If I turned on the faucet to brush my teeth and, instead of flowing down into the basin, the water flowed up to the ceiling, I would say, “Hmm, there must be something wrong with gravity.”
If clouds gathered over my house and then started to rain hot dogs, I would, after squealing with delight, say, “There must be something wrong with the weather.”
In the same way, looking at the things that people on the TV are saying with a straight face makes me think that logic must be broken somehow.
So, I wanted to try out a couple of questions that seem to me to have logical answers, just to check and see if logic still works.
1) If I had a job with any kind of official authority — say, director of the Atlanta office of the IRS or district attorney for Milwaukee County or maybe Secretary of State — and I refused to use my office email system at all, wouldn’t people just assume that I was up to something? And if, when asked about it, I said, “Hey, lots of people have private email! What’s the big deal?” would people respond with anything but laughter?
2) If I were president, and I was attempting to negotiate a deal with a hostile foreign power, and I was trying to do it in a way that prevented any kind of input or oversight from Congress, wouldn’t people assume that it was probably a really bad deal for the United States? If Congress tried to insert themselves into the process — like the Constitution says they’re supposed to — and my supporters then called Congress “traitors,” would people respond with anything but laughter?
3) If I believed that the best thing for America was to bring a bunch of people who aren’t Americans into America and make them permanent residents of America, wouldn’t it be fair to assume that I didn’t much like Americans?
4) If someone told you that the best way to improve the internet was to put it under control of a federal agency founded in 1934 to regulate radio stations and telegraphs, wouldn’t you assume that person was a kook? Would you expect that person to be able to set the time on a digital watch, much less operate a computer?
How’s that? Did the logic hold up through those? I’ve got some more, but I don’t want to push it.