Never paid any attention to gun control except what I read or hear on the news media.  Based on the media my report is that there is a huge cry for gun control mainly because of the mass shootings.  I can understand that.

Then I look at the statistics and realize that the media is either ill informed or has an agenda.

The second amendment has a strong connection to the fourth amendment.  Back in the colonial times the government had the right to quarter the military in your house.  So having a weapon had a purpose.

The statistics clearly show that there is an urban subculture that allows the media to focus on guns as the issue.  However the statistics show that eliminating guns would increase the violence.

We have federal laws that already prohibit automatic weapons.  And in locations where the laws are state or city laws the amount of automatic weapons in the hands of the mentally limited is very high.  Don’t these people obey the law (sarcasm inserted here)

A psychological principle of the avoidance of pain suggests that entering a house, city or state where someone can do to me what evil I have in mind for them makes me avoid that possibility

.http://www.downfacebook.com/download-facebook-video-806713486044197.html

P.S.Part of the A-Z to me is finding things.  I think I published a 6 minute video website.  that I base my opinion on but I know there is a better way to post it.http://www.downfacebook.com/download-facebook-video-806713486044197.html

Maybr this is it.  Six minutes will at least challenge your beliefs if not change them.

I follow a blog of a well known blogger.  He claims to thoroughly investigate current issues.  But after my researching logical fallacies, I noticed that he firmly employs many of them.  His most recent is to paint with a broad brush vilifying a money hungry big business and linking the GMO debate, which he writes much about, to a wide variety of health issues.  It is saying that if you understand that GMOs cause cancer then look at this illness.

It strikes me as strange that I read so many complaints from so many people on so many health related issues, yet the link between these big corporations and government keeps turning up the same elected officials.  Maybe that is not so strange.  Maybe that’s the way a culture thinks.  To blame but take no action where it will really can make a change.

President Obama ran on “hope and change.”  In my opinion he has been the worst offender of increasing the wealth of the one percenters.   Oh you want examples.  What about the CEO of GE, Jeff Immelt, appointed to lead  President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness  .   What taxes did GE pay in recent years?  Did they send jobs overseas? What about a health care bill that has nada/zilch/zippo/zero,nyet controls on health care spending ?  I could run pages of these examples but it would lead to refutation with logical fallacies.

The bottom line – break the long time connections from government to business.  I would strongly start at the local government level and then go for the federal government.  In fact vote every incumbent out of office.  They spend more money advertising for reelection than they make.  Ask yourself how that is?  At the very least you would be voting a new person to be corrupted.  Look at it like sharing the wealth.

Do I agree with the death penalty?  Short answer, no.  Long answer.  If you change the question to ask do you agree with a death penalty? Or What would you change in the death penalty to make it a deterrent? Then my response changes.

The death penalty in most states has some type of phrasing that says the crime must be heinous and absolute.

First let’s dispense with all the illogical claims.  It is not cheaper to house a person for life than to execute them. Unless you pay both sides a phenomenal fee for the ten years the person waits on death row.  In most cases that is not the case.

Secondly, for those who believe the prisoner would suffer more being incarcerated may be true but then what is the answer to the death penalty is cruel and unusual since it does not involve years of misery as you suggest.  Never understood the logic, pretending to be caring by making you suffer more????

Thirdly, for those of you who believe the logical fallacy that years after the execution they find that the person was innocent because a new technology does not put him at the scene of the crime.  Just because there is no DNA on the scene does not exonerate a person.

Fourthly, for reasons unknown when I ask one’s opinion on the death penalty the phrase “eyewitness testimony is unreliable”  Hello!?  I don’t see how that relates to my question.

Fifthly,   and this is cruel ( suspect because of years of dealing with death row killers)I would drag them outside immediately after the sentence is handed down and publicly dispatch them, sell tickets to improve education or a woman’s shelter or help the homeless or mentally ill.  Appeals would be a small window between verdict and sentencing.

As a forensic neuropsychologist I have been on many death row cases.  In fact, I made friends with several.  Even got Christmas cards until they were no longer able to send them.  In all my cases everyone charged was admittedly guilty.  I have one case right now where I refuse to testify for the defense because they got the guy off death row, set him free and he killed again. In my original report, I mentioned that his attorney did not display a spirited defense (many of these appointments are pitifully paid, in fact the attorneys are obligated to put in their time if they expect other court appointments).  Because of my mention that the defense attorney did not do adequate work I am being asked to give testimony to possibly get this guy off death row again.  I didn’t want him free the first time.

A win win situation in most criminal cases would be that if the client loses both he and the attorney do time, of course to be fair the attorney should do less  time.

The logic that a person or persons have been killed, families ruined, futures lost can be compared to the punishment to the perpetrator astonishes me.

This week two death penalty cases are on the table.  One is a slam dunk, the other will end in life as enough haze was cast to make a life imprisonment sufficient.

Maybe the 31 years of testing criminals, working with attorneys and counseling those left behind has hardened me.  Either use the psychological principles of immediate and public execution or get rid of the death penalty.  But don’t tell me it doesn’t work.  Just look at your response to my suggestion.

We send brave young men to their death in wars the country begs to end but we fight to keep those alive who take life so readily.  Is that a logical fallacy?

You want to end a war send the politicians into the front lines.

I have learned so much about what I did not absorb in my philosophy classes that I intend to write about logical fallacies in months to come.  But at least for today we can agree that this will be the final logical fallacy entry.  Our agreeing on this as the last entry is called peticio princpii or “begging the question.”

This is a rhetorical trick to get another person to concede a point giving the underlying assumption that what follows has been already accepted.

Remember the joke of a woman holding a rather large dog by the leash and a guy comes up and says “Does your dog bite?”  and the woman says “No.”  The guy goes to pet the dog and the dog bites him.  The man says “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite.”  She responds, “That’s not my dog”

Somehow they both entered into an understanding that the dog on her leash was her dog.  You both conceded that point.  That’s known as begging the question; a common logical fallacy.

The most common logical fallacy seen regularly on my FaceBook  is the hasty generalization.   This is where a person takes one data point and does a sweeping generalization to make it seemk true as a trend.

For example a person says “All politicians are liars.” And she cites a lie by Hillary Clinton as proof. I use this example because I actually believe this statement to be true.  But in reality there must be a politician who is not a liar. (statistics suggest this) But the person making this statement about the lies of Hillary Clinton is engaging in another logical fallacy. This person is actually saying that because all politicians are liars, then elect my liar because she lies better, because she is a woman, because I like her….

And finally argumentum ad ignoratiam the appeal to ignorance.  This occurs when someone uses both sides of the syllogism to support their claim.  No one has scientifically proven the existence of God so it is possibly true. At the same time using the same logic that since no one has proven the existence of God, He does not exist.  Both are fallacious as they each use the same argument to prove their point.

There are simple ways to combat these fallacies.  But my purpose is not to be right but to seek the truth.  So I use these techniques of logical fallacies to keep me on track by not following an illogical path.

In my attempt to explain logical fallacies I have opened up an avenue for me to see things in a check list form.  I have found something to keep me balanced in the face of persuasive rhetoric from people I like.  We tend to like people who think like us.  I just like people and accept the way they think.  I have found people who have the ability to press my buttons and it is on these occasions that I learn the most about myself.

Back in Aristotle’s day he confronted a group called the Sophists.  The Sophists sought to use rhetoric solely as a tool to convince another that their argument was accurate.  (kind of like advertising)  While Aristotle used rhetoric to find the Truth as it stood by itself.

So I collected common logical fallacies and used them in my search to find what I gleaned to be the truth.  In my quest I found these fallacies in my posts.  For example, when I asked the question, “What is your opinion on abortion?”  the most common response was “It’s a woman’s choice.”

That response is known as ignoratio elenchi or missing the point or irrelevant conclusion.  I asked A and they answered B. Since my goal is to find out information to base my opinions on using a logical foundation, this fallacy helped me delineate both the question and the way people think; in this case illogically.

Another fallacy is the Tu quoque which translates to “you too.” In this fallacy rather than respond to the question you attack the person as a hypocrite.  In fact the person may be a hypocrite but this particular argument may be true.

Another fallacy is the red herring.  This is where the person changes the argument to something favorable to their view.  Let’s use a most common argument.  “President Obama is really taking us down a path of destruction in foreign policy.”

“Oh what about the path that President Bush and his mad dog Cheney did.”  I read versions of this on FaceBook daily.

I am writing these  posts for my benefit.  I don’t want to be a sophist and use rhetoric to convince you how clever  or knowledgeable I am.  I simply want to walk away from my computer with a logical, thoughtful explanation to myself on how I come to have a belief.

By using these fallacies as road signs, I can actually put my ideas on a page and see if they fit a logical pattern.  In this process, I have learned much about myself particularly as it relates to another person’s way of thinking.  I have to ask myself questions like, “Do I want to correct their statement? (always a bad idea)  How do I keep a straight face?  Did she say what I thought she said?  Isn’t that contrary to what she just said?  How do I walk away with us remaining friends?

I can no longer listen to political speeches without naming the fallacy.  The kicker, to me, is the fact check afterwards.  They missed the rhetoric that shifted a correct piece of information, because it was correct, and how it was meant to sway the following lies.

The HUFFINGTON POST is the most egregious at writing rhetorical pieces that are misleading at best.  I still read it because their misinformation tells me to go looking for the truth.  Make no mistake, you have to be a good writer to put across these fallacies.  To an unknowing public this can be detrimental.

I still don’t know how to address the person who illogically reasons what I have found to be a logical conclusion.  For example, taking a hot topic – abortion;  I could sit here and write syllogism after syllogism, using inversions, converses and contrapositives proving my point and disproving another  thought process.  (add to that – ethos)  I will never change the thinking of another on this topic.  I get it.  Move on.  Nothing changes.  But then you have the far right guy who says abortion is wrong because God deemed it so.  Now I’m stuck holding a logical thought process next to a person proselytizing what I found to be elementary.  Makes me think of changing my opinion, but that would be illogical.