He said he’s "150 percent" behind Bush on the war in Iraq.
"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country," Milligan said.
This is a legitimate rhetorical technique. HOWEVER, It does not work the way it was even intended.
Obviously the intention was not that "we need" another attack but that if there was, "the naysayers will come around". HOW? Not unless the thinking was as twisted as those that miss the rhetorical intention in the first place. If there were another attack, why would anyone say, "See, it's working", when the point they are trying to make is that if it were not for everything they are doing, there would be another attack.
Now this leaves alot of the argument off the table, but here is a point that has been left off the table. I hope it is in this hour of The Ed Schultz Show, (it has his take on the debate anyway) but the point was from a caller. How is it that Bush gets credit for protecting our country after the biggest failure since Pearl Harbor? (that is not how the caller put it, but I usually improve or extend points) SEE LINK and Control Find Pearl and check the names there. But his point was that given the warning the new Bush administration had from the Clinton administration about terrorist attacks, they still occurred.
A recent quote from Nietszche I heard- - "If the end doesn't justifies the means, what does?"- - is another rhetorical mind field (mine?) Bush actually said "the end doesn't justify the means", but left off "what does". Power or winning, may be the end but the former is the means to anything, so if power is end and the means, it may only be the end. OK, that is a trickier mine field. Not that it is not how it works, whether you can follow it or not. But back to Nietszche or rather the mind field that got us here. Francis Fukuyama was in the crowd that plowed the field and half regrets it. Now these are even deeper minds, and yes I flip flop from mine to mind, and have not read these last three yet, but I had already tiptoed through others. Or rather I have actually read Fukuyama's apology as well as Huntington's work that addressed even more, and both .* were simply taken as CON text, meaning wrong
Not to be sorted out here, but maybe later.
* Their work, not these pieces.
Their work:
Clash of Civilizations Read
The End of History Did not read.
No comments:
Post a Comment