Welcome to the second video in our series on the common fallacies committed by both
theists and statists.
This video covers the concept of Special Pleading.
This is a form of compartmentalization where you posit some sort of universal rule, but
then make an exception for whatever it is you're supporting.
This is related to our first video on the burden of proof.
Ordinarily, the positive claim has the burden of proof, but with woo, it's quite often the
case that they use special pleading to shield their claim from this burden.
For example, homeopathy fails every double-blind test, but that's because:
"Homeopathy is special, and just can't be tested that way!"
Religious people do this all the time.
I've already covered one example in my video, "Why Intelligent Design is WRONG."
In it, I showed how Intelligent Design advocates say that no system can exist ad infinitum,
cannot appear spontaneously, and cannot develop from less complex systems.
Therefore, the universe must have a cause.
Of course, they want that cause to be God, but that runs into a problem: if God cannot
exist ad infinitum, could not have appeared spontaneously, and could not have developed
from less complex systems, then that God needs a God to design him--and that God needs a
God, and that God needs a God, and so on, in an infinite regress.
The way they get out of it is to simply claim that one or more of these universal rules
do not apply to God: God can exist ad infinitum, when it's impossible for the universe to.
But they don't realize that they've just shown that their universal rule isn't so universal,
and as Carl Sagan pointed out, if you're going to say that the universe was created by a
God who always existed, why not just save a step and say that the universe always existed?
Another example happens when theists look to the universe for proof for their God.
They may use such arguments as the Argument from Complexity, or fine-tuning, or many others
and express incredulity that this could happen absent a creator.
But then when skeptics point to the evidence for an old universe, or the Big Bang, or any
of the other findings that refute certain theist's claims about the universe, those
are dismissed, because scientific observation all of a sudden just isn't reliable anymore.
In particular, the nasty and often reprehensible behavior of the God of the Old Testament is
often justified using Special Pleading.
"There must have been some reason for these atrocities!
It was a different time and place!
God is all-good and all-knowing, so if he does it, it MUST be moral!
Who are you to criticize him?
After all, he's God, and you're not!"
So when God says to kill adulterers and homosexuals, that's okay despite the fact that Thou Shalt
Not Kill is in his Top Ten List.
Actions performed or condoned by God are loving and wise, even though those very same actions
committed by human beings on their own would be considered stupid, violent, evil, and even
criminal.
We lowly human beings use evil science to vaccinate our kids so that they won't get
certain diseases; but the God who caused and allowed those diseases to persist loves them
more than we do.
Fallible humans create charities to feed starving people in the Third World and give them clean
water, but the God that made those conditions in the first place is all-loving and all-powerful.
Of course, there's the flip side, too: in many religions, if you don't fall to your
knees and bow and scrape to whichever God in particular they believe in, then you'll
receive punishment in the form of eternal torture, forever and ever and ever--no matter
how good a person you were otherwise.
But if a parent demanded this of a child?
If any human being demanded this of any other human being?
It'd be WAY beyond criminal; it would be considered psychopathic and the person would likely be
locked away for a VERY long time.
So why is it any different with God?
Oh, right:
"Because he's God"!
What's interesting is that different factions of theism engage in Special Pleading when
dealing with each other.
When Christians debate Muslims, for example, they each demand evidence from the other that
they're not able to provide themselves.
And even different denominations of Christianity claim that the Bible supports their own particular
beliefs--even the same passages of the Bible are interpreted in different ways to support
the varying beliefs of these sects.
So, how do statists engage in Special Pleading?
Let me count the ways!
Like God, actions committed by the state are considered justified when those very same
actions committed by private individuals would be punished as criminal.
If you think someone is threatening you, and you go and kill them, then as long as they
weren't acting on that threat you can be charged with murder.
Unless, of course, you're the President and you use a drone to take him out in a foreign
country.
He even gets to take out American citizens, without even so much as setting foot into
a courtroom, and several bystanders as well.
Imagine if someone comes into your home and you think they may be armed, and you forcibly
search them.
This could easily be considered battery in a court of law.
And if you search them on their genitals, you could even be convicted of sexual assault.
But if you're at an airport and your uniform has the letters TSA on it, all of a sudden,
it's acceptable, and what are you complaining about?
Do you want the terrorists to win?
"Why do you hate America?"
Another example is the misanthropy that permates many forms of statism: the idea that humans
are fundamentally evil, or irrational, or greedy, or selfish, or whatever, and therefore
we can't just leave them to their own devices; we need a government to keep these people
in line.
But who is going to comprise this government?
Government is just a group of people, nothing more, so if people are fundamentally greedy
and selfish, then it stands to reason that that government will be greedy and selfish
as well.
Unless you somehow think those in government are cut from a different cloth?
As Milton Friedman repeatedly asked, where are these saints and angels that you're going
to have to find to run the country?
And even beyond that, statists assert all the time that we need a government to do x,
y, or z because no private entity could.
"We need government to feed the poor!
We need government to manage our retirement!
We need government to fund science!
We need government to create jobs!
We need government to fix the economy!"
On and on and on.
But what is so special about the group of people in government that gives them abilities
that other people in the private sector don't have?
If you say that a certain group of people can do something that no other group of people
can do, you are ascribing to them supernatural abilities.
And politicians become priests and saints and demigods.
This is what libertarians mean by the phrase, the Cult of the Omnipotent State: the assertion
that only government has the skills and knowledge to perform these tasks.
Personally, I have to give the edge to the theists here: at least they acknowledge they're
positing the supernatural.
Statists try to hide it.
Want proof?
Just check in the comments of this very video; I'm CERTAIN you'll see statists denying it
here.
And like religion, statism even engages in special pleading among its own factions.
When George W. Bush started lying to get us into wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democrats
were outraged, and even called for his impeachment.
But when Obama took office and started telling us the same lies to get us into war with Libya
and Syria and Iran, liberals for the most part were silent.
Up until the 2008 election, anti-war rallies attracted hundreds of people, most of whom
were waving Obama signs.
After Obama took office, most anti-war rallies consisted of about a dozen libertarians and
a tumbleweed.
Even many liberal commentators have bemoaned the fact that the anti-war protests have slackened
immensely under Obama.
Another example is the NSA wiretapping scandal.
During the Bush administration, this was a terrible thing, but under Obama, what's the
big deal?
And yes, it goes the other way, too, before you Democrats engage in your favorite activity
of playing the martyr: The IRS scandal where they arbitrarily punished Tea Party groups
has outraged Republicans--even though the practice dates back at least to Richard Nixon.
Where was the outrage when THEIR guy was doing it?
And oddly enough, statists even engage in special pleading when trying to attack libertarianism.
A conservative attacking libertarians might say:
"I like your ideas on the economy, but you're just out to lunch when it comes to gay marriage
and the war on drugs.
Don't you know marriage is between one man and one woman?
Do you want our kids to be able to buy heroin from vending machines in their school?"
We get the same response from liberals:
"I like your stance on gay marriage, but ending the Minimum Wage?
Why do you hate the poor?"
(No matter how many studies we show them demonstrating that Minimum Wage itself hurts the poor.)
"You want to get rid of regulations?
So you want the big corporations to take over?"
(No matter how much we show them that regulations are WHY big corporations are taking over,
since they can absorb the costs of compliance better than small businesses that compete
with them.)
Get it?
The parts of libertarianism that I agree with are good; it's those parts that disagree with
my pet government projects that become insane and stupid.
For whatever reason, they're just completely unable to apply the criticisms of the policies
they hate to the policies they like, even though for the most part they're pretty much
the same criticisms!
Especially when it comes to things like:
"Alcohol prohibition was stupid and didn't work, but we need the War on Drugs!"
For another example, Mitt Romney campaigned against Obamacare, even though it's pretty
much the same legislation he passed as governor of Massachusetts.
"But that's totally different!
It's fine when the states do it, but it's not good when the Federal government does
it!
More examples:
"Ron Paul's not gonna win any caucuses!
You'll see!
...What?
Ron Paul won a caucus?
Well, caucuses don't matter!"
"It's great that government passed this stimulus package to fix the economy!
...What?
The economy's not any better?
That's because we didn't spend enough!"
Get the idea?
There's always an explanation, EXCEPT one where the statist is wrong.
Just like with God: no matter what criticism you come up with, it's just different somehow.
That's really what this series is about: many statists commit the same fallacies as theists,
but then deny it, because it's just different somehow.
And as we'll see throughout this series, they employ this tactic judiciously to avoid the
problems with all of the other fallacious reasoning they employ.
Stay tuned.