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FB, apparently, was afraid that it might offend me, so they filtered it and made me click through a "yes, I'm actually a rational adult with a functional worldview, and I promise not to get all triggered and shouty" screen in order to see it.
Ah no. His argument is terrible, but for a different reason.
He's not "admitting" that fetuses are children, he's attempting to make a reductio ad absurdum argument, in which you posit or entertain the other side's argument and then demonstrate how it leads to an absurd or obviously incorrect conclusion. So, his argument could be outlined as follows:
(1) If fetuses are children, then they are due all the protections due to other children.
(2) Children are protected from sexual exploitation including child pornography.
(3) Child pornography is the public photo or video display of a nude child.
(4) Publicly displaying photos of nude fetuses is child pornography.
Therefore,
(5) As pro-lifers regularly publicly display photos of nude fetuses, they must either openly admit that they are child pornographers, or admit that fetuses are not children and not due the protections due to other children.
The structure of the argument is fine, it makes sense.
It fails, however, on (at least) a couple different levels.
For one thing, it's just sloppy. It makes a lot of assumptions that are friendly to his own argument. For instance, he rather broadly states that any public display of a nude child is child pornography. Well, that's not true. Without resorting to the "I know it when I see it" response, we can at least agree that there are aspects to pornography -- the creation and distribution being specifically designed for sexual gratification, specifically -- that are not true of pro-life protest signs. By his definition, any pediatric care textbook or website that included images of an unclothed infant or child must also be considered child pornography. So, he's using some sloppy, overly broad statements that are easily challenged.
But the bigger issue to me is that for a reductio ad absurdum to be compelling or persuasive (or valid), the absurdity of the conclusion must relate to the actual argument being made by the opposition. And it doesn't here. He does reach an absurd conclusion, but the conclusion is about the character or the actions of the opposition (pro-lifers), not about the subject in question (fetuses). As it is, his argument refutes not a single thing about the nature of the fetus, it only comments on the actions of a third party. If his purpose is simply to argue that pro-lifers are terrible people, then this would be a okay argument (apart from the sloppiness noted above), but that's not what he's attempting to argue.
So, I don't have a problem with using a reductio ad absurdum, and he's not "admitting" anything in doing so. His argument is just poorly constructed, that's all.
“White people don’t want to question their physical life and certainly not their own racial existence,”says Curry. “Because that means they would have to accept that death could come for them at any moment, the same way non-white people have to accept that. And they don’t want to question their existence, they’re not willing to give up their existence. They’ll hold on to their white life just as much as a [unclear] will hold on to a crack pipe. They are fundamentally addicted to the purity of what they see whiteness to be.”
“To be clear, you believe it would have been better to keep in place an FBI director who you said had no credibility to oversee this investigation than to find someone who you think would be a better choice?” asked MSNBC host Peter Alexander in apparent reference to previous statements Waters had made.
“No, but I believe the president thought that,” came her absolutely nonsensical reply. “You’re talking about what some Democrats said, what I said, but don’t forget – he was the president, the president supported him, he had confidence in him.”
“But you said [Comey] had no credibility, so it would make sense that [President Trump] got rid of him,” interrupted Alexander.
“Absolutely,” piped Waters. “No, no, no. Under investigation. This president basically has interfered with an investigation where he may be implicated. That’s outrageous. Everybody is talking about it.”
“The bottom line,” continued Alexander, appearing very confused by this point, “is that you think an FBI director without credibility would have been best served in this position.”
Waters went on to declare that she feels, if Hillary Clinton had won the election, she absolutely should have fired Comey.
“So she should’ve fired him but he shouldn’t have fired him – this is why I’m confused,” declared Alexander.
FEMINIST PROFESSOR CLAIMS SQUIRRELS ARE VICTIMS OF RACIST, SEXIST MEDIA BIAS
According to California State Polytechnic Assistant Professor Teresa Lloro-Bidart, “eastern fox squirrels are subjected to gendered, racialized, and speciesist thinking in the popular news media as a result of their feeding/eating practices, their unique and unfixed spatial arrangements in the greater Los Angeles region, and the wester, modernist human frame through which humans interpret these actions.”
Lloro-Bidard’s argument is contained in a report filed in Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography.
Breitbart’s Tom Ciccotta states, “Lloro-Bidart claims that she worked towards such a conclusion by analyzing the coverage of eastern fox squirrels through ‘feminist posthumanist,’ and ‘feminist food studies’ lenses.”
“Eastern fox squirrels (Sciurus niger), reddish-brown tree squirrels native to the eastern and southeastern United States, were introduced to and now thrive in suburban/ urban California,” her report reads before declaring that humans are guilty of “otherizing” eastern fox squirrels and lumping them in with the western gray squirrel, a species she says is much less tolerant of humans.
“Given that the shift in tree squirrel demographics is a relatively recent phenomenon, this case presents a unique opportunity to question and retheorize the ontological given of ‘otherness’ that manifests, in part, through a politics whereby animal food choices ‘[come] to stand in for both compliance and resistance to the dominant forces in [human] culture,'” her report reads.
Lloro-Bidart ultimately reaches the conclusion contained in the first paragraph of this article – that “gendered, racialized, and speciesist” media coverage is to blame for the disdain of eastern fox squirrels.
I am writing you tonight with a message that may seem ill-timed given our wonderful graduation ceremonies taking place this week. At the same time, this is a message about Aggies and that for which we stand. As such, I cannot think of a more appropriate time in many ways to write to you in this regard.
As you may know, a podcast interview by one of our professors that took place approximately four and a half years ago resurfaced this week on social media, seen for the first time by many of us. The interview features disturbing comments about race and violence that stand in stark contrast to Aggie core values – most notably those of respect, excellence, leadership and integrity – values that we hold true toward all of humanity.
As we know, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of others to offer their personal views, no matter how reprehensible those views may be. It also protects our right to freedom of speech which I am exercising now.
We stand for equality.
We stand against the advocacy of violence, hate, and killing.
We firmly commit to the success, not the destruction, of each other.
We wish no violence or harm even to those who espouse hateful views under the First Amendment, a sentiment that by its very nature is one that they would deny others.
Tonight, therefore, I write to you, our beloved Aggies. Our core values are very much intact, including those for which we stand, and in contrast to that for which we most assuredly do not. This is something that needs to be said here and now and lived in all of our days.
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