Fox and other right-wing outlets have always used certain “go-to" logical fallacies in their ideological arguments: ad hominem, straw man, and non sequitur. (Actually, if you listen to any one of Trump’s speeches, you can usually hear examples of all three in the same speech.) Although the right wing still uses these the most, lately I have noticed the increased use of several uncommon fallacies that are becoming more and more common in conservative circles. Although there are literally hundreds of logical fallacies, I’m just going to focus on these few. Let’s begin …
1. ONUS IMPROBATIONIS (“Burden of disproof”)
This is a type of Ad ignorantiam, which is to claim something is true because it cannot be proven false. What this subcategory refers to is putting the burden on you to disprove their belief. The problem is that this is impossible. Decades ago, my statistics teacher gave me an example that I still remember: the Loch Ness Monster. Even if you somehow managed to drain the entire loch, and had teams of people scouring the ground, would that satisfy the believers? Of course not. They'd argue that the mythical beast just went into hiding, or was transported, or some other such nonsense.
I always think about this fallacy when I hear the Birthers. They are a PERFECT example. No amount of evidence will ever satisfy them: experts, analysis of the document, records, birth announcements in newspapers—nothing. I recalled seeing the segment below years ago and specifically searched for this because I really want you to hear what birther Alan Keyes says immediately after the host read through ALL of the evidence of Obama’s birth in Hawaii. It starts at the 1:10 mark. He says two words that blew my mind—and prove my point.
I promise it’s worth it:
2. SI CONCLUSION (“Assuming the conclusion”)
This is a subcategory of “begging the question," which is also a subcategory of circular reasoning. You hear this all the time on Fox when the host says something has been "well-reported on this and other networks," when it fact they are just quoting each other.
When one of my conservative friends tells me something is “well-documented" or "well-known," I always ask where they heard this. (It's always right-wing media.) In GOP circles, there's a viral video of this wingnut on some wingnut panel at some wingnut conference who supposedly “shuts down" a Muslim women who dares to ask a question. Conservatives love this video because it promotes their bigoted rationale that since some Muslims are terrorists, it must mean Islam is inherently violent and evil. The key to the wingnut bigot’s entire argument is at 1:30 mark, where she states, as fact, that “15-25 percent” of all Muslims are terrorists according to "all intelligence services around the world”.
It must be true, because Glenn Beck said it. Except he said it was a well-known “fact" that 10 percent of all Muslims are terrorists. Fareed Zakaria took him down over this. Zakaria pointed out that there are an estimated 1,570,000,000 Muslims worldwide. Ten percent of that would be 157 million terrorists. So according to this lady, there are 393 MILLION Muslim terrorists running around. (Population of the entire US is 323 million). You could combine every terrorist organization in the world and not get out of the thousands range. There is no intelligence agency anywhere that has ever made such a ridiculous claim. But it doesn’t matter:
3. TU QUOQUE (pronounced “Two-Kwoh-Kway”)
This occurs when someone attempts to appeal to hypocrisy by focusing on the acts of the people or person making the argument, as opposed to addressing the merits of the actual argument. You can see the ridiculousness of this argument when someone tells you that you can't protest something if you are forced to use it. For example, I support more funding for public transportation and light rail, ergo, I am a hypocrite because ... I drive on highways?
I present Greg Gutfeld: the man Fox has tried for many years to make into the right’s Jon Stewart. If you can suffer through his terrible, terrible jokes—and you'll feel for his co-host who is trying to politely laugh—this is a perfect illustration of this fallacy. Gutfeld argues that kayakers can’t protest offshore drilling because their kayaks were “trucked to the store.”
4. REMOTA CAUSA (Avoiding the issue)
Speaking of another failed right-wing "comic": Steven Crowder. (You can "book" him for your next event on his website.) He recently provided a great example of this fallacy, which is when someone responds to an argument by simply not addressing the actual points of the argument.
I was going to use another example on Fox, but then I came across something Crowder wrote recently about John Oliver’s tremendous takedown of Trump's plan to build a giant wall. Oliver’s segment, entitled Border Wall, proved that Trump’s wall would not only be extremely expensive, but extraordinarily impractical. It was done so well that it essentially shuts the pro-wall supporters down. After it went viral, Crowder attempted to fight back with a blog post entitled Why John Oliver is Wrong. I was very curious to know how he could debate the facts John Oliver presented. Answer: he didn’t. Instead, you'll see that he just attacked John Oliver personally, (ad hominem), and then quibbled over a report that Oliver mentioned concerning the number of undocumented immigrants in the nation. Nowhere in the entire screed does Crowder ever address any of the valid points Oliver made on why the wall is infeasible.
5. AD POPULUM
Argument that being right is a numbers game. Rachel Maddow explains the fallacy better than I can:
6. REDUCTIO AD HITLERUM (Bonus Fallacy)
This isn't a real fallacy, (although it’s similar to "guilt by association”), but it might as well be. Glenn Beck is a master at it. Essentially, it is comparing an opponent's views with those that would be held by Hitler.
Do you know who else wanted to give everyone healthcare? HITLER!!
I only picked six up-and-coming fallacies of the right-wing crowd. If you have a favorite, share in comments. If you include a video example, I will include it as an updated list below.
· SemDem
As promised, from the comments, your favs…
Inconsistent application of reason or Selective observation
A form of “cherry picking". A very good example: although every major scientific society has gone on record that climate change is real, the appearance of this one snowball outside this Senator's place of work disproves all of it.
h/t inclusiveheart
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc (After, therefore because of)
So many examples of this. Conservatives always argue that a minimum wage hike will lead to higher prices. Never mind that a company can pay their executives an astronomical amount, but it's the extra two bucks an hour that tip the scales. Or Sen. Tom Cotton saying Chicago's restrictive gun laws are why they have a high murder rate. This fallacy was humorously expressed on an episode of West Wing:
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