A Glimpse Inside Conservative Logic?
A Glimpse Inside Conservative Logic?
Fallacies are everyday occurrences in American political rhetoric, but conservative advocate Tucker Carlson's latest twist seems more like a bender.
Today the Department of Defense announced changes to its rules that will allow women to serve the military in combat roles. This move is seen by supporters less as a dramatic policy change and more as an overdue recognition of the reality facing women in military service; many already participate in combat roles, though the 1994 ban on women's combat service affects benefits and promotions for female service personnel.
While
Jeremy Herb of
The Hill notes that "most members of Congress from both parties said they supported the Pentagon’s policy change", some conservatives are not pleased. Former U.S. Rep. Allen West denounced the new policy, though as
Steve Benen notes, a lieutenant colonel who left the military under an Article 15 cloud for misconduct might not be the most trustworthy in assessing military policy.
Setting aside the infamously delusional Rep. West, though, we come to Tucker Carlson, who leads the pack for his amazing fallacy:
Really, you can't make this kind of stuff up.
But the false equivalence of Carlson's desperation is revealing. Or maybe it's just bewildering. In truth, I'm not even sure how to build the syllogism. Perhaps one of our conservative neighbors can help me out:
How are military service in combat and domestic violence equivalent?
After all, there are plenty of masculinists who will point out that men, too, can be victimized by domestic violence. Lionel Richie getting thrashed by Brenda Harvey is one famous example; Whitney Houston claiming to be the violent one in her relationship with Bobby Brown. One of Humphrey Bogart's wives literally stabbed him in the back. Al Green came to God after his married lover poured boiling grits on him and then shot herself. Of course, there are the infamous tales suggesting Hillary Clinton used to smack Bill around, and I've even read an assertion that Mary Todd used to beat Abraham Lincoln, to the point that he allegedly pardoned a Union deserter who left the field to marry a girl because he thought the marriage was punishment enough.
But in all that, I don't recall ever hearing any masculinists asserting an equivalence between male soldiers serving in combat and Lorena Bobbit dismembering her husband.
Unmembering?
Unmanning?
Emasculating, to be certain. Quite literally.
So what's up with comparing women in combat to domestic violence? Is Carlson an outlier, or is this brand of thinking shared by a significant portion of our conservative neighbors?
I would generally suggest that anyone, regardless of sex, who signs up for the military ought to expect the possibility of people trying to kill them.
To the other, I don't think I can say the same of someone who falls in love.
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Notes:
Herb, Jeremy. "Panetta officially ends US ban on women serving in combat". DEFCON Hill. January 24, 2013. TheHill.com. January 24, 2013. http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hil...anetta-officially-ends-ban-on-women-in-combat
Benen, Steve. "How not to respond to a breakthrough for equality". The Maddow Blog. January 24, 2013. MaddowBlog.MSNBC.com. January 24, 2013. http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2...not-to-respond-to-a-breakthrough-for-equality
Carlson, Tucker. "The administration boasts about sending women to the front lines". Twitter. January 23, 2013. Twitter.com. January 24, 2013. https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/294297551576911873