Bill Maher demonstrates a very important aspect of intellectual sleight of hand.

In the video below, Maher does the classic Michael Moore style of intellectual sleight of hand, where one moves to a wholly irrelevant level of abstraction to make a comparison in order to negate the valuable and relevant aspect of the first example given.

It seems intuitively correct that the most important thing about an attack is that people die in it. But of course that isn’t the main point. It is why they died that matters. In the example above, and exactly as Michael Moore does in his films, he attempts to negate the relevant aspect of the Boston jihadi attack by comparing the consequences to car accidents. Yes, people die in accidents all the time everywhere. But this is an accepted risk people take when they decide to use, for example, a car or go where cars are moving. There is no political motive to it.

When people commit violent acts of terrorism they are doing damage and killing people for a purpose for which the victims did not sign on for, did not expect and would not endorse if they did.

Bill Maher really should know better than to resort to this sort of sophistry. Agree with him or no, typically his reasoning is better than this and when it isn’t its at least entertaining.

This kind of thought however is very important in understanding why the enemy makes such huge gains in terms of the degradation and subjugation of Western civilization. Have a look at muslim rape gangs, for example, in the UK and all over the Western world. Yes, there are domestic rapists and we find them, try them and jail them when guilty. But these are people who for personal reasons committed a crime. There was no intention of changing our system in it, nor was it for a political purpose. When it is, its terrorism. The various Islamic rape gangs around the Western world are acting in concert with a philosophy and as part of a general jihad against the civilized world to deconstruct it and replace it with an islamic one. This is not criminal. The distinction isn’t just important. It is everything.

ADDENDUM:

After showing this to Gavin Boby, he offered the following:

Intent is crucial to the definition and severity of the crime. A car accident has no ‘mens rea’, and so isn’t a crime. A murder is usually not part of a wider strategy, and so is not a continuing danger to the whole of society. E.g. most people would say that Hitler was history’s worst criminal, even though others like Mao may have been responsible for more deaths. Becuase Hitler intended those deaths as an end in itself: murder was the objective, as part of a wider scheme of hatred.

 

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

12 Replies to “Bill Maher demonstrates a very important aspect of intellectual sleight of hand.”

  1. Mayer is sh*t. He should be drowned in a toilet far from Boston.

    I’m sorry, Eeyore, you can’t parse sh*t w/o soiling yourself. Wash your hands, child!

  2. No nation likes to fight a war on two fronts, but this is what we are doing. We’re not just fighting Islam, we’re fighting Leftard gutterfucks like Bill Maher. He is one smug, cocksure greaseball who will get the smile knocked off his face when the U.S. economy collapses, civil war breaks out and people are gunning for morons like him. Either that, or the smile will be knocked off his ugly face when he gets a stiff Muslim dick up his rear.

  3. Eeyore – I just looorrrve it when you comment – you do it so… seemingly velvet-gloved in that old-fashion english gent kind of way, yet still leave no prisoners! More of your comments please!

    LOL @ yucki and Softly – you make a formidable team 😉

  4. Yucki:

    What Maher said is probably the best example in popular culture of what I view as a sort of, cancer-of-thought in a while. At one level I was nearly grateful for it. There are so very many ways that we are being defeated by this kind of sophistry so examples like this are excellent didactic tools.

    Many things are being written off as crimes that are in fact, forms of jihad. Making this clear, and destroying the type of smart-alleky smug false equivalence is important if we want to steer the ship back towards reason and the importance of truth in an argument.

  5. Eeyore, As Rita says, your comments are a pleasure to read and always edifying. Like many I’m sure I was enjoying your appearances on the EDL radio show as well, and hope you’re finding more opportunities to speak.

  6. If it moved you to comment – which you know we all find helpful & enjoy — I want to say it’s worth it–

    But I can’t, he’s just too much. Maybe you can flag the really, really odious with a warning tag or gif.

  7. This type of attack started during Nam and has been polished since then, unfortunately they will continue until the events described by DP occur or we have several large scale attacks in a short time frame. It is anyones guess which is going to come first.