Six Inconvenient Logical Fallacies
By Nicole Belle Sunday Sep 30, 2007 12:02pm
So Michael Medved, semi-famous movie reviewer and radio host, who has of late morphed into a weird "Hollywood vs. America" right-wing concern troll, has published an op-ed at Townhall that says that slavery in America just wasn't as bad as all that. No, seriously.
The entire op-ed is too long to cut and paste here, and a snippet would do it no justice. So for your amusement (or if you read the whole thing, as I did--stay away from sharp objects--revulsion), here are the bullet points upon which Medved makes his case, ironically entitled Six Inconvenient Truths:
1. Slavery was an ancient and universal institution, not a distinctively American innovation.
2. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales, in the history of the republic - involving only a tiny percentage of the ancestors of today's Americans.
3. Though brutal, slavery wasn't genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.
4. It's not true that the U.S. became a wealthy nation through the abuse of slave labor: the most prosperous states in the country were those that first freed their slaves.
5. While America deserves no unique blame for the existence of slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid abolition.
6. There is no reason to believe that today's African Americans would be better off if their ancestors had remained behind in Africa.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the logic of a 29%er. And they wonder why the GOP doesn't get the African American vote.
You know, the way he talks about it we might have another go around. Oh wait, minimum wage is so much easier. Near slave wages without the need to provide housing and health care.
For his follow-up piece, the reich-wing twit is going to publish: "The holocaust...it just wasn't that bad."
So, Blacks are not American now? How telling.....
why isnt medved in prison??
he fronts for rabbi daniel lapin who laundered money for jack abramoff
medved sounds so reasonable on the radio....until you truly listen to him...and then you find out that he is nucking futs
VA was by far the most prosperous colony. At the time of the Revolution, 80% of all wealth in the colonies was in VA, and was almost completely due to slavery.
The US lagged long behind all of Europe in banning slavery.
As far as ancestors not being better off in Africa, that's probably true. Slavery existed long before the Dutch traded for the first slaves and continures to this day. If you eat big corp chocolate you support child slave labor.
Typical. It's always these right wing fuckwits that like to minimize the impact slavery had on this country and for that matter the African countries which the slaves were kidnapped from. These people have no shame.
Wow....He said this crap?
Sad thing is I'll bet there is more then 29% that believe this though....
"pre-eminent force for freedom, goodness and human dignity" - i can't get past that line...
He's an ex-liberal turned conservative destined to become an ex conservative turned liberal around 09.
what a nut job
As for myself around 2002 I thought man I could make millions selling bullshit to the Bush base.
I didn't take that path.
Daily Show: Slavery in American 2007
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/09/slavery_in_amer.html
Jon Stewart interviews John Bowe author of Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy
LOL...this is the kinda guy Clarence Uncle Thomas WORKS for. Guys like Medved that point out, gosh, other folks did it and they didn't kill THAT many uppity ni...er...well, gosh, I'm sure Medved wouldn't use that word. Maybe he's running some 14 year old chicks out of Bosnia--gosh, ain't it a better life to be a junky unwilling sex worker than be stuck in some impoverished backwater lacking the basics in privatized capitalism?
Medved's comments and arguments display a astounding historical ignorance - every one of his factual claims have been definitively rejected in the studies of those who actually employ facts in their analysis. If he sat through my Hst. 101 course he would at least be exposed to the information that historical research has generated about these baseless assertions. Who ever taught him American history (if anyone)should blush.
Native Indians will be labelled terrorists.
3. Though brutal, slavery wasn’t genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.
Huh. Slaves emerged from their brutal kidnapping with their lives, ergo they now owe the kidnappers, who decree that the slaves pay them back by turning those lives over to picking cotton and bringing their kidnappers their comestibles on command. The kidnappers may, of course, unsave the kidnapped persons' lives at the merest whim.
Sounds fair if one's thought-trains run, like Medved's, on tracks that are pretzel or moebius-strip shaped.
His six points are so appalling on so many levels I don't know where my disgust should be directed. Idiots like him shouldn't be allowed in public.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Soul: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
waldo @ 15:
OR...Insurgents!
Matt is dead on with the holocaust comparison. This kind of point-by-point flawed progression of logic system is precisely how the holocaust deniers and apologists operate. Number six is the most rediculous of all. If there were no slavery in the US there would be only a relatively miniscule black population in the US today so it's an idiotic statement no matter how you cut it. But in all likelihood that small population would be heavily upper middle class to wealthy just like much of the asian population in the US.
Why is Medved making this argument now?
Does he know something we don't about what's in store?
WTF reason did he have for even going into this? Was he inspired by Amistad all of a sudden?
And what is there to be gained by pandering to racists?
Things probably weren't that bad in whatever country he or his forebears drifted in from. Why doesn't he return to the old country and rediscover how lovely it is somewhere else.
Turd.
I think #7 would have been: If I (Michael Medved, that is) were a slave owner back then, I would have been a generous master. There's no reason to believe that all white slave owning masters were not nice.
justabill @ 5:
The US also lagged behind MEXICO in banning slavery. Remember the Alamo?
Vincennes @ 23:
HeHe...Yes I can here him now..." Some of my Best Frieds are my slaves...."
5 posts into the comment section, critics are called "socialists"
7 posts into the comment section, and the anti-abortionists are chiming in.
i don't think i can stomach reading any more of these...
He should be happy then... there are pockets of slavery in this country... people are still being exploited in this way...illegal aliens that have paid thousands to disreputable people to come here and then are shut up into illegal brothels and/or sewing shops.
Melved should look up Mariana Islands and Tom Delay where: "were being paid barely half the U.S. minimum hourly wage and were forced to live behind barbed wire in squalid shacks minus plumbing, work 12 hours a day, often seven days a week, without any of the legal protections U.S. workers are guarnteed" where women were forced to have abortions so that they could continue working...
Actually, he should sell his children into slavery since it will bulit "character."
Sometimes, I wonder where these people lose their hearts and minds.
"The slaves were so overwhelmed by the hospitality of their Masters. And so many of the slaves in the slave quarters, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them,"
~Barbara Bush
See, that's what you get when you take actual fact and mix it with a lot of untrue suppositions.
Slavery DID exist throughout (pretty much) all of recorded human history. Difference: for the most part, slaves were either captured from rival tribes/nations and eventually allowed to become full members of the capturing tribe OR were bought but allowed to purchase their freedom. There were laws governing how slaves were allowed to be treated by their owners. Slaves themselves in many cases were allowed to marry, to own property, and to also purchase their families' freedom.
Not exactly the same as American and British slavery now, is it?
Someone, go gather his family and sell them. No seriously, he just gave you the green light. And if he complains, tie him to a tree and castrate him.
Why are Right Wing publications continuously allowed to spew this tripe, yet the NY Times with one MoveON ad causes the congress to move with swift and deliberate action to condemn the message? I mean come on, Bill Bennett can spew nonsense like - 'Well ... fact is crime would go down if we had more black abortions'. Or how about Barbara Bush - 'Since these people had so little to start with, I think living in the Astro dome is working out quite well for them'. You all know the list goes on and on ... I just want to know why the Left can't seem to match the Rights noise machine and raise some hell when these idiots open their mouths and allow crap like this to fall out!
Not only is he unhinged, he also smells like urine.
3. Though brutal, slavery wasn’t genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.
I would have this idiot Medved look at the depictions of captured slaves that were chained to each other allowing for minimal to no movement as they were transported along the Middle Passage. An extremely large amount of people died in the Middle Passage alone. If the transport wasn't genocidal, I don't know what is.
I think this dimwit was trying to make the entirely pointless point that the United States government is somehow less culpable in slavery than it might be otherwise. Or something like that. Sort of. Reparations-wise.
Hate to be devil's advocate, but that first point:
1. Slavery was an ancient and universal institution, not a distinctively American innovation.
happens to be true
but he's still a psychopath -- those other 5 points are nuts
And you're giving this ZERO attention because?????
For those who may still doubt it...Freedonia is going to war...again.
Johnny2Bad @ 36:
This does deserve attention to further prove that reich-wingers are anti-minority racists.
Holy sh!t, Batman
so now we'll be referred to as "the far-left, abolitionist wing of the Democratic party"?
I read townhall.com a couple times a week for the comedic value - it rivals The Onion.
Would Medved say the same thing about this: HOLY MOSES! OBAMA’S ANCESTORS ENSLAVED LIEBERMAN’S!
Most of what Medved argues appears in more verbose form in Dinesh D'Souza's racist tract "The End of Racism." So not only is Medved a bigot, he is an unoriginal bigot.
i am going to get flamed here, I am not defending this right winger one bit. Remember even an idiot can say something smart once in a while... but what he says bears a core of truth in historical context. I am not defending slavery at all, it is horrible, but records of slavery extend all the way back to the Bible where it was condoned, and approved of. Even the selling of your own flesh & blood into slavery was approved of, in the Bible. America thinks of slavery in terms of Africa. African tribes routinely captured other tribal people and used them as slaves, selling them to the whites. That is how slavery in America began. Slavery is dehumanizing by its very nature. It, like the killing of your enemies, is a human custom that should end.
His points:
1. Slavery was an ancient and universal institution, not a distinctively American innovation.
This is true. As I said, it was accepted as normal in the Old Testament
2. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales, in the history of the republic - involving only a tiny percentage of the ancestors of today’s Americans.
Tiny is the wrong word for today, but in the early days of America, Africans were a tiny portion of the population. But note that in Colonial Williamsburg at the time of the revolution, Slaves and free men of color were half of the population.
3. Though brutal, slavery wasn’t genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.
This is true. Slavery means work for no pay and captivity, but ill treated slaves are not productive. Africans were treated as valuable chattel, as bad as it sounds, but slave owners, both black and white, knew that it was in their best interest to keep their "investment" healthy. Sick sounding, I know, but that's the way it was.
4. It’s not true that the U.S. became a wealthy nation through the abuse of slave labor: the most prosperous states in the country were those that first freed their slaves.
This is true. But many areas of the country, North and South staked their entire economic structure upon slave labor. And when the slaves were freed, many returned to their "homes" to do the same thing they had before, out of necessity. Hence, sharecropping.
5. While America deserves no unique blame for the existence of slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid abolition.
This is true, but a bit of hyperbole. Any nation that ends slavery deserves credit.
6. There is no reason to believe that today’s African Americans would be better off if their ancestors had remained behind in Africa.
this is debatable. But if I were given a choice to live in say, Detroit or Somali, I would take Detroit.. Maybe if the Whites had not exploited Africa or the tribes had not been so blood thirsty (Amin) Africa would have developed much faster and grown on par with countries like Australia. Who's to say?
Jeebus @ 35:
Yeah, but it's a strawman. Who ever argued that slavery was unique to America?
-It has been said that Amerikkka's version of slavery was the first where the slave was thought of as sub-human.
-He also left out the legacy of jim crow and the scars that followed almost one hundred years after some slaves were freed. -Amerikkka backed South Africa's apartheid government well into the late 1980's.[if you have forgotten, Artist Against Apartheid, just Google it] I also vaguely recall that Cheney broke the tie on voting in the Senate with a Nay against Stopping Trade with South Africa.[but I could be wrong]
I would highly recommend Medved reads Biko[it was written by a white man].
Was mr. Medved an official whiteperson during that time, I mean the birth of slavery?
Does he have a Mr Peabody WaybackMachine, giving him extra insight to what was going on back in the dey?
I thought this cat was a movie critic, and a not very good one at that
Medved is lying, or else uninformed.
1 -- There were African slaves in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.
2 -- During America's pre-Revolutionary period from the 1600s to the late 1700s, EVERY colony had slavery, whether Africans or Native Americans. In South Carolina in the early 1700s as much as 65 percent of the population was slaves.
3 -- 50 percent mortality among captives on slave ships was not unheard of.
4 -- Severe punishments including death for even minor offenses was typical. Slave sales that broke up families were also typical, whether for punishment or for the financial benefit of the owners.
5 -- After some colonies (later states) abolished slavery, the wealth disparity was not between slave states and free, but between slave holders and non-slaveholders. A benefit of unpaid labor was that the small number of rich plantation owners made much more money and property than the rest of the white population. These rich slaveholders hoarded the wealth, to the detriment of everyone else in their states.
Assuming he's not lying, I suggest that Medved might want to read a history book from time to time, or learn how to use "the Google."
medved looks like a 70's pornstar with that 'stache
just another closeted repuglican denialist
This guy is largely a moron, but to the six points he specifically makes, only #5 could really be contested.
It's a terrible way to look at the situation, and I don't think that Medved is actually arguing that "slavery was worth enduring", but how can one argue anything but that the decendents of American slaves aren't better off than those living in most parts of the Gold Coast region.
it's amazing that the man actually sees a benefit to writing the article. hilarious, actually. i applaud michael medved for being so brazen. does the gop have an image problem when it comes to people of color? who cares! let's write an article that basically says 'slavery wasn't so bad'!
next up from michael medved: the nazis only ruled germany for 12 years, and that's just a fraction of the history of germany (and indeed, the history of europe, or the world -- wait, i get it, this is the ultimate incartnation of the 'clinton did it too' defense!), and hey, the germans didn't invent genocide -- so really the nazis are just an understood, well-meaning bunch...
where's john brown when you need him?
That may very well be true. The majoroty of blacks will likely never vote GOP but enough of them did in Florida to put that tard in the WH in the first place and then in Ohio to re-elect him. Don't misunderstand. I'm not putting this disaster on African Americans, I'm just saying. And what, exactly, was it about monkey boy that was attractive to any black American to begin with?
Well, at least he's consistent - he was a shit movie critic, too.
For all the blather here, few take on his points.
Medved gets away with murder by starting the clock at the inception of the republic, thereby losing centuries of slavery by the very same people. His 'tiny percentage' isn't supported. He ignores that what the northern states dealt in was often southern product, and their riches were indeed partially based upon slavery. And, dead slaves increased the monetary value of those that survived at lesser expense for transport.
There are African Americans of note who have indeed pointed out that, however awful, they're certainly better off than they would be in Africa. Medved isn't racist in that particular observation.
The losers and their camp followers at Culloden Moor were sold as slaves to the Tidewater. Scots. And the slave trade of North Africans stealing southern Europeans is now suggested as a larger trade than the Africans to America. (Unknown, though) Millions of people over centuries.
Slavery is noted and more horrible in the US because of the institutionalized hypocrisy. The Civil War was, contrary to revisionists, totally about slavery at rock bottom and required, as Brown knew, much blood to atone. The question is, will the price ever be allowed to have been paid? I'm a liberal. We still owe, but not in perpetuity unless everyone is held to the same standard. Asians and Africans wouldn't want that anymore than Europeans would.
1st Republic 14th Star @ 46:
Not to mention rape and other forms of abuse.
Slavery as an acient and universal institution - yes but to use that to excuse the American form of slavery ignores the fact that American slavery was unique compared to historical, traditional slavery. Historically slavery resulted from being captured in a military action or being unable to pay off a debt - not based on ones skin color. Historical slavery was not passed on to the off spring of enslaved people. Historically slavery was not a perpetual state for the enslaved. America's slavery were all of those things. The Americans made it a racially based institution supported by and justified upon doctrines of racial inferiority. Our society still struggles with the consequences of that.
Who'd have thunk it; a slavery apologist in the 21st Century.
In Rome, a slave's testimony was only allowed in court if it was given under torture.
In Barbados, you weren't allowed to kill your own slaves (because that might be abusive), but you were allowed to kill someone else's.
I think one thing is clear, slavery in the USA wasn't that much worse than everywhere else. In fact, it was so fantastic, that we should bring it back and sign up Medved as our first slave. We can control him through starvation and beatings. If we need to know what he thinks of it, we can torture him to make sure to hear what he really thinks.
Michael, just think, it will be great, we'll take care of your reproduction, food and shelter. In return, you just give up your liberty. Sounds like a deal to me.
Every time I see or hear this guy, my first thought is "self-loathing closet case". I think he was the guy in the stall next to Larry Craig.
I guess this is Town Hall's version of humor
http://www.townhall.com/funnies/cartoonist/GaryMcCoy
WARNING: Apparently Ann Coulter has a new "book" out and her mug is splattered on every page at the site!
leftminded...
we'll never know the truth about Florida or Ohio except both states rigged the votes and the counting or non-counting. I have a feeling the actual truth is closer to Blacks didn't vote for Bush, unless a white vote counter made it seem that way.
Truer still, nobody voted for him but it was made to seem that way...
The GOP as we know it came from Dixiecrats...
I heard most of this clapptrap from Rush Limbaugh over 10 years ago. It's not just Michael Needs-Medved
And , he is NOT GAY !
Ah, the insights available through home schooling...
3. Though brutal, slavery wasn’t genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.
This is true. Slavery means work for no pay and captivity, but ill treated slaves are not productive. Africans were treated as valuable chattel, as bad as it sounds, but slave owners, both black and white, knew that it was in their best interest to keep their “investment” healthy. Sick sounding, I know, but that’s the way it was.
Ok, let's try this out doe eyes ... I'm gonna drop by this after noon and put you and your entire family in chains. I'll probably rough up your dad and rape you mom a couple of times and any one too old or infirmed to do hard labor (like say grandma and grandpa) I'm gonna kill outright. Next, I'm going squeeze what's left of your family and anyone else on your block that might look healthy enough to work into a mini cooper, buck naked, hog tied and shackled and drive everyone to Peru. Oh there's no bathroom breaks and the only food you'll get for the entire 6 week trip is akin to cornmeal boiled in rotten cabbage. If anyone should happen to pass on during out little road trip, I'm gonna just open a door and push them out, leaving their dead body on the side of the interstate, they are after all of no use to me anymore ... see ya Skippy! Now if that should happen to your family and everyone you know ... what would you call that if not genocide? The objective may not have been to eradicate a race/culture, but it certainly has the same effect!
azureblue,
forest for the trees, my friend, forest for the trees. medved could be entirely factually correct with triple annotated footnotes. it just doesn't matter. the thrust of the article is "slavery wasn't that bad."
if you want to have a scholarly debate about the impact of slavery on our society, fine. if you're a right-wing pundit publishing an opinion piece in a conservative media outlet, it's no longer a scholarly debate, it's a talking point.
as i said before, this is just fine by me; conservatives need to just go ahead and let the raging beast of prejudice roam free for all to witness. then the truth will be out and we'll know where we stand: are we a nation of bigots or are we past that? which party do you choose?
so wtfs black slavery and the holocoust got to do with the shape were in, its just so much divershion from getting rid of these pigs in washington dc!
The English abolished slavery in their Empire in the 1830 with a stroke of a pen, without a shot being fired.
If anything, America helped prolong slavery's profitablity, although after the Civil War, Arabs continued to have slaves. However, if the slave converted to Islam they were granted their freedom due to one Islamic couldn't own another. And there was no "Thou Shalt Not Steal Your Massah's Chicken," version of theology with broomstick weddings.
Medved's spiel sounds suspciously like Civil War South's propaganda during the war, as compared to the 14 hour work days and child labor of the North.
Dr. Matt @ 2:
Touche, touche, and triple touche.
the man need to read king leopold's ghost. To learn just what the impact of the anglo was on Africa.
Once again we have the "Not as bad as Hitler" argument from the authoritarian wing of the human race to destruction.
Call it The Right Wing Provocateur's Dilemma. To stay relevant, they continually have to ratchet-up the craziness. Malkin celebrates Japanese internment in WWII; Coulter smears widows and children who don't love Bush; and Medved tops them by defending slavery. Who in the media will come forward to praise rape, murder, genocide, global annihilation? For two minutes on Fox, there'll be a stampede.
He seems to be missing a big part of his history lesson.
Slavery is ancient, but slavery in America was based on race, which was very different up to that point. Not to mention slavery was given the big thumbs up by religious leaders.
Slavery in the historical times was based on war and aggression.
leftminded @ 50:
There were some blacks who bought the chimpy's line about gay marriage and other social conservative issues but I doubt it was a substantial amount. Let's not point to states like Ohio and Florida for accurate statistics about how blacks voted considering the GOP enacted a massive effort to disenfranchise black voters by the tens of thousands in both states. During the 2000 election in Florida, people that never committed any crime were listed as felons and knocked off the voter rolls. Do you even remember the videos of long lines of black voters in Ohio waiting past midnight just to vote during the 2004 election? It shouldn't take 7 plus hours to vote. Something tells me they weren't Bush voters.
knock knock
who's there?
knock knock
who's there?
knock knock
hey medved leave me alone, this stall is occupied
It's all ok when it wasn't your grandparents & great grandparents who were kidnapped, beaten, starved, abused, misused and murdered. Treated like property. Bought and sold and then left disenfranchised and "free" in a foreign land where a majority of the population considered them enemy interlopers. And that's all before the start of a still ongoing struggle to achieve equality under the law.
This is what happens when the only reality you're exposed to is "reality" tv.
rend @ 68:
Good thing I'm a Celt.
I forgot, Medved's kind of argument is common to certain "religious" folk. They claimed slavery was good for the conversion opportunities it gave to the indigenous.
Of course slave music mixed with white music to make gospel, country, and rock.
What would we do without Brittany?
It's hard to take seriously any argument where "not genocidal" is a selling point.
Say! Why doesnt he get out of his enclave and take his enlightened rhetoric on a nationwide tour --- maybe start in some of the inner cities on the east coast --- I'm sure LOTS of people would like to discuss his wise opinions with him.
Medved:
Poor, poor slave owners...
His point seems to be that it's better to be a live slave than a free dead guy.
So tell me again why our soldiers are dying so the Iraqis can be free?
And some people wonder why America has never been able to come to grips with its racial problems...
As has been noted, the very scary part of this issue is that Medved's views are not out of the Republican mainstream. Go over to the Townhall site and read the comments on the article.
Most of the readers appear to support his argument.
The total bankruptcy of his argument can be found in my favorite sentence from the entire piece:
"Of course, a hundred years of Jim Crow laws, economic oppression and indefensible discrimination followed the theoretical emancipation of the slaves, but those harsh realities raise different issues from those connected to the long-ago history of bondage."
The article supposedly talks about the impact of slavery on the US. But he refuses to talk about the immediate aftermath and those very real ramifications: Jim Crow, economic oppression and discrimination raise "different issues"?
What planet is this guy living on?
That sentence shows how dishonest and deluded Medved is.
fiver @ 78:
They should've pulled themselves up by their bootstraps...
how can you argue about #1?
So I went to this popular restaurant in a right-wing neighborhood called "TownHall", and WOW! I gotta say that the place didn't have guys demeaning the black waiters and waitresses. You know, by saying things like "n***er, bring me some iced tea!" The white men were very polite to everyone brown-skinned and did not tap their feet in the bathroom. They clearly don't like war and made no mention of Iran. They love people!
Bandini @ 82:
read #71 . . . I agree with most of it
Sweet Chunks @ 83:
The worst thing about "TownHall" being a black man ... whenever I go there people keep handing me money and trying to blow me ... what's that about???
Interesting attempt to make American slavery seem not all that bad. What's the purpose of stating crap like this? To make us white people comfortable with our racism? To make us feel better about our slave-holding ancestors?
"... And they wonder why the GOP doesn’t get the African American vote."
The Black Vote ... Slaves to the (D)z, apparently
Snewrd
No. 5 is patently false. The U. S. was the last country in the western hemisphere to end African slavery. We were the ONLY country that had to fight a war to end slavery, every other country legislated the institution out of existence. Even afater fighting a war and passing Consitutional Amendments to outlaw slavery, many Americans refuse to let go of the idea.
Bush's first AG--John Ashcroft--stated that he believed slavery was not wrong and should have been retained.
Bandini @ 82:
By taking a history class and noting the racial component of American slavery, the fact that it continued for more than a half a century longer than other "civilized nations, the special... oh, the hell with it, take your own class.
Snerd Gronk @ 87:
Fuck off bastard
Nonbeliever