsapp group. It’s just another part of the GOP’s final solution.
- While everything goes to shit around our ears, if we need a quick mental pick-me-up, we can always look back on the fact that Fox News had to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million for knowingly lying about them rigging the 2020 election. If I was Dominion CEO John Poulos, I’d probably have taken a nice long holiday with the presumably massive bonus I would get for that settlement, but John pushed on and got another $67 million from Newsmax, and last month, got undisclosed settlements from One America News, Rudi Giuliani, and Sidney Powell. They still have a pending defamation case against pillowy loudmouth Mike Lindell, but he’s completely broke, so there’s not much point in continuing with that one. Perhaps that’s why John has decided to hang up his… cables? I don’t know what a voting machine needs, if I’m completely honest. Anyway, hang up whatever and sell the company to the not-at-all-ominously-named Liberty Vote, an election technology company owned by Scott Leiendecker. Scott used to be the Republican director for the St Louis City Board of Elections, but that doesn’t necessarily make him an election denier. His statement on the takeover on Liberty Vote’s website doesn’t entirely clear it up though. He says “We are turning the page and beginning the vital work of restoring faith in American elections. While these changes will not happen overnight, Liberty Vote’s mission is rooted in American values and committed to transparency, independent audits, and verifiable paper records.” It’s weird, because without all the bullshit surrounding the 2020 election, these words on their own wouldn’t seem threatening, but I can’t help but hear the faint shrill of a dog-whistle in them, especially since faith in American elections was only destroyed by Trump’s lies, and Dominion was doing a pretty fucking great job of restoring it, what with all the winning in court.
- George Santos – if only that name elicited the same spontaneous booing hatred from the Right as George Soros. You remember Santos?Jailed in April for 7 years having admitted to stealing the identities of 11 people, including his own family members and been found guilty of having lied about his background and misused campaign funds to finance his lifestyle, eventually charged with 23 federal felony crimes, and in 2023 became the first expelled member of Congress in more than 20 years, and only the sixth in history. Remember him?. At the time the Judge told him: “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.” Well speaking of which, Trump has just commuted his sentence and Santos walked free last Friday. Trump’s reasoning was that poor old George “has been horribly mistreated“, adding: “Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!” Of course when your moral compass is as way off as Donnie’s he sees nothing wrong in what Santos did simply that he got punished, why punish a guy when he’s done nothing wrong? After all “Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!” said Trump when criticising Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, whom he accused of fabricating his US military service. “This allegation of 15 years ago has been really rejected by the voters of Connecticut three times, overwhelmingly re-electing me,” Blumenthal told CNN earlier this month. Trump of course cannot lie about his military service cos he lied in order to avoid it, he also cannot rely on the goodwill of the voters of Connecticut to vote him in again, or at all, so he’s crushing the opposition, rounding up and deporting alleged Democrat voters of alleged immigrant stock and freeing people who will of course loyally bend over and grab their own ankles while the behemoth of the GOP shoves it’s thanks unceremoniously up their arses. Santos through Joseph Murray, one of his lawyers, whilst inclining forwards and reaching for his shoelaces, said “God bless President Donald J Trump,” Interestingly a commutation of sentence does not void criminal convictions, unlike a pardon, so don’t disappear or relax or even stand up straight Georgie-Boy, Don Trumpelone’s still holding a sword over your head – he’s got a future favour to call in!!
- Politico got hold of some chat messages from a Telegram group shared by 11 leaders of Young Republican Groups in four states, and, this’ll shock you, the views expressed weren’t all about how to improve the lives of working Americans, lower taxes, and strengthen the free market. Instead it contained quite a lot of those other views Republicans are sometimes known for. In amongst the 2,900 pages of chats, there were 251 slurs, including the n-word, the f-slur, the r-slur, and several others too creative to be defined by a single letter. References to watermelons and monkeys peppered the conversation when Black people were mentioned, they joked about raping or gassing their enemies, and one of them specifically wrote “I love Hitler”. They called people from Rhode Island “traitorous cunts” and people from Arkansas “inbred cow fuckers”. But look, broken clock, right? Just because they get one thing right doesn’t mean we should start listening to them. I’d like to formally apologise to any Arkansas listeners we may have, but I think we’re probably OK. They don’t have internet in Arkansas. Anyway, some people thought this was pretty bad, but JD Vance wants you to know it’s not a big deal. He said on the somehow-still-a-thing Charlie Kirk show “Grow up! Focus on the real issues. Don’t focus on what kids say in group chats… The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys — they tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do.” Yeah, this is just boys being boys. After all, it’s the Young Republican’s right? What are they, like 12? Oh, they’re actually between 24 and 35? Well fuck. But JD had some advice, which he says he shares with his three kids “don’t put things on the internet. Be careful with what you post. If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm.” So hopefully, if they take Dad’s advice, Vance’s kids will hide their racism better, so it doesn’t get leaked by some asshole. Incidentally, that is basically the response of one of the racists in the chat. Peter Giunta, the 31 year-old who wrote “I love Hitler”, blamed the leak on rouge members of the Trump administration (I think he meant rogue) conspiring against him. Another member of the chat said “This has been a painful lesson about judgment and trust.” Leave it to Republicans to always learn the wrong lesson.
- Trump announced Thursday that he will soon meet with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine. I’m betting soon means two weeks. The choice of destination has raised questions, because Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court. However, the Associated Press reports that Hungary appears unlikely to cooperate with the warrant and is in the process of leaving the Court. When HuffPost asked the White House who chose the location for the meeting, Chuckie Doll in a twinset; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said “Your Mom did”! Communications Director Steven Cheung of course took Leavitt aside momentarily, apologised to the journalist, said Leavitt’s words were taken out of context and proffered a full and reasoned response, glossing over of course that Hungary wouldn’t be adhering to the call to arrest Putin for war crimes under international law. No, no he didn’t do any of that; he also followed up with, “Your mom.” Justifying the kind of juvenile behaviour Beavis and Butthead would draw the line at, Leavitt responded to Huffpost asking “do you think that’s funny?” with: “It’s funny to me that you actually consider yourself a journal [sic]. You are a far left hack who nobody takes seriously, including your colleagues in the media, they just don’t tell you that to your face. Stop texting me your disingenuous, biased, and bulls*** questions.” When The Independent asked the White House if “your mom” was an appropriate answer, spokesperson Taylor Rogers responded that it was “more than appropriate. The individual who received these texts is not a real reporter, they’re a Democrat activist. As a result, the response they received was more than appropriate, the White House press team fields and responds to hundreds of serious requests every day from actual reporters – we don’t have time to waste on partisan hacks!” I think what they’ve done there is give the entire press corps the solution to dealing with the whole fucking partisan moronic fascistic free-speech-hating accountability-avoiding Trump communications team: just don’t waste your time on them. Starve them of the oxygen of publicity, have an entire news blackout on Trump’s entire activities for a day, it’ll only take a day, he can only exist if people see him and pretend he’s great. Throw the bucket of water of anonymity over him and watch him drain into the sewer waving his tiny hands crying “I’m melting, I’m melting, no-one has ever melted as good as me in the entire history of the world.” Trouble is I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.
- Ok, what the fuck is happening with Marjorie Taylor Greene? Has she been visited by three ghosts? Or four, if you count Marley, which you obviously should. She’s gone from being a crazy Jewish Space lasers lady who harasses survivors of school shootings in the street, to calling for the release of the Epstein files, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, and criticising the One Big Beautiful Bill for it’s approach to AI regulation. Earlier this year, she criticized Trump’s decision to conduct military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Earlier this month she said Trump’s tariffs are raising prices, and his mass deportation policy is going to hurt American businesses. And now, she’s siding with the Democrats over the shutdown, saying out loud that it’s about renewing Obamacare subsidies, not giving healthcare to immigrants, and that she supports the renewal. Democrats are confused, but pleased. Raphael Warnock said “You are going to hear me utter words I never thought I’d say: Marjorie Taylor Greene is right,” and Ruben Gallego pointed out that “When Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying we need to pass this, you’re idiots if you’re going to go down to a loss because of Donald Trump and Mike Johnson.” I don’t understand it, I’m not sure I like it, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. Maybe she’ll go fully woke next and start protesting outside an ICE facility in a frog costume.
- In an attempt to further prove his innocence, like he did when he paid £12 million to Virginia Giuffre’s charity to support trafficked women, Prince Andrew has given up all his titles. Already stripped of his military titles and charity affiliations and banned from using his HRH honorific, in a statement he said: “In discussion with the king, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the royal family. I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life. With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me. As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.” Like it fucking matters or means anything, he will thus give up his use of the Duke of York title, use of his honours as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) and Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and the other titles given to him on his wedding day – the Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh. meaning his only remaining title will be that of prince, which cannot be removed as he was born the son of a queen. We can only hope this means he will live in a cold-water bedsit and have to eat dogfood past it’s sell by date from the dumpsters out the back of Lidl. But I suspect not. The entitlement of the prince remains clear, as Guiffre’s posthumous memoir recalls “He was friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright.” Guiffre’s family welcomed the news taking it not as him nobly falling on his sword so as not to distract from the “work of the Royal Family” but rather as “vindication for our sister and survivors everywhere.” Pictures of a grim-faced Andrew writhing under the gaze of the cameras and the wrath of Charles all seem to be taken through the rainy windows of carriages either to hide or enhance the fact that he’s going to really be sweating now living a hopeless life without privilege. Questions of course are now being asked as to where that £12 million came from – the Royals are paid for from the public purse – that’s taxes, our taxes. Well what’s good enough for stripped-of-her-title Baroness give-us-the-money-back Mone is surely good enough for newly-common-see-how-you-like-it-ya-parasite Andrew.
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