" This is not an abstraction -- people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again...... And this is not an abstraction. There are people whose livelihoods are at stake. There are communities that are going to be impacted in a negative way. And I know that sometimes all this squabbling in Washington seems very abstract, and in the abstract, people like the idea, there must be some spending we can cut, there must be some waste out there. There absolutely is. But this isn’t the right way to do it." "President Obama Speaks on the Sequester." 2/19/13
It has never been my purpose to be reactive to opinion writers or back and forth politics, but, David Firestone writes in the New York Times about a subject very near to my bloggish heart, namely abstractions and what President Obama said about them. Firestone agrees with Obama's comments that recent "forced budget cuts" or sequestration coming on March 1, 2013 cannot be abstractions because "sequestration" has consequences for real people everywhere. Obama also said that "Washington squabbles" over nice-sounding abstractions like "spending cuts" because it foolishly and recklessly thinks waste must be out there. But, the sequestration law itself is a piece of paper with writing on it that tells live human beings things they SHOULD do. Sequestration isn't real because a law can't stand up and tell you you're fired. It's the people who believe they're the government who've got to make the determination as to who to fire, then take ACTION, and "fire" other people.
First, I disagree with Obama's "Washington squabbles" abstraction, because rather than THE PLACE, Washington DC, thinking and arguing about budgeting, of course with Obama thinking he's far away from the BLAME, the human beings employed by the "American public" are debating over how to manage the resources we send them. That includes Obama as well. So, add another abstraction to his speech about everyone else messing around using abstractions when they should be thinking "smartly" like him. Really, they're just thinking differently.
Second, Obama then declares himself "absolutely supporting" something he just declared was a terrible abstraction that leads to "communities being impacted in a negative way," namely that "there absolutely is" waste out there. Add another abstraction to his speech. So, using his logic, abstractions lead to job losses because of believing in forced budget cuts, aka sequestration, but Obama believes that there absolutely are budget cuts that should be enacted. Therefore, we should believe in abstractions that he won't acknowledge as being abstractions (I don't believe we can avoid abstraction anyways). However, is his absolute support for finding budget cuts the way or not the way? Logically, what is his approach from this speech and why is his understanding of the sequester abstraction better than the alternatives? Is his form of rhetoric effective argumentation?
Third, this form of disagreement about who is thinking realistically or not has effects for the PUBLIC. Obama has separated his opponents as "thinking in the clouds," while he remains firmly on the ground thinking about what is "going on in the clouds." How can this abstractive approach lead to a realistic agreement on some pretty complex budgeting issues, if he's supposed to come to agree with those who'd hurt communities and affect people's livelihood? If open budget cutters (not Obama) are that abstractly "bad," would his realistic outreach work anyways, and should he really want to work with those "promoting disaster"? Should a reasonably thoughtful public buy such abstractions with such little logic or rationality to connect them just because he says so or because the level of cuts seem so ominous and large? While people's ACTIONS after March 1st will certainly affect "government workers" and the complex workings of the "American economy," I am skeptical of figures who try to remain blameless and use confusing rhetoric to gain public support for life-changing government action.
Fourth, Obama also discusses the "unemployment" abstraction. "Unemployment" is a statistic, an imperfect counting of people across the country "who claim" they have no job for a short period of time (See its definition below). How more abstract can you get than a complex number that merely explains what people offer up to the federal government and its agencies concerning whether or not they BELIEVE they are working or not? FEELING unemployed is terrible and the concept means to me a lot of awful things. For example, there are the tangible effects of the abstraction like having no money to pay for food to feed your family or other emotional intangibles like depression or despair that can result. But, the term unemployment is abstract because it includes both the tangible and intangible effects of believing you're out of a job.
Typing on keyboards is real action, believing you're a receptionist is abstract because it's in your head. There's nothing stamped in your DNA that says "receptionist." Likewise, combining all job abstractions together and calling it "employment rate" is even further abstract as is its supposed converse: "unemployment." As terrible as the unemployment abstraction is, it STILL is an abstraction because human beings believe it to mean a lack of work, while they still have the physical ability for action. And besides if "unemployment" is only "going to tick up," why are the pesky Republicans and their budget cutting abstractions such a threat to the country's workers?
"Iran Won't Invade Because of Only 90% funding of "American Power" AND 6% More American Preschoolers Won't Become Street Urchins on March 2"
Or, if it's REALLY that bad, the President and Congress better start agreeing!
My blog has consistently contradicted the view that some people possess "realism" while others deal in the abstract. These are human-made dichotomies reducing reality to ideas and then using those ideas to dehumanize those who disagree and supposedly ONLY think in the abstract. The form of reductionism used by Obama and the false causality from such reductionism diminishes options to solve problems in a better, less conflicting way.
Abstractions are not necessarily a problem of "party belief," rather they are tools that humans use to explain complex ideas. It happens that there are often harmful and violent effects of abstractive thinking. According to reporters and most members of both parties, some degree of "Armageddon" will occur if there are 7-10% cuts of federal budgets of discretionary spending from LAST year's levels. Untouchable, "Locked box items" like Social Security and public trusts are safe from losing public resources because of the "sequester." But, in the word games of abstractive politics, it is hard to reach agreement with the other side when you're labeled as "anti-US military" just because you pushed for 9.4 to 10% cuts of an approximately $613.9 billion total budget to counter cuts to your more favorite social programs. (See See OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act and the "National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013" 8). Republicans are using this label quite ineffectively against Democrats because the defense cuts remain as 11:50 on 2/27/13.
Forget that the "defense" abstraction is one of the largest expenditures of taxpayer money, but it must be we need every dollar and more for every sort of duplicate high-tech aircraft that can be provided with those 10% more funds? If we don't spend it, well, Iran, Korea, and Afghanistan will go up in flames because we spend a tenth less? And the really important expenditures, like soldier pay and benefits will be eliminated too with the 10% cut? I'll end the sarcasm because these beliefs are serious.
I want wounded veterans to receive the best healthcare we can afford for our country. So, if "Republican public employees" share my abstractive belief about providing the best for our soldiers using public money and are really concerned that personnel and the best weapons systems are effective and operable to counter "global threats," they had better do what's necessary to work with Obama and Democrats if he is really going to slash veterans benefits and destroy "America's defense" with his discretionary cutting abilities as "Chief Executive." Is he really THAT serious a threat to the country's security? Let's have the Republicans be less guided by abstractive warfare and more focused on preventing further heartache for those serving "our country." If not, we'll suffer "a tenth more internationally" regardless of how much Republicans have complained about it.
Likewise, many Democrats argue that Republicans want to throw 70,000 kids out of pre-school into the street gutters because the Department of Education's 30 plus offices and programs face a 7.6-8% cut. (See OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act). Forget that Obama is in charge of distributing the other 92% of funds of $69.8 billion in 30 education offices and programs, a large amount of money that itself is a 2.5% increase in money from 2012 because of inflation. Or, that 70,000 refers only to a small part of 43% of children who have CENTER-BASED childcare before age 4, meaning they can be in any non-home center and not Head Start or other federally funded programs. And of the rest of the country's under 5-year-olds not in centers, some 57% of preschool age kids who won't be potentially "victimized" at all by these cuts because they are taken care of by parents, relatives, nonrelatives. And using the administration's 70,000 figure, if Arne Duncan, Obama's Secretary of Education cuts funding for preschool intentionally to ensure the expulsion of that amount of under 5-year-olds, he is affecting approximately 6% of the total number of under 5-year-olds in the country (70,000/11,000,000) who may or may not have preschools with federal funding available to them (National Child Care Aware Association).
So, we can conclude it will be terrible for a small percentage of the eligible population who I assume desperately need the program for early childhood education and care for a host of reasons I can only deduce from Obama's abstractions. I want this program to remain at current funding levels to help poor working class parents. I also want as much of the education funding to remain as possible. But like with the "Republicans," if we're really going to prevent more uneducated 3-5 year olds from roaming our streets, like apparently the approximately 53% of 11,000,000 American preschoolers already do, Democrats better come to some negotiating position apart from their current, failed abstractions if they want to preserve the unprotected from becoming urchin buskers.
Logical Fallacies in the Sequestration Blame Rhetoric: Ad populums, Ad hominems, and Non-Sequiturs
"Cancer researchers are American government, and if Republicans don’t think their work should be supported by taxpayers, they are free to make their case publicly. But they won’t do that, because the various government functions facing cuts are both necessary and popular. Instead they talk in dire but abstract terms about the debt threat, pretending there is no need to ever raise taxes, and hoping that voters won’t remember what their dollars actually pay for."
"So it’s ridiculous for Republicans to claim the sequester is really Mr. Obama’s idea, as if a kidnapper’s relatives deserve blame for paying the ransom"
David Firestone mimics the President's same vein of logical fallacy and dehumanizing reduction to abstraction. He really does the people who style themselves as the "media" a great disservice by writing so fallaciously that Republicans, all "driven crazy by Obama," should "feel free to defend" his straw man he has set up for them to the American voter. Namely, he BELIEVES Republicans do not think cancer researchers are part of the government and that Republicans purposefully try to deceive the American public with their "love of cutting spending" from the shadows. In the same non-sequitur, he uses the ad populum fallacy to complement his strawman because Republicans must seek POPULAR approval over the merits of HIS characterization of their beliefs. Furthermore, Obama is the "patient relative of a public held hostage" by Republican "kidnappers" who really should be blamed in the first place, as if Obama had nothing to do with the sequestration debate in the first place. Most reasonable members acknowledge Obama's prime role in this debate, even if he's not fully to blame.
But let's assume that Firestone is correct that Obama was barely involved in the bad and consistently has done only good....oh and Bob Woodward is completely wrong. Firestone offers no proof that Republicans do not believe cancer researchers get government funding, nor does he offer what I'm assuming is a figure corresponding to the catastrophic amount of cancer research funding that is to be cut, or that calling yourself "Republican" means you support cutting such research, which by extending his argument, I assume means that when Republicans cut costs that must mean they'll increase the number of cancer victims. So, what is the evidence that the Republicans are a cowardly, ignorant shadow people who like cutting things they know nothing about? Firestone's scant evidence is hardly enough. Firestone offers Speaker Jim Boehner's comments that reflect blame back to Obama as evidence. But, they are just part of the abstract blame game and not evidence of Republicans as hostage-takers. And, how is this argument any less abstractive than "cutting spending" anyways?
I may not want the cuts involved with the sequester abstraction, but I also do not have evidence to support the arguments that Republicans are kidnappers who forced the sequester abstraction on America's victimized people. Nor do I believe that on March 2 more people will die of cancer or that more accident victims will die because of the sequestration budget action effect on first responders.
Can we move to a more logical debate "America" since we're all using abstractions anyways? The real shadows we can all crawl out of are the places where our eyes are facing the sun unobstructed by other physical objects.
(Not extending this as a metaphor to describe immoral, sneaky people, but as a literal definition of shadows)
Definitions Useful for This Post
Abstraction= a lack of concreteness or the physical (beliefs or ideas)
artifact: a physical object (for example writing on paper like Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012)abstract consequences: humans action based on abstraction.
Non-sequitors: "a conclusion that does not follow from its premises." (Dictionary.com)
Ad Populum: "fallacy of attempting to win popular assent to a conclusion by arousing the feeling and enthusiasms of the multitude" (http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/popular.html)
Ad Hominem: "fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument." (http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html)
"Sequestration": automatic spending cut ("Glossary of Political Terms")
Intent: “Intent” expresses mental action at its most advanced point, or as it actually accompanies an outward, [physically with ones' body] act which has been determined to be of ones' will. (http://thelawdictionary.org/intent/
"Unemployed": "Those who were not employed, were available for work, and had tried to find employment during the previous 4 weeks. It also includes those waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off" (Mankiw 614).
Sources:
Blake, Aaron. "Who is responsible for the sequester?" Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/02/05/who-is-responsible-for-the-sequester/
"Child Care Aware of America: State Facts 2012." Child Care Aware of America.
http://www.naccrra.org/sites/default/files/default_site_pages/2012/full2012cca_state_factsheetbook.pdf
"Department of Education: Funding Highlights FY2013"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/education.pdf
"Fast Facts: Childcare." National Center for Education Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=4
Firestone, David. "The Sequester is Not an Abstraction." The New York Times. http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/the-sequester-is-not-an-abstraction/
"Introduction to Logic." http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html
Johnson, Paul. "A Glossary of Political Terms: Sequestration." http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/sequestration.
Linden, Michael. "The Way Out of the Sequester Is Cutting Tax Expenditures" The Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/27/the-way-out-of-the-sequester-is-cutting-tax-expenditures.html#sthash.MCqyCg3E.dpufhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/27/the-way-out-of-the-sequester-is-cutting-tax-expenditures.html
Mankiw, N. Gregory. Principles of Economics 5th Edition. Harvard UNiversity: Mason, Ohio, 2009.
"National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2013." Office of the Secretary of Defense.http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2013/FY13_Green_Book.pdf
"OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/stareport.pdf
"President Obama Speaks on the Sequester." The White House.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/02/19/president-obama-speaks-sequester#transcript
"The Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012"
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr5872enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr5872enr.pdf
Weisman, Johnathan and Parker, Ashley. "Acceptance of Defense Cuts Signals Shift in G.O.P. Focus." The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/us/politics/democrats-and-republicans-miscalculate-on-automatic-cuts.html?_r=2&
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/us/politics/democrats-and-republicans-miscalculate-on-automatic-cuts.html?_r=2&
Woodward, Bob. "Obama Repeatedly Lied About Responsibility for Budget Sequester Cuts." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html
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