14 Aug Just World Fallacy – FT#80
Show Notes
The Just World Fallacy is committed when someone assumes that if something bad happens to you, it’s probably because you’re a bad person.
Trump
We started out with Trump talking about the shooting of Rayshard Brooks:
We followed that with Trump’s victim blaming following the Tree of Life synagogue shooting:
Then we heard from Eric Trump on why strong women like Ivanka don’t get sexually harassed:
And finally we looked at Mo Brook’s views on health insurance:
Mark’s British Politics Corner
Mark talked about the Sajid Javid’s since deleted tweet in which he suggested people were cowering from the deadly virus his government failed to contain:
Then we looked at Dominic Raab blaming the tourists returning home for the government’s inability to enforce the arbitrary and expensive hotel quarantine rules:
Fallacy in the Wild
In the Fallacy in the wild we looked at this victim-blaming quote from a Bill O’Reilly radio show in August 2006, discussing a student who was raped and murdered.
“Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning.”
Then we talked about this clip from Trading Places:
And we finished by talking about this clip of Amanda Platell’s views on fat people:
Fake News
Here are the statements from this week’s Fake News game:
- Tom ‘Shady’ needs to do his research and realize how Rigged (and Rigged it was) the last election was. Maybe he was too busy Deflating balls (weak grip?) to follow what is happening all around our Great Country (including Maricopa County, Georgia and Pennsylvania). When I’m back in the White House we’ll see who he jokes with (the answer is Me, your favorite ‘President’, if I even invite him). So much Voter Fraud!
- I turned down two book deals, from the most unlikely of publishers, in that I do not want to do such a deal right now. I’m writing like crazy anyway, however, and when the time comes, you’ll see the book of all books. Actually, I’ve been working on a much more important project right now!
- Nobody had ever heard of some of these people that worked for me in D.C. All of a sudden, the Fake News starts calling them. Some of them—by no means all—feel emboldened, brave, and for the first time in their lives, they feel like “something special,” not the losers that they are—and they talk, talk, talk! Many say I am the greatest star-maker of all time. But some of the stars I produced are actually made of garbage.
Click below for the answer
Mark got it wrong this week, and is currently on 47%
Arizona audits are still not a logical fallacy
We talked about the ongoing, ridiculous audits in Maricopa County, where they still haven’t figured out who won the election that Biden won.
The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about
- Say what you like about anti-vaxxers, but you’ve got to admire their principles. They’re just not prepared to put untested remedies containing god knows what into their bodies, no matter what. What’s that? They’re eating horse deworming paste? Fuck me. Yes, in the desperate attempt to prove they know more than science by killing themselves, anti-vaxxers have seized on a small study from Egypt, published on a pre-print website before it was peer reviewed, which said the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin had shown promise in treating COVID. The fact that paper was subsequently pulled due to ethical concerns including plagiarism and calculation of data points which were “mathematically impossible” increased their interest if anything, and so, spurred on no doubt by Republican politicians such as Senator Ron Johnson promoting the drug, started to ask their doctors for a prescription. Dr Stella Immanuel, the demon sperm lady we talked about back in episode 55, gladly wrote prescriptions, but all the non-crazy doctors were a bit reluctant, so the truth-phobic whackaloons went instead to farm supply stores, which sell Ivermectin for deworming horses and sheep. The fact that those remedies are dosed for horses that weigh over a ton, even heavier than most Trump supporters, is probably why there has been what one Texas poison control center worker described as “A noticeable increase in calls… regarding ivermectin misuse”.
- In the oft-repeated defence of her upbringing, Eliza Dolittle says on several occasions to ‘Enry ‘Iggins in My Fair Lady – “I’m a good girl I am.” Endearing, charming, indicative of her background and how she’ll not stand for being insulted by Higgins in his social experiment to pass her off as a high born lady at the upcoming race meeting at Ascot. Not really something that someone would hope would stand up, say, in a court of law, right? *ergh ergh* (buzzer sound) – wrong. Representing himself, he has a fool for a client -Senator Mo Brooks (I did read it as Mel Brooks – and I’m not far off!) asked to be dismissed from Eric Swalwell’s lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to incite the January 6th riot. The heart of Mo Brooks’ argument is that, when he spoke at Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, he was acting within the scope of his employment and therefore has immunity from Swalwell’s lawsuit. Hmm like working for Trump will mean you’re innocent?. Well anyway, okay then Mo where’s ya proof or shreds of evidence? Well in his defence he did present several facts, and the court document lists these somewhat tongue-in-cheek under the heading Verified Brooks Facts. Amongst them – No. 1) he’s 67, 2) he’s never smoked tobacco,6) he’s never had a motor vehicle wreck in which anyone claimed he was at fault. And then it gets slightly odder – 7 includes) He has always been faithful to his wife. Together they have raised four children, all of whom are married, none of whom have been divorced, all of whom are law-abiding, none of whom have ever been arrested for anything, all of whom have college degrees and jobs. And have between them blessed him with ten grandchildren, with two twins (twins mind – two of them) and another granddaughter on the way! Well with that amount of innocence-by-association; case dismissed…what more do you need? Me, I need a chorus of “The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain” and someone dragging him to the cells shouting “Move yer bloomin’ arse!”
- Remember just a couple of minutes ago, when you thought you’d heard the stupidest an anti-vaxxer can get? Well, the New York Times talked to employees of an eyewear company in the Big Apple to find out their opinions on the vaccine and found a range of ideas, including one employee who said “she was concerned because she thought a vaccine had caused the characters in the film “I Am Legend” to turn into zombies”. This is upsettingly not just the ravings of a lone disturbed Will Smith fan – it is in fact a claim widely shared through social media, with many noting that in the movie it took a couple of years for the vaccine to have this devastating effect, so just because the millions of people who’ve been vaccinated aren’t trying to eat your brains yet, it doesn’t mean they won’t. Aside from the simple fact that it was not actually a vaccine, but a genetically modified virus that led to the zombie/vampires in the film, there’s one other important thing to remember about this. I think the screenwriter of I Am Legend, Akiva Goldsman put it best when he tweeted “Oh. My. God. It’s a movie. I made that up. It’s. Not. Real.”
- Seems like only moments ago we were extolling the virtues of the GETTR online platform – nah we were taking the piss big time – well the boundaries of the freedom of speech they say they uphold there are being pushed to the limit as online jihadists have been flooding the boards with pro-ISIS propaganda. This of course despite Trump having defeated ISIS, remember that? He told us often enough it must be true, helpfully in response, Jason Miller, Trump-acolyte and GETTR platform founder assured us that “The only ISIS members still alive are keyboard warriors hiding in caves and eating dirt cookies,” Okay so Trump didn’t fail then – phew – oh and that’s some wifi they’ve got in them caves, they’re even posting After Effects altered videos of Trump in an orange jumpsuit being executing by militants. Hmm how long before the constant conflict of “its free speech, but hey wait that’s anti-Trump, andisn’t that just a tad anti-US” and his attempts at double-speaking it away and making Trump good in the process finally make Miller’s head explode? I’ve seen the film Scanners – and actually that’s morbidly fascinating – just saying, just saying!
- In the wealthy Dallas suburb of Highland Park, residents received a letter in their mailboxes last month from a group called Dallas Justice Now. The letter began “We are writing to you because we understand you are white…” and went on to demand that the wealthy white folk pledge not to send their kids to Ivy League Schools in order to make space for students of color. A note on the associated website says “Please note Dallas Justice Now will be publicly announcing the names of those who have and have not signed the pledge.” Naturally it raised some ire and garnered some press, including a feature on Tucker Carlson Tonight, which legally means it’s bullshit. This is such an obvious right wing hoax, it is shocking that the letter isn’t signed by Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman but so far at least, they’re not involved. However, Dallas Justice Now has been traced back to right-wing PR firm Arena, because the right are as bad at covering their tracks as they are at humor and politics.
- “Woke means you lose, everything that is woke goes bad” Trump said it so of course it’s true – ‘cept he lost but he’s not woke, he’s bad but he’s not woke – never mind never mind – without remembering that he’s an ex-president and future inmate, Trump weighed in – in a Piers Morgan kind of way I guess and pontificated about the progress of the US women’s soccer team in the Japan Olympics. Big sports pundit he’s not but trigger-meister-troll he is. (Jim do the voice -) ”If our soccer team, headed by a radical group of Leftist Maniacs, wasn’t woke, they would have won the Gold Medal instead of the Bronze.” Late to the knee-taking marxist memes from the European Soccer tournament, Trump also ignored the fact that Canada, whose team have spent much of the last week showing support for their non-binary and trans midfielder Quinn, are in the gold medal match. Still anything to do down his fellow Americans in the name of his fellow Americans and Trump will be there talking shite whilst on the only gold thing he ever won – oh no paid for – a fucking gold toilet!
- I used to think that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was stupid, but I’m not so sure anymore. See Ron wants to be President, and he saw how popular Trump was among Republicans after his handling of the pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. So Ron seems to have decided his best shot at the Republican nomination is to kill as many Floridians as he can. The fucking scary thing is, I’m not even sure he’s wrong. In the state that is responsible for almost 18% of all the new coronavirus cases in the US, where deaths are up over 50% from last week, during a surge in the Delta variant, which is far more likely than other strains to infect children, DeSantis is fighting hard to stop schools mandating masks for their students, even threatening to withhold the salary of school board officials who try to, you know, value the lives of children. Vacuous traitor Lauren Boebert tweeted this week “Democrats want to turn the country into Portland. Republicans want to turn the country into Florida. ‘nuff said.” And she thought that was a point for her side!
- In British Politics this week I escaped Boris Island and am in France, having moved my return date to a week earlier cos of having to self-isolate back in the UK due to a hastily made up traffic light warning colour called Amber Plus that only applied to France. Returning from the rest of the entirety of Europe with two vaccines and a certificate would mean you’re fine and can go straight back to normal life – and to work and not need to use any more leave etc etc. But no not France oh no no no no no non! Some cases of the Beta variant of the virus were counted on the French territory of La Reunion which is 6,000 miles from Paris but this of course meant the whole of France was dangerous. In reality – i.e not in Boris’s head – the cases in La Reunion were less than parts of Europe and those in Paris less than those in the UK. But anyway; it was nothing to do with Macron’s objections to the UK government trying to tear up the oven-ready Brexit withdrawal agreement that’s turned out to be half-baked and causes major problems with tearing up the Northern Ireland peace agreement – no of course bien sûr, nothing rien! I left England on the day that the UK government changed it back to ordinary Amber so I don’t have to isolate – yeah thanks, I could’ve spent another week not in the Sunlight uplands of post-Brexit Britain. Jealousy alert, it’s been 31 degrees and bright sunshine here! And red wine is less than 3 dollars a bottle. Vive la revolución!
That’s all for this week, and thanks for listening!
