Double Standard Fallacy – FT#83

22 Sep Double Standard Fallacy – FT#83

Show Notes

The Double Standard Fallacy is committed when someone treats two very similar situations differently (usually to their advantage) with no explanation why.

Trump

We started out with this clip and tweet combo from Trump being happy to accept the media ‘calling’ the election in 2016 and not so cool about it four years later:

We followed that with Kayleigh McEnany having a VERY different standard for what’s impeachable when Biden calls a foreign leader.

Then we looked at this tweet from Candace Owens:

Not one person in my family will ever touch the Covid-19 vaccine.
That is the decision that we have made, unabashedly, as a family.
Medical freedom is an individual right that should NEVER be infringed upon and any person who thinks otherwise has no place in our government.

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) July 7, 2021

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about David Cameron’s shifting opinions on using social media to organise protests:

Then we looked at Ed Miliband on the different treatment of politicians and ‘yobs’ when both groups swear at the police:

And finally we looked at an appearance by Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel on daytime talk show Loose Women:

Fallacy in the Wild

In the Fallacy in the wild we looked at this clip from 30 Rock:

Then we discussed this clip from King of the Hill:

And we finished by talking about this hypocrisy from the much maligned WW84:

Fake News

Here are the statements from this week’s Fake News game, which for a change used Giuliani quotes from his (allegedly) drunken 9/11 memorial dinner speech:

1. Milley? How the hell’s that guy a general? Jesus. The other day he said the Bagram Air Force Base is not strategically important. I wanted to grab his — what is it, five stars? Ten stars? Twelve stars? — he had so many stars they’re coming up into his ears. I wanted to grab his stars and shove it down his throat, and say, ‘It’s 400 miles from China, asshole.’ China is going to be our enemy for the next 40 years. You have an airbase 400 miles from them and you’re giving it up. Idiot!
2. I don’t want to sound like a name-dropper, but I told this to the Queen of England. She said ‘You did a wonderful job on September 11th. And therefore I’m making you an honorary knight commander of the royal something-or-other.’ I turned down a knighthood, because if you took a knighthood you had to lose your citizenship. I know Prince Andrew is very questionable now. I never went out with him. Ever. Never had a drink with him. Never was with a woman or a young girl with him.
3. I was basically in charge of the FBI in New York. Not, you know, but they deferred to me, because the five families would only deal with me. They were some tough guys. We got along, but they would kill you as soon as look at you. I didn’t take any shit from any of them. You know, Matty lannello would — people would just do whatever he said because he had this look and they knew if they didn’t do it they would wake up with a bullet in their head, but he would deal with me, and mostly he was a good guy.

Click below for the answer

Mark got it right again this week, and is currently on 49%

Sovereign Citizens are not a logical fallacy

We talked about the hilarious claims by Jan 6 insurrectionist Pauline Bauer that she’s not actually subject to US laws and we talked a bit about the Sovereign Citizen movement as a whole. Here’s the video I mentioned about a judge who was having none of it:

The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about

• Well, we’ve got to the part of the pandemic where the Republicans are convinced they are in a battle of wits with the Dread Pirate Roberts, and are determined not to fall victim to one of the classic blunders. John Nolte of Brietbart has decided that the reason leftists like Howard Stern, CNN, Biden, Pelosi, and Fauci are trying so hard to convince everyone to take the vaccine, and, in Stern’s case at least mocking the idiot refuseniks, is because they want to manipulate Trump voters into NOT taking the vaccine so that they’ll die. Yes, at first this sounds like the twisted logic of a scared Sicilian, but hear him out. You see, if Howard Stern ridicules people for not getting vaccinated, all his loyal Republican listeners are going to say ‘Fuck you Howard Stern, I’m specifically going to not get vaccinated because you made me feel stupid’.  And then they’ll end up on a ventilator to own the libs.  The weird thing is, there are definitely some Trump voters who are avoiding basic health measures, not wearing masks, not getting vaccinated, eating horse paste, etc to own the libs, because owning the libs was the main, let’s face it, only policy of their god emperor, but the fact they think we’re tricking them into it is just because they can’t conceive of someone who isn’t trying to kill people who disagree with them.
• I’ve just returned from a weekend’s music festival on the Isle of Wight where 50,000 healthy vaccinated and certified covid-free people happily mingled listening to live music in the sunshine, oddly though Nicki Minaj didn’t play and now, thanks to Tucker “complete bollocks” Carlson, I know why. As Carlson reported last Monday; Nicki’s cousin’s friend’s testicles had swollen up as a result of the covid jab, which of course outweighs any success that might be claimed by the lack of any reported cases of ball-ache by the organisers of any large event. Good old Tucker was so grabbed by this man’s scrotal woes that he reported on it all week, seizing on Nicki’s tweet telling the tale of how this friend of her cousin in Trinidad “was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied”. Correcting the story on day two to apologise for spreading misinformation that it was her cousin and not her cousin’s friend who’s sack was engorged, they went on day three to invite the actual man himself on the show imploring him to come and talk bollocks in person. When Fox is doing outreach to get another set of inflamed meat clackers to wave in front of your face during Carlson’s primetime slot it really is time to rethink your viewing habits America!
• The weekend saw a number of Trump supporters gather in front of the Capitol for the ‘Justice for J6” rally to protest the fact that insurrectionists are being held accountable. I mean, three is a number, right?  Ok, it was more than three, but significantly less than the 1000 that were promised. The Capitol Police, who were out in force, estimated about 400 people showed up, but more than half were members of the press. Reporters were literally queueing up to interview protesters, because there weren’t enough protesters to go around for everyone. The reason for the pitiful attendance is yet more battle of wits style overthinking from the right. I mean, in retrospect, it’s probably their own fault for creating a group made up entirely of credulous, paranoid conspiracy theorists, and the outcome is inevitable if you think about it, but the right-wing-nuts decided that the rally they organised might actually be a false flag designed to entrap Trump supporters into committing violence. Since showing up and not committing violence was apparently not an option, they stayed home.  Honestly, I wasn’t expecting ‘overthinking things’ was going to be a problem for Trump supporters.
• This month of course saw the 20th anniversary of the events of 9/11, a time for sombre reflection on the part of presidents and ex-presidents who were in office at the time and since, visiting ground zero and Pennsylvania and meeting with families of those who were lost and those who survived, hopefully learning lessons from their responses and hoping for future more peaceful times. Oh yeah and then there’s Trump. Whilst he turned down the invitation to ground zero, he did pop up in New York to talk to first responders about himself and his veiled plans for 2024, and then spent the day in Florida commentating on a pay-per-view boxing match slash turning it into his own rally, and attending a Unification Church event hosted by the widow of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon praising them both for their incredible story – you know the one about how they started a dangerous authoritarian mind control cult 50 years ago that is still operating. He then did his own but of ongoing mind-control and made up some history of how he averted a dangerous situation in Korea lumping himself in with Moon’s widow whom he thanked for her “incredible work on behalf of peace all over the world.” Yeah with tone-deaf selfless peace like theirs – dot dot dot…
• According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s latest book, Peril, General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was worried that Trump might start a nuclear war because the 2020 election didn’t go his way. Milley apparently took steps to avoid that, including calling the Chinese to say “We are not going to attack you”. Which is a fun call to get out of the blue. If I was the Chinese I might be thinking ‘I didn’t think you were going to attack us, but now I kind of think maybe you are?’. Obviously a revelation of this magnitude shocked everyone, with the left distressed at how close we might have come to a nuclear war because of a petulant man-child having a bad day, and the right furious that the country’s highest General might have tried to stop the petulant man-child from killing us all. Trump responded, on Sean Spicer’s Newsmax TV show “First of all, if it is actually true, which is hard to believe, that he would have called China and done these things and was willing to advise them of an attack or in advance of an attack, that’s treason.” No, you fucking maniac, warning them of an attack would only even possibly be treason if you were actually going to attack them.  And he didn’t warn them of an attack, he told them they weren’t going to be attacked.  Of course, if the Chinese military were anything like the Republicans, they may have assumed that was a daring double bluff and decided to drink from the glass that was in front of them.
• Texas Governor Greg Abbott, you know the one who’s enacting SB8 that effectively provides a $10,000 bounty to people who snitch on anyone helping anyone get an abortion after 6 weeks, yeah him, well when asked why would he allow victims of rape to have to carry to term, replied “rape is a crime. And Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets.” White House press officer Jen Psaki when asked about Abbott’s extravagant claim replied “If Governor Abbott has a means of eliminating all rapists or all rape from the United States then there would be bipartisan support for that. But given that there has never in the history of the country, in the world, been any leader who has ever been able to eliminate rape, eliminate rapists from our streets, it is even more imperative, it’s one of the many reasons I should say, not the only reason, why women in Texas should have access to healthcare.”
  Not wanting to fall into the ignoring linear time fallacy but oddly Abbott did not explain why he had not previously eliminated all rapes from Texas if he has the power to do so now? The rest of the world needs your power too Greg come on, share it, don’t be a fool – oh er too late!
• Defense Secretary Anthony Blinken was on the Hill last week to answer questions about the difficult evacuation and controversial withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, but Idaho GOP Senator Jim Risch had a more urgent question: “Somebody in the White House has authority to press the button and cut off the president’s speaking ability and sound. Who is that person?” What the fuck is he talking about you may ask?  Well, you’ll be shocked to hear this, but it’s all based on a Republican conspiracy theory. Yes, the latest one, well, as of this recording – there’ll probably be six more before breakfast – is that when Biden is about to say something his handlers don’t like, they can cut his mic.  This seems to be entirely based off a video clip of a briefing on wildfires that Biden was given in Boise, Idaho and the clip ends after Biden says ‘Can I ask you a question?’. Pretty inflammatory stuff, I think you’ll agree. You can see why the handlers in the other room all leaped to press the button. Anyhoo, it turns out it’s just that the event was what’s called an Out Of Town Pool Spray, which means the briefing is for Biden, not for the cameras, but the out of town press pool that follows him around is allowing into the room for a bit to get some photos and footage for the news later.  They don’t film the whole thing. Yeah, kinda boring explanation, like learning how a magic trick works. It’s always more interesting to just watch the trick and ignore reality.
• In a blinding flash of realisation this week, Boris got rid of his entire cabinet, resigned his office and demanded that Dominic Raab be personally sent to Afghanistan to apologise to every single person he didn’t get out in time. No of course not! Boris, never keen to be seen to be in touch or accountable and ever keen to avoid any kind of scrutiny or demand that he actually govern, merely reshuffled the cabinet. Which is a bit like continuing to play with the same cards on the longest losing streak Ceasar’s Palace has ever experienced in the belief that the marks everyone can see on the back of the five, queen and ace will eventually wear away. So was Raab snapped over his own knee and marched backwards through seven leagues of shit? Banished to the backbenches and never seen again? No he was made Minister of Justice in charge of ensuring the independence and neutrality of the law and also deputy prime minister in charge of bending every law in the land to ensure Boris remains King long enough to spawn an entire village of Midwich Cuckoos to take over the world. But it’s alright cos King Rollo assures us that there is no food shortage even when you see empty supermarket shelves, nor will there be a lack of beer despite the shortage of C02 imports to make it fizzy, nor is the price of energy to cook your non-existent cancelled-christmas turkey going up cos there are no longer bargains to be had from suppliers dealing with a single enormous European trading bloc. Like Lord Haw Haw broadcasting on the BBC from a bunker somewhere in central Europe, we are being laughed at by toffs, except Bozza’s supposed to be on our side, I just hope Jenny Acruri can keep imagining a brick wall for long enough until the bomb goes off and kills them all. Peace and Love everyone!

That’s all for this week, thanks for listening!