I walk with a cane a lot lately.  An ankle injury from years ago has flared up into a real pain in my …err…foot.   The pain in my ankle is intermittent however, so I am not always in pain.   Sometimes I can be observed to walk without a limp and other times I am observed to be walking with a limp and the aid of my trusty cane.

To evaluate my observed actions, you could reasonably make two conclusions:

• If I am limping I use a cane.
• If I using a cane I am limping.

Why is this significant?  Because the extended conclusion of the first item is to assume that the limp necessitates the use of a cane whereas the second conclusion assumes that the use of a cane necessitates a limp, which can in turn be used to assume that the cane causes me to limp.

Now in context, an understanding of simple anatomy answers the contradiction, but from the dry standpoint of observed behavior, both theories seem valid and demonstrable.  Only a contextual and qualified understanding make the difference clear.

Tina Nole, talk show host Dave Ross’s producer at Radio Station KIRO (710am, Seattle), seems to have a similar problem in her use of analogy and conclusion.

Her Blog, Dogs, Blogs, Politics and the Personal, has a column entitled If A + B = C…Then… wherein she seems to equate terrorists to rapists.

It starts with her posting a letter from a semi-virulent "fan" of one of her shows, named Gerard.  Gerard it seems takes offense at Dave Ross’s apparent light treatment of an Islamic apologist (Named only Jeff).

He states:

If this is the religion of Peace and Love sure hope I’m not around when they get pissed. By the way I believe the only other place in the world where innocents are actually targeted is in SRI LANKA by the Tamil Tigers. Every other instance is by Muslims. And the other Muslims say nothing! Maybe we have not recognized the true enemy. Maybe it is not fanactic Muslims, maybe it is Islam itself.

He raises a good point which has been asked by many others.  I will get back to that later.

Tina’s response:

When I hear this argument I can’t help but wonder where these same people are in terms of other types of “terrorism”. For instance…Women live under the umbrella of terrorism all their lives. We can’t go jogging at night with out the fear of rape, we are warned from the time we can breath not to talk to strange men, we check our backs when we walk to our cars at night and we are afraid. Why? Because men rape…men rape women – it’s about power and dominance and rage…and has to be the most horrible thing that can happen to a person on many levels. Worse than getting robbed or beaten.

So where is the outrage? Where are the men marching in the streets, banding together to hunt down and kill the terrorists who rape? Where are the organizations of men speaking out to protect women? Where are the male politicians asking that men stand up and protect women in the streets? Where is the outrage?

Should we assume that ALL men are bad, ALL men are rapists?? 

OK, to discuss this logically, let’s see if there is sufficient commonality with the analogies.  Are rapists akin to terrorists?

No, they really are not.  First of all, a rapists is an individual who commits an act of aggression to another individual. Regardless of whether he is a serial rapist or not, he generally targets a single individual.  He does not target several people in a simultaneous attack.

He also does not generally do so from a position of religious zeal, though there can be exceptions.  But generally speaking, his acts are not done so to ensure his salvation in heaven, and to protect his religion.

He does not work in a cell of other rapists, sharing tools and means to rape, coordinating rapes and sharing potential victims.

So to equate her "terrorists" to those in the middle east, there is a huge gap of commonality because one is an individual who commits individual acts, whereas the other is part of a group that most often acts in concert, leading one to commonly condemn them as a group. 

But leaving that aside for a moment, can we equate her other arguments?

Regarding her complaints about outrage, there is plenty of outrage by men about other men who commit rapes.   Sure, men may not band together to catch the rapists, as much as many would like to.  They can’t, that is called vigilantism and it is illegal.  They can however do other things in the confines of the law.   Men routinely will not only speak openly against those who rape, but will actively attempt to prevent them, and seek the prosecution of those who commit rapes.  In law enforcement, in friends escorting women to their cars, in criminal prosecutions, in medical treatment and in a plethora of other areas, men openly work against the rapists, and despise the rapists.

It also does not help her case that men can be raped, as well as the fact that women can commit rapes.  But let’s ignore that for now.

Also not helping her arguments, other forms of crime happen in the same environments, so rape is not the only crime in her presented scenarios. Assault, robbery and even murder are all risky consequences of jogging at night or talking to strangers, and these crimes are not even gender specific as to the attacker or the victim.  But that also we can ignore.

So, her analogy does not work.  But her point is really not about the analogy itself, it is about her perception of over-generalization, which we see as she continues:

Or is it possible that there is a fraction of men who rape and the majority don’t? Is it possible that crazy, angry, extreme men rape? And maybe not all of them?

Obviously.  So the whole point of her question was to steer us into discussing why it is bad to overgeneralize against all Muslims.  

The argument often is; “all Muslims aren’t terrorists, but Muslims create all terrorist acts”. SO the same logic would work here; “not all men rape but all rapes are done by men”. To act on that logic would be insane…

Not necessarily.  First of all you need to examine the scope of the group you are discussing, and the context of their actions.  Drop the rape analogy for a moment.  Examine the events with the facts and the proven elements to determine if there is a trend that can be used to determine guilt or innocence or at least to narrow to a pool of suspects.

In the case of terrorists, there is a commonality to the terrorists attacks that cannot be ignored.  They are committed almost exclusively by people who share the following traits in common:

• Common ethnicity
• Common gender
• Common age range
• Common religious affiliation

Additionally certain aspects are intertwined.  The religion on question controls the gender of the attackers, and even encourages it in this example, the Ethnicity is closely tied to the religion etc.

Does that demonstrate that all who share that affiliation are terrorists? Of course not.  But it does identify a pool of people to whom a certain attention has to be paid.  It can be statistically significant when the trends tend to be so consistent. Care should - MUST - be used in determining a course of action based on the data.  But that does not mean you should ignore the data.

As I have said before, when Blond Haired Mormon Norwegian Girls start committing a series of terror attacks, don’t be surprised when Blond Norwegian Mormon Girls are treated with suspicion and investigated.

Put it this way:  If you could show a specific commonality, with a high percentage of identifiable proven examples of rapists, would you honestly object to using that to profile suspected rapists?  Would it make everyone with that commonality guilty?  No.  But it would be negligent to completely ignore the commonality.

And those who want to see more outrage from Muslims are not necessarily assuming their collective guilt anyway.  They just feel there is an insignificant amount of outcry in certain circles, and want that addressed.

Which brings us to Gerard.  His question is valid. Where is the widespread condemnation of terrorism by Muslim Fanatics from within the Muslim community abroad?  There is some, sure.   But is there really the level of outrage one should expect to be leveled towards people who are perverting the appearance of a religion?   Does the Muslim community stand up and condemn the violence?

The answer is: not often enough.

And on Dave’s show does he address this?  Gerard thinks not.  I cannot say yea or nay, as I am not a regular listener. 

But rather then address his question directly, she leads us on this logical goose chase.

She concludes:

I think it’s important to look at the larger picture here…why when these acts are done by a few extremists are we willing to condemn an entire race or religion? Why is it so easy for us to leap to that – when we are unwilling to do it to someone who looks like us?

Always ask why?!

When these extremists have sanction and or support of Governments we have a right to demand the government be held accountable. When these people act in the name of a religion, and that religion’s leaders offer no condemnation, we have a right to ask whether that religion stands for or against those actions. 

One thought that came to mind as I read this.  If the liberals had their way, and we treated terrorism as they seem to want, how well would her analogy hold up?  

By equating rape to terrorism, would she agree that we should withdraw police action on campuses?  After all if the military in Iraq is causing the attacks, maybe the police are causing the rapes.  Maybe we should not prosecute the rapists, we should understand his needs and negotiate with him to stop.  We should treat him with humanity and tolerance.

I have seen plenty of liberals who blame the US for 9/11, blame the US for all the previous and subsequent attacks, blame our policies for their general enmity, and blame the military action in Iraq for the insurgency in Iraq. 

In other words, it is ironic that she uses rape as her analogy because liberals have been treating the US and the military like a rape victim who is to blame for her own rape.

The liberals believe the terrorists will stop if we leave Iraq.  They protest the "extreme" measures used to find and apprehend terrorists.  We are to blame and we should cut and run.   We should negotiate and reason with the terrorist.  We should emote him and understand why he is angry to ease his conflict and bring peace.

I look at it this way: You treat it three ways- Eliminate root causes, prevent attacks and prosecute those who do attack.

I think that she would agree that to end rape, we need to educate people on respect and equality, to better prevent young men from wanting to rape in the first place.  We should be able to count on the men of this country to instill proper values in their sons.  Starting at a young age, the youth should have good role models, and men should stand up and condemn all acts of rape and violence against women as immoral and wrong. 

We should also seek to prevent rape by educating women on personal safety, providing safety escorts and police patrols and providing environmental deterrents like lighting and emergency alarms.  

We also need to deal with those who will commit these acts despite our best efforts, because we acknowledge that we cannot stop it 100%.  So there will be rapes, and when their are, Tina must surely agree that we should have police to investigate and catch the criminals, prosecutors and judges to try and convict them and aggressive laws to punish the guilty.

Terrorism must be dealt with similarly.  We must deal with it where it is formed, in their faith and Ideology, which means the Mosques and the communities.  Stop it at it’s ideological roots.  We should be able to count on those peaceful clerics who say they deplore the use of violence to actively preach against it.  Some do. Too many don’t.  And unless they start changing the culture of death that permeates a portion of their faith, their faith will continue to spawn those who seek to takes lives as a matter of doctrine.

We should also stop attacks before they start using various deterrents and investigations.  We should educate the public on safety and use deterrents such as airport searches to foil attacks.

And likewise, as we have seen that attacks still happen, those responsible for said attacks should be captured and punished which means we need some manner of Enforcement and Justice.   

Dealing with the two honestly, they do make a good analogy, don’t they? 

Tina, it must be acknowledged, raises a good point, that in any situation it is necessary to ask questions and to seek context.  Jumping to conclusions is dangerous.

But that does not automatically imply that all conclusions are improper and faulty. 

Gerard asks a very valid question (though I concede that his question was heading toward a conclusion I won’t support) and if Dave Ross is rolling over on asking it, or even addressing it, then perhaps that is a problem too.  As I said before, I cannot say as I do not routinely listen to him.  Regardless, he has an opportunity to influence the debate, and since he ran for Congress a few years ago, it seems to me he would have some sense of civic responsibility left over from his campaign speeches.

He should use it and not shy away from the confrontation.  He has a reputation that he seems to enjoy of providing truth to the masses, so he should go for it.  It can not fail to help if he uses his show to actually ask tough questions.

It won’t help for Tina to deflect the criticism of his show with Distraction,  Straw-man Arguments, Over Generalizing, False Dilemmas, False Analogies, Red Herrings and other tactics to avoid addressing the real issues.

Note, for example, the implication of racism in her response:

Nice.  She closes her blog by completely leaving rational arguments behind along with the demonstrated evidence, and hides behind a suggestion of racism.  Race baiting instead of reason.

At best it is a cheap shot, and certainly not adding any value to the debate.

Should we over generalize?  Obviously not.  Can we however draw logical conclusions?  Yes.  Can we use those conclusions to demand answers and take action?  Yes as long as we take care.  Is that inherently racist?  Not in the slightest as long as race was not the determining factor. 

In other words, we did not decide to blame acts of terror on Middle Eastern Muslim Men simply because we hate  Middle Eastern Muslim Men.  We did happen to notice that an overwhelming percentage of terrorist acts were executed by  Middle Eastern Men, who claimed they were using their Muslim faith as a justification for their actions.

Remember my cane Tina?   Do I limp because I used the cane, or use the cane only when I am limping?

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