Sometimes a person will give two arguments to support his position ... and one of these arguments contradicts the other.
A couple of examples:
One: On several occasions I've heard feminists say, All jobs should be equally open to both men and women. There are no relevant differences between men and women in the workplace. (One added: Very few jobs actually required a penis or a vagina.) And besides, women offer a special perspective.
Except ... if women offer a "special perspective", than they are not exactly the same as men. To offer a special perspective they must be different. And once you condede that they are different, it's possible that they are, on the whole, better or worse.
The second argument totally contradicts the first. Either women are identical to men (in all relevant ways), or they are not. If they are not identical, then the first argument is wrong. If they are identical, then the second argument is wrong.
Two: After the 2020 election, some Republicans claimed that the Democrats had only won through vote fraud and manipulation. Many media people and other Democrats replied, Republican claims of vote fraud are ridiculous. Elections today are totally secure. Vote fraud is absolutely impossible. And besides, most of the vote fraud was done by Republicans. Followed by citing some number of claims of vote fraud by Republicans.
Except ... if Republicans managed to pull off vote fraud, then vote fraud is apparently not impossible at all. If Republicans managed to do it, it's plausible that Democrats managed to do it too. And the whole point of the discussion was that Republicans wanted changes to the laws to make vote fraud more difficult. If you are a Democrat and you really believe that Republicans are pulling off vote frauds, wouildn't you be in favor of laws to make vote fraud more difficult?
Either vote fraud is virtually impossible today, or it is not. If it is possible, then the first argument is wrong. If it is impossible, then the second argument is wrong.
© 2024 by Jay Johansen
JS Jun 28, 2024
Wow, turns out that if you strawman people's arguments, you can find contradictions!
Feminists don't claim that there are no differences between men and women. Not sure where you pulled that idea from (also note that "all jobs should be open to both sexes" and "there are no differences between sexes" are two different arguments, attacking one doesn't affect the other). Besides, the idea that women offer special perspectives doesn't imply the individual has more or less value: the increased value comes from having multiple perspectives. The exact same logic applies to having men in traditionally women-dominated fields.
As for voter fraud, same thing: Democrats don't claim that voter fraud is absolutely impossible.
Voter fraud is virtually impossible to accomplish *in a way that actually affects elections*. Small scale voter fraud IS possible, and is overwhelmingly committed by republicans. That doesn't mean the overall election is at risk. Besides, the proposed "anti-voter-fraud" laws have a lot more to do with disenfranchising people than anything else.
So yeah... the contradictions you point out only exist if you don't actually understand what is being argued.
Jay Johansen Aug 22, 2024
@js Yes, you could say,"Sure there are differences, but both groups are equally qualified to do the job." But once you concede there are differences, then this argument becomes very difficult. The two groups have different abilities ... but those differences COMPLETELY cancel out? Possible, I guess, but doesn't seem very likely. At best you'd have to prove it con a case by case basis.
"in a way that actually affects elections" Sure. If you could prove that, yes, there is vote fraud, but there is no case anywhere in the country where the vote fraud was sufficient to change the outcome of an election, that would be interesting. But also impossible to prove. At most you could prove that the vote fraud THAT WAS CAUGHT was insufficient to change the outcome. Surely most vote fraud is never caught. And even if you could prove that, to say that we don't need to worry about vote fraud, you'd have to convince us that not only has it never changed the outcome of an election, but that it's impossible for it to ever do so.
Then you repeat the claim that vote fraud is "overwhelmingly committed by Republicans". If true, than shouldn't Democrats be the ones clamoring for tighter laws? Or do you think Republicans are committing rampant vote fraud, possibly stealing elections ... but you don't care?
As to "disenfranchising people", well that's a whole other argument. The Democrat argument here is that black people are too stupid and lazy to be able to get an ID. Republicans say we don't believe that, that black people are just as capable as white people. I saw a news report where the reporter said that there are studies proving that black people are unable to get drivers licenses or other IDs, and Republicans were racist to say they could. So the reporter claims that she has scientific studies proving that black people are stupid, and she expects us to just believe that? Sorry, no. The very idea is racist, and I sincerely doubt the validity of your "scientific studies".