Duck Soup

Recently, I posted in this blog about RINOs, the alleged Republicans In Name Only; that is, GOPers who haven’t swallowed the Trumpian Kool-Aid. (1) Apparently there are other INOs roaming the wilds of America, for I learned the other day of a tribe of JINOs—Jews In Name Only. They were discovered in the jungle of American politics by Ben Shapiro, described as “a conservative commentator and columnist.” (2) These JINOs are Jews who performed an unkosher act: They voted for Barack Obama. (I assume that Shapiro proclaimed his excommunication of thousands of once fellow Yids after consulting holy texts at the Jared Kushner School of Talmudic Studies.) Now, considering the fact that in 2008 79% of Jewish voters cast a ballot for Obama, (3) it does seem to be a bit presumptuous for Shapiro to declare that his rump group of Hebrews are the true bearers of the flame. In any case, how can a religious declaration be determined by a political test? 

As I pointed out in the earlier post cited above, this INO business is akin to the No-True-Scotsman fallacy. (In Shapiro’s case I guess we can call it the No-True-Yid fallacy.) 

This fallacy is an attempt to maintain the fiction of the purity of one’s cohort. Slice away the murderous Glaswegian from the group—and, voila, “true” Scotland remains pure. 

What may be considered a cousin of the NTS fallacy is the number-one defensive claim issued by those whose actions or words have been condemned as racist, sexist, misogynistic, etc.: “That’s not who I am/who we are.” Well, all I can say is, if that wasn’t you who said/did that, then you must be hosting a dybbuk that speaks or acts separate from your own will. (That is in opposition to the dictum that says, “If it looks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck—it’s a duck!”) 

One of the more recent examples of this NTS cousin was encountered in the case of country singer Morgan Wallen, who was accused of using a racial slur in a video. (4) Two country artists, Kelsea Ballerini and Cassadee Pope, came to the defense not of Wallen, but of country music, claiming that Wallen “does not represent” it. However, Andrea Williams, a Black journalist and author based in Nashville, disputed that defense of the country music scene:

That’s more hurtful than people who didn’t say anything because you’re diminishing the very real experiences of people who know for a fact this is actually indicative of the way this entire industry works.

In other words, it is what it is. It quacks like a duck.

***

(1)   https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2021/01/on-brink-of-extinction.html

(2)   https://news.yahoo.com/capitol-riot-revealed-political-chasm-174301809.html

(3)  https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-voting-record-in-u-s-presidential-elections

(4)  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/arts/music/country-music-racism-social-media.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

See Who Salutes

I logged into Amazon last night. I was looking to purchase some false flags. It turned out, however, that when I typed in “false flags” what popped up was about a score of books with that term (singular or plural) in the title. Nothing to run up a flagpole to see if anyone saluted.

I was motivated in my search by the claims of numerous Republican/conservative/rightwing/batshit crazies that the storming of the United States Capitol building was not perpetrated by their swamp creatures but was a “false flag” operation. As Rolling Stone noted:

One of the most prominent figures to publicly promote this claim has been Rep. Matt Gaetz, a far-right politician and conspiracy theorist, who claimed on the House floor on Wednesday night that some of the rioters had been antifa plants. “Some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa,” he alleged, without any basis in reality. (1)

That is just one of many reports on the false “false flag” accusations.

The best response (as the riot was happening) was by Mark Leibovich, Chief National Correspondent of the New York Times:

When the president’s defenders keep saying “we don’t know who these people are” and “this is not who we are,” it might be more convincing if they weren’t all wearing MAGA gear.

* 

Thinking over the nature of “false flag” accusations, I have concluded that they are a sub-category of the “No-True-Scotsman” fallacy. I wrote about “No-True-Scotsman” back in 2011, (2) but here, briefly, is what it is:

Hamish MacTavish of Aberdeen is reading his newspaper at breakfast. He reads a story about a brutal murder in Manchester, and proclaims, “Och, no Scotsman would do that!”

 

Two days later, reading his paper at breakfast, he reads about another brutal murder, this one in Glasgow. “Och,” he announces, “no true Scotsman would do that!”

The fallacy is an attempt to immunize one’s cohort from blame—slicing away the negative elements from the group by narrowing the definition of the group. “That is not who we are” is a paler version of the fallacy.

At heart these attempts to cast the blame elsewhere and to display one’s own clean hands are cowardice in action. It is a refusal to accept responsibility and to examine the dirty secrets of one’s own identity—and of the flag that one has chosen to march behind.

*

In the case of the Capitol rioters, the false-flaggers were repudiated by another set of crazies who glorified what they did. Here’s one example:

[A]s the protesters swarmed the Capitol, “Stop the Steal” national organizer Ali Alexander posted a video of himself overlooking a sea descending onto the nation's capital saying, "I don't disavow this. I do not denounce this.” (3)

*

And it’s nice to see that Trump got ahead of the postal crush by sending his Valentine’s Day message to the rioters 39 days early:

 “We love you, you're very special.”

*

P.S.: I sense a business opportunity. Anyone else want to go into the manufacture and sale of false flags?

***

(1)  https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/antifa-false-flag-maga-riot-1110941/

(2)  https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2011/06/drop-puck.html

 (3) https://www.yahoo.com/gma/trump-allies-helped-plan-promote-234801490.html