Today we look at a video from self-proclaimed liberal atheist Steve Shives. Targeting libertarianism, this video is part of his "5 Stupid Things About..." collection. Many of you might enjoy some of his work, so please check out his website, stevelikestocurse.com.
SERIES BACKGROUND:
We are now rebooting the series for the purposes of review and expansion. Tony Myers will be the permanent co-host for these episodes. See Tony's past School Sucks contributions here, and please have a look at Tony's comprehensive notes on the science of logic here.
Logic is about understanding reality in a non-contradictory way and how can we see things for what they are.
Metaphysical Laws
1.Identity
2.Causality
3.Non-Contradiction
Discussion With Tony Myers:
-Applying the Trivium
-The rhetorical approach of Steve Shives
-Why this video?
-Why we failed in our first attempt to record this show
-Fallacies in the first 3 "Stupid Things"
1. It's selfish
The most important thing in debate is proper identification; an easy way to win a debate is to define things however you want and get away with it. This allows for a rhetorical strategy we call Hedging – using words with ambiguous meanings, then changing the meaning of them later.
Steve's defining characteristic - selfishness?
What about property Rights? Self-ownership? The NAP?
2. It alienates people from the government
I don't feel this way at all; GOVT is people and the state is a dangerous superstition. It's another religion from which we, like Steve Shives, work to free people.
Philosophical implication: we should be connected to the government
we have a duty or responsibility to society that libertarians are dodging
3. It's anachronistic
This entire thing is the stolen concept fallacy.
Requiring the truth of the something that you are simultaneously trying to disprove.
Appeal to novelty -
Argument: libertarianism is bad cause it's old, especially compared to the blessings of the state in the 20th century
Principle: things that are old are not preferable to things that are newer
definition problem again
-Libertarianism as political movement in the US goes back to the early 1970s
-you can go back further to some of Rand's conclusions decades earlier
with respect to the fourth branch of philosophy : politics
-Spooner
-Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, or the Anti-Dictator, mid-1500s
it's still like 4000 years newer than the state
Music:
Traditional - "Faith Is the Victory"
Joan Osborn - "What If God Was One of Us?"
Traditional - "Adestes Fideles"
Norman Greenbaum - "Spirit In The Sky"
Kutless - "What Faith Can Do"
Look Closer:
2 Aristotle Logic from History and Philosophy of Science
Will Durant - The Story of Philosophy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Philosophy
Tragedy & Hope Communications - http://www.tragedyandhope.com/
Trivium Education - http://www.triviumeducation.com/trivium/
Logical Fallacies Handlist - http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html
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