Although the pro-Palestine protests at my university have been nothing close to the magnitude that we’ve seen at others, we had a couple of small protests here, the first of which ended with some arrests. There have been many outspoken faculty members expressing disappointment with the way the protests were handled, and more than 200 faculty members signed a letter asking for a review of policies and for charges against the protesters to be dropped. I’m fine with this. I’m a free speech kind of guy, and have a soft spot for activism. If Nazis wanted to have a non-violent march on my campus, I’d argue that they should be allowed to do so (especially because we’re a public university, so all should be welcome). But as much as I support the protesters’ right to protest, I’m disappointed in what feels like a real lack of critical thinking by the people I expect to be the most skilled in critical thinking: the professors.
Continue reading “More than one thing can be true at a time”Tag: Israel
Israel and antisemitism
I haven’t written anything here in a long time, mostly because I’ve been busy, but also because I hadn’t really felt the need for the outlet that this site has been for me. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s happening in Israel since October 7, and the hearing in Congress yesterday has me eager to express some thoughts.
Continue reading “Israel and antisemitism”More distractions and straw men
I’ve been posting a lot on FaceBook (as me, not as Hitting Bregma) about the lousy journalism and logical fallacies I’m seeing on FoxNews. I don’t watch a ton of FoxNews, but I flip over somewhat regularly, just to see what’s going on. Many of these times, I’m struck by how different the coverage is. For instance, while all the other networks (regular networks and cable news) are focused on one story, like a new leak about something from the Trump administration, FoxNews will run a story about a person killed by an immigrant in a hit and run, or something equally unrelated to what everybody else is covering. I’ve also spent a lot of time harping on the classic straw man fallacies that they are so good at. They construct this ludicrous picture of a “liberal” or something that liberals are mad about, and then justifiably call them silly or hypocritical. The problem is that the whole premise gets it wrong. It’s not just FoxNews, but it’s also clearly a tactic of the Trump administration. Let’s look at a couple of key examples, including one from today.
Hitting Bregma 