Fallacypalooza III - Final Tea Leaf

Final installment about Paul Krugman's New York Times article ridiculing the Tax Day Tea Parties…

Towards the end of his article, Mr. Krugman finally touches on a substantive issue: "For now, the Obama administration gains a substantial advantage from the fact that it has no credible opposition, especially on economic policy, where the Republicans seem particularly clueless." The use of "clueless" is another ad hominem attack, and furthermore is contrary to fact. The economic policies promoted by the Democrats – government control of industry, massive government spending funded by printing press money, national health care – have all been tried in other times and other places with disastrous results. But don't take my word for it – 200 hundred economists, some of them very well known, took out an ad in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal saying the same thing ( http://www.cato.org/special/stimulus09/cato_stimulus.pdf). They pointed out "More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s 'lost decade' in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today." Which side is more credible – the one whose views are informed by past experience or the one whose views are contradicted by past experience?

Paul Krugman's "Tea Parties Forever" traverses the Fallacy Catalog in its effort to belittle the Tea Party movement. But just as no one needs to say "the debate is over" when the debate is really over, so no one needs to belittle a movement if it's really too ridiculous to be threatening. The Tea Parties had a profound impact on those who attended. Again, I quote my friend: "[W]e're just ordinary folks expressing our views…It was deeply heartwarming to be there. For a short while, I actually felt a glimmer of hope." If I read the tea leaves correctly, the Left no doubt feels threatened by this kind of talk – it's the same kind that got their guy into the White House.

For abusive ad hominems, faulty analogies, hasty generalizations, and strawmen, the Logic Critic gives Mr. Krugman…

1 Blade - Not even an argument.