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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Politics and Logic:
Is It a Stone, Lime, or a Rock?
While I applaud Robert Martin for
his stand on personal freedom in regard to smoking (and am always
pleased to see references in print to Ayn Rand!), I must point
out that he weakens his argument considerably by resorting to
pragmatism. Ms. Rand would have instructed Mr. Martin to define his
terms and stick to defending the general principles involved rather than
disintegrate his ideas into a loose and distantly-related set of line
items. What results from this is an essay that contradicts as much as
it supports Rand's quote supporting the rights of the individual.
Ayn Rand was one of the greatest
defenders of Aristotelian logic in history, but Mr. Martin
(unfortunately) commits several basic fallacies that even a first-year
college logic student could point out. For openers, his essay relies
heavily on criticizing a flawed study based upon a telephone survey and
a diatribe about the inconclusive consequences of second-hand smoke on
public health. This is a classic example of the fallacy ignoratio
elenchi 'Missing The Point.' As inferred in Rand's quote, this
issue is not about what the majority (or even minority) of the general
public thinks about smoking, nor is it about the alleged dangers of
second-hand smoke: it is about a smoker's right to smoke and another
person's right not to have to breathe that smoke.
Mr. Martin goes on to weaken his argument
even further by committing the grade-school blunder of 'two wrongs make
a right' when he attempts to shift the focus of problems with
second-hand smoke over to the government's incompetence in dealing with
contaminated land and water. The inference here is that since the> County Health Department has bigger fish to fry, his right
to smoke wherever he pleases is secure. SoŠuntil Osama bin Laden
is captured, the government should lay off the liquor store bandit?
Curiously, Martin even appeals to emotions
(something Rand would gasp at) when he includes as support for his
argument that smoking is his 'hobby' and that Tom Robbins, Fran
Lebowitz, and even Prometheus would approve. Here, he
commits another blunder by equivocating on the word 'offended,'
inferring that those who must cough and choke while smokers fill up
their airspace with noxious fumes are the same as those who don't like
people who speak French or who roller skate.
Sadly, it isn't until a good two-thirds of
the essay has been written that Mr. Martin finally lands a - no, THE
solid punch: property rights. This is the only weapon that smokers
have going for them, but strangely enough, they rarely seem to want to
rely heavily upon it. Incredibly, two paragraphs later, Mr. Martin
completely abandons his anti-fascism stand by calling for the typical
compromise, in this case, forcing private business owners to install -
at their expense - 'smoke-eaters and air purifiers!' How is this any
less a violation of private property rights?
Mr. Martin's heart is certainly in the
right place, but he must drop pragmatism as an approach to argument,
else he and his cause will be doomed (re California).
Gregory J. Winters Warren Editor's Reply: Unfortunately, politics is more about pragmatism than logic. I wish this wasn't true, but it is; especially at this juncture of the 21st Century where divergent (and even contradictory) philosophies, facts, and mythologies are taken into account more often than not by politicians when passing judgment.
While this issue, as Mr. Winters suggests,
clearly centers around property rights and their attempted erosion, the
passions & ploys employed in this debate (whether they be through
unscientific studies, or moral hypocrisy) are unfortunately guided more
by the gravity of emotional coloration than grounded by logic, which is
what I attempted to present in this piece.
Two wrongs do not create a right, but in
politics, they are often the elements used to create compromise - which
as that great line in Million Dollar Baby goes, results in that
wondrously effective solution "where both sides walk away unhappy."
In this sense, my inference has less to do
with the Board of Commissioner's regarding health hazards of massive
dioxin contamination than it does about that increasingly extinct
quality of jurisprudence known as 'reasonableness'.
In short (and to employ the classic
Aristotelian notion of antithesis) does it make sense to treat every
liquor store bandit as if he were Osama when the spread of Avian Flu
(and the inability of Public Health Departments in America to properly
handle it) poses a far more likely breach in our National Security?
While I agree and value whole-heartedly the
purity of philosophers such as Ayn Rand, and Mr. Winters, I am also
enough of a realist to understand that if damage is to be inflicted,
options are the only tools we have to mitigate the damage.
And if a violation against my rights is
going to occur, unfortunately, our political landscape is such that
bribery (more often than not) often becomes the political tool of power
employed to at a minimum ensure those rights do not become completely
extinct - a relic, not unlike the DoDo bird, and politicians that may
read Aristotle, but only understand Machiavelli.
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