Month: August 2025

 

Before, during and after the 2020 election many Republicans followed Trump’s lead and lied about widespread voter/election fraud. Trump and his allies had their days in court, losing all but one case. Trump’s allies never claimed fraud in court and confined their lies to the public forum. Using their false claims of widespread fraud and pointing to the doubt their lies created, they claimed they needed to take actions aimed at trying to restrict voting.

As election fraud is not widespread, they had no significant problem to address. Instead, the restrictions they imposed, such as those in Georgia, are clearly aimed at suppressing black voters. They are not aimed at voter fraud, as a brief reflection on most restrictions will reveal. As an illustration, one law limits early voting to the hours of 9 to 5 (county registrars can extend this to 7 to 7). How this would reduce fraud is unclear, but it makes it harder for voters with less flexible schedules. As another example, Republicans done things to increase the lines at polling places predominantly used by minorities while making it a misdemeanor to provide voters with water. There is no plausible account of how this would counter fraud.

If the Republican arguments are taken at face value, the following principles would seem to be in operation. The first is that politicians must address the concerns of the public (even when politicians manufacture the concerns). The second is that restriction of fundamental rights is warranted to address even miniscule problems that cause little harm. So, let us apply these principles to gun control. I do not, of course, expect a consistency argument to affect Republicans as they have little respect for truth, ethics or logic.

Most Americans claim that gun violence is a problem and most Americans support gun control. Given the Republican argument about voting laws, it follows that politicians must act to restrict gun rights. After all, if public concerns about (lies about) election fraud warrant restricting voting rights, then public concerns about guns warrants restricting gun rights. But the actions of Republicans show their professed principle is also a lie: they do not apply it consistently and only use it to “justify” actions they want to take for other reasons. Now to the addressing of harms.

While data on gun violence is limited, there were 19,379 deaths caused by gun violence in the United States in 2020. This excludes deaths caused by suicide using a gun; that number was 24.090 in 202o. In contrast, a careful review of claims about voter/election fraud in 2020 revealed that the number of cases is vanishingly small. If the Republican argument warrants restrictions on voting, then it would (by analogical reasoning) provide exceptionally strong support for gun control laws. After all, if voting must be carefully restricted by law to address a vanishingly small number of cases (that were caught and dealt with using current laws) then the much more significant harms arising from gun ownership must be addressed with new laws of equal or greater restrictiveness.

One could counter that passing gun control laws would violate the Second Amendment; but the obvious response is that the right to vote is more fundamental than any constitutional right. After all, the moral legitimacy of the law depends on the consent of the governed and restricting the right to vote reduces the legitimacy of the state in proportion to those restrictions.

One could, of course, embrace the state of nature argument of Thomas Hobbes and contend that the right of self-defense is the most fundamental right. While this has some appeal, this would not show that the restrictions on voting rights are warranted. Reasoning that it is acceptable to restrict one basic right but not another because the other is more basic is poor logic. To illustrate, this would be like arguing that enslaving people or stealing their property is acceptable because the right to life is more basic than these other rights (since liberty and property rights require one to be alive). Once again, Republican action shows that their concern is not with mitigating harms. If they cared about mitigating harm to citizens, they would be applying this principle consistently. As such, their actions reveal their true principles: they want to suppress voting so they can gain and hold onto power illegitimately and they want to serve the interest of the gun lobby over the safety of the American people.

In response to each mass shooting, Democrats usually propose gun control legislation while Republicans offer “thoughts and prayers” while blocking the Democrats as best they can.  Some years ago, Republican Senator John Kennedy said that “We do not need more gun control. We need more idiot control.” He then endeavored to make an argument by analogy to counter arguments for gun control. In this argument, Kennedy asserted that “…And I’m not trying to equate these two, but we have a lot of drunk drivers in America that kill a lot of people. We ought to try to combat that too. But I think what many folks on my side of the aisle are saying is that the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers.”

Given what he said, he seemed to be comparing mass shooters with drunk drivers. While that seems clear, sorting out the rest of the argument requires a bit more work. Looking at it in the most charitable way, his inference seems to be that because getting rid of sober drivers would not solve the problem of drunk drivers, it follows (by analogy) that getting rid of non-mass shooter gun owners would not solve the problem of mass shootings. On this interpretation, he is right but right in a vacuous way: getting rid of people who do not do something would not solve the problem of people who do that thing.

But since his reply is to proposals for gun regulation, what he seemed to be inferring is that since getting rid of sober drivers would not stop drunk driving, gun control should be rejected. This reasoning requires that  proposed gun control methods be on par with eliminating sober drivers. I think he might have meant taking away everyone’s cars (including those of sober drivers) as a means of addressing drunk driving. As such, the analogy would only hold in the case of proposals to take away all guns. While there have been such proposals, they are generally not made by mainstream Democrats. So, while the analogy does apply to proposals to eliminate all guns, it does not apply to proposals to increase gun control, such as universal background checks or even assault weapon bans. An assault weapon ban would be analogous to addressing drunk driving by getting rid of vehicles favored by drunk drivers and are also unusually good at causing death and injury. As an aside, one problem with how some Republicans debate gun control is that they make straw person arguments: asserting that the plan is to take away all guns. This is a bad faith argument as there are many other approaches to gun control. The usual response to pointing this out is the Slippery Slope fallacy: asserting that even moderate proposals must lead to taking away all guns. This is also a bad faith argument.

As others noted, Kennedy made a strategic error with this analogy. While it was intended to refute gun control proposals, his comparison invited people to compare guns and cars. Just as some people support eliminating all privately owned guns, there those who propose eliminating privately owned cars for similar reasons: private ownership and the operation of dangerous machines results in many preventable deaths. As such, one could accept the analogy and turn it around: we should handle both problems by eliminating private ownership and the operation of deadly machines. But most people do not want to eliminate private ownership of cars or guns. However, Kennedy’s car analogy can still be used in favor of gun control.

As others have noted, cars are strictly regulated. To legally drive, one must be licensed and insured. Cars must be registered with the state and licensed. Their use is also regulated, and safety features are mandatory. When people are incapable of operating a vehicle safely or get convicted of certain crimes (like driving drunk), then they lose the right to drive. This is because cars are dangerous machines and can do a great deal of harm, even by accident.

Going with Kennedy’s automotive analogy, the same should apply to guns. A person should be licensed and insured to own one, their operation should be carefully regulated, and safety features should be mandated by law. When a person cannot possess a firearm safely or they commit certain crimes, they should lose their right to possess a gun.

The obvious reply is that on some interpretations of the Second Amendment, individual gun ownership is a constitutional right and hence such restrictions would be unconstitutional. One obvious counter is that existing restrictions on guns are constitutional (that is, they have not been struck down) and there are well-established precedents for limiting this right. And, of course, all rights are restricted and limited. For example, the First Amendment has many limitations many of which have been imposed by pro-gun Republicans who giveth to the Second with one hand and taketh from the First with the other. Another obvious reply is to point out that the Republicans who oppose gun control are the same ones who pass laws to restrict voting rights. The right to vote is the foundation of democracy and if they are willing to restrict this right on the grounds of their (usually false) claims about the harms of almost non-existent voter fraud, they have no principled way to object to strict gun control laws as the harms of not having adequate gun control are evident. Perhaps a bi—partisan solution is to have people vote by shooting ballots with guns: every citizen of voting ages gets a gun and the right to vote.

In epistemology the problem of the external world is the challenge of proving that I know that entities exist other than me. Even if it is assumed that there is an external world, there remains the problem of other minds: the challenge of proving that I can know that there is at least one other being that has a mind. A common version of this problem tends to assume other beings exist, and the challenge is to prove that I can know that these other beings have (or lack) minds. Our good dead friend Descartes offered the best-known effort to solve the problem of the external world and in trying to solve this problem he also, perhaps unintentionally, attempted to solve the problem of other minds.

In his Meditations Descartes set out to create an infallible foundation of knowledge starting with his method of doubting his beliefs until he found a belief he could not doubt.  As part of this project, he hoped to solve the problem of the external world. After his doubting spree in the first Meditation, he took his belief that he thinks and the belief that he exists to both be certain and indubitable.  In trying to prove that something exists other than him, Descartes attempts to prove that God exists. And so, he attempted to solve the problem of the external world by solving a version of the problem of other minds. Proving that God exists would prove that another mind exists and that something exists other than him, thus solving a limited version of each problem.

While Descartes grinds through a plethora of proofs, his key reasoning for the purposes of this essay is his notion that the cause of a belief must contain as much reality as the belief itself. Roughly put, you can think of this reasoning as analogous to inferring that whatever charged a mobile phone battery must have at least as much power as in in the battery (assuming the battery charged from zero). Descartes based this reasoning on the principle that something cannot arise from nothing.

Roughly put, Descartes claimed that his idea of God is such that he could not be the cause of this idea—it had to be caused by something external to him. For example, Descartes notes that God is perfect and argues that he could not get the idea of a perfect being from his imperfect self. As another example, Descartes claims that God is infinite and that he (Descartes) could not create the idea of infinity from himself. From this he infers that God exists. He then goes on to argue that since God is perfect it follows that God is not a deceiver. Descartes then concludes that since God created us, we can generally trust our senses and thus we can infer that there is an external world. While this does not address the common version of the problem of other minds, it does offer a solution to the narrowest version: it does attempt to show that Descartes is not the only mind. In philosophical terms, success would refute solipsism. That is the philosophical view that I am the only being in existence. Or, alternatively, it could be taken as the view that I am the only mind (thinking being) that exists. While I think that Descartes’ efforts failed, his attempted solution to the problem of other minds provides a model that I will steal. My goal is modest: I am not trying to prove that other people have minds, I am just endeavoring to show that there is at least one other mind. I will do this with an aesthetic argument that was inspired by the combination of watching Wandavision and teaching Epistemology via Zoom during the last pandemic.

While teaching my Epistemology class at squares on Zoom I mentioned Wandavision as an example and had the realization that the quality of the show could be used to argue for the existence of other minds. While Descartes argued that the cause of an idea must equal or exceed the reality of the idea, I will replace this with the principle that the cause of an idea must equal or exceed the quality of the idea in terms of creativity. As such, to show that something exists other than me, I just need to find an idea (or ideas) whose content exceeds my own creativity. That is, I need to find ideas that I could not create. This is extremely easy.

Wandavision, the show that inspired this argument, exceeds my creative abilities as I lack the skill and talent to write such a series. I can obviously say the same about many other movies, books, and stories since they are beyond my skill to create. As a writer, I am aware of the limits of my abilities and can safely draw these conclusions. I can also add other art, such as music and drawing. I know my skills at music (none) and drawing (very limited) and know that I lack the ability to create most works I have heard or seen. Since I could not create such works, there must be at least one other mind that is creating them. There might be only one other mind and it could be electing to create works of varying degrees. Or there might be many other minds creating these works. This does not, of course, show that there is an external world of the sort I think exists. It could be (as Descartes considered) just me and one other being who is causing all these ideas in my mind. While I would condemn the deception, I must thank them for the high-quality work they create for me. As such, I can infer that at least one other mind exists and that I am not alone. But there are, as always, counter arguments.

One obvious counter argument is that I have an unknown talent or skill that allows me to create without being aware I am doing so. That is, I cannot consciously create things of such quality but can somehow do so without being aware I am doing it. One could point to dreams as an obvious example of how this might work: the best explanation for dreams is that their content comes from me although I (usually) lack conscious control. My reply is to point out that my dreams do not match the quality of the works I encounter in the waking world in terms of the stories. Any art I see or music I hear in my dreams are always mere copies from when I am awake (or think I am awake) or of low quality. As such, I would seem to lack such a hidden and unknown faculty of creativity. I do agree it is not a logical impossibility that I have such a faculty, but there is no evidence for its existing beyond explaining my aesthetic experiences without any other mind existing, which would be ad hoc.

A second obvious counter is to allow that something exists other than me, but this is not another mind. That is, the aesthetic experiences are created in a “mechanical” way without the sort of thinking that would be done by a mind. To use an analogy, this would be like having an AI creating content without having a mind. There are two responses to this. The first is that this would still entail that I was not the only being in existence as there would also be this creator entity. The second is that such a high degree of creativity would seem to require a mind. It would pass tests analogous to the Turing test and thus it would be reasonable to infer there is at least one other mind behind these creative works.

In closing, there are two main possibilities. The first is that I alone exist, and I have an unknown faculty of creativity that vastly exceeds my known skills and talents (and I can never consciously use these hidden abilities). The second is that at least one other being exists and is creating these works that are beyond my skill.

Some years ago, the right made Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head battles in their manufactured culture war. When Pepe Le Pew was removed from the Space Jam 2 movie, there were cries that the boundary ignoring skunk had been cancelled. As I have noted in previous essays, these are all just examples of companies changing their products. While some attributed this to companies going woke, the more reasonable explanation is that they thought it would be profitable to make these changes and were trying to be smart capitalists. Sometimes their marketing efforts fail, as happened with Bud Light.

If these companies had been coerced into making such changes, then this could have been morally wrong. If the state had tried to impose these changes, then it would be reasonable to raise the 1st Amendment as the state would be forcing companies to change their products and brands against their will. But if the state was not involved, then this Amendment does not apply as private individuals cannot violate this amendment when acting in their private capacity.

If non-state actors coerced these companies, then this could be immoral since using such power to violate rights is usually wrong. For example, an employer using their coercive advantage over their employees to interfere with their freedom of expression, is usually legal but is morally wrong. However, this does not seem to have been the case; no outsider appears to have forced these changes.

It could be argued that the companies were coerced by popular opinion, that the “woke mob” pressured them into making these changes.  But this does not seem morally problematic since consumers have the right to express their values to companies and companies routinely shift their products and brands to meet consumer demand. If companies making changes based on changing values is coercion, then companies would also be coerced as they responded to tastes and styles changing. But we do not think that the decision to stop making Tab was the result of coercion nor do we think that changes in fashion are the result of coercion: styles and tastes change over time and companies change along with them.

One matter that does not seem to be discussed is the remedy the right would want for the alleged harm of cancellation. That is, what should the state do in response to these changes? If there was adequate evidence of illegal coercion, then the state should step in. But there was no evidence of that, these companies seemed fine with the changes they decided to make. It is the right that was outraged, not Hasbro or the estate of Dr. Seuss. Should folks on the right be able to use the coercive power of the state to force these companies to change things back to how they were? In these cases, should laws have been passed requiring that the books be kept in print, that the “Mr. Potato Head” brand be kept and that Le Pew be returned to the movie, and so on for all that was alleged to be cancelled? This would, ironically, seem to be compelled speech and a violation of the first Amendment. If the folks on the right think the companies should have decided; well, they did. They just did not decide the way some of the right wanted at the time. The behavior of the Trump administration and Republican controlled states has shown how much they care about free expression. Based on their behavior, their concern is with ensuring the content they dislike is cancelled and the content they like is either unrestricted or imposed by the coercive power of the state.

The right-wing news, certain pundits and certain politicians made Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head a battlefield in their manufactured culture war. The core claim was that Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head were cancelled by the left. The narrative expanded to include President Biden, asserting that he was somehow involved in this matter. While Ben Shapiro’s famous catch phrase is “facts don’t care about your feelings”, it seems that some on the right do not care about facts.

The Dr. Seuss matter involves two sets of key facts that seem to have been intentionally misrepresented by some on the right. The first set involves the Read Across America Day context. It is true that Learning for Justice, which is a left-wing group, did call for schools to avoid “connecting Read Across America Day with Dr. Seuss.”  Loudoun County Public Schools did decide to “to not connect Read Across America Day exclusively with Dr. Seuss’ birthday.” In the face of backlash, the district released a statement making it clear that they were not banning Dr. Seuss books. Dr. Seuss was simply not the emphasis of Read Across America day in the district. As such, Learning for Justice did not call for Dr. Seuss to be cancelled nor was Dr. Seuss cancelled by this school district.

The second set of facts involves the decision of Dr. Seuss’ estate to stop publishing six books because they  contain illustrations that “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” While the illustrations in question have long been criticized, there does not seem to have been any  focused effort to force the estate to  stop publishing these works. On the face of it, this seems to be a business decision made either from a change in values or a recognition that racist content could hurt their reputation and brand (and hence profits). As such, this choice seems to have been an uncoerced business decision of the sort routinely made when assessing product lines. In a sense, this is analogous to the decision to no longer sell Tab: tastes change over time and old products get discontinued. It would, of course, be hilarious if this was a clever business ploy to get the right to buy up the existing supply of these six books (they were not top sellers). As such, the facts that do not care about feelings are that Dr. Seuss is not cancelled: a business simply decided to discontinue six titles that are not top sellers to improve their brand. The Potato Head matter also involves facts that run counter to the cancel narrative.

Hasbro decided to change the Mr. Potato Head brand to Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head are still available and sold under those names. The company did make the statement that “Hasbro is making sure all feel welcome in the Potato Head world by officially dropping the Mr. from the Mr. Potato Head brand name and logo to promote gender equality and inclusion.” As of this writing, there is no evidence that Hasbro was subject to coercion or forced to make this decision. Once again, the explanation seems to be that either the decision makers have made a change to reflect changing values, or they engaged in rebranding for their product in a way they thought would prove most profitable.

Changing branding to reflect changing values is how branding works. As an illustration, consider the explicitly racist advertising (and products) of the past. As American norms about explicit racism changed, advertising and branding changed along with them. This need not be for any moral reason. Failure to keep up with norms and values is on par with failing to keep up with trends and tastes: failure to do so means a loss of business. The same is happening today and companies are simply rebranding by shifting with the changing norms of their consumers. It could be claimed that businesses are coerced into this by changing values, but they do have a choice: they could stick with past values and risk losing revenue or keep up with the times. As such, this rebranding is not cancellation, it is just business as usual.

If companies were being coerced by the power of the state to remove products or change their branding, then there could be real concerns about oppression and misuse of power. My adopted state of Florida has been busy banning books from libraries as part of the culture war with the support of the same people who raged against the “cancellation” of Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. This shows, once again, that they are not driven by a commitment to free expression but by the desire to control expression in accord with their values and agenda.

There can also be moral concerns when private citizens and organizations use their coercive power to wrongly infringe on the freedom of others (such as when employers coerce their employees), but this did not happen in these cases. As such, the efforts on the right to make these matters into proof of cancel culture are at best straw man attacks and could be justly described as a campaign of lies. Those who fall for this deceit can, perhaps, be excused: the claims of the media are reinforced by the claims of the politicians and pundits, and they have been trained to distrust credible sources of information.

As far as why the right lied about all this, the sensible answer is that they do not have any real examples of oppression and injustice to use: they must manufacture examples with hyperbole, by constructing straw persons, and by lying. This is analogous to their claim of widespread voter fraud: while there would be a problem if it were significant, they are at a loss to provide evidence for this and must resort to mere anecdotes, straw persons, hyperbole, and lies. If they had adequate evidence of real harm, they could present it rather than making things up. But it seems to be working for them. As I have discussed in other essays, I am not sure what percentage of their supporters are deceived and what percentage are in on the lies. In practical terms, the distinction often does not matter: the results are the same. But the distinction can matter  for those who are deceived can, in theory, change their views in response to the truth.

The right, one suspects, is angry about changing values and especially upset when business recognizes these changes and respond to them. This is not surprising: to be conservative is, one imagines, to want to conserve what (one thinks) was and to resist changes to this. But this defense is conducted in bad faith: rather than honestly admitting they want to keep the racist images in Dr. Seuss and honestly admitting they are angry that Hasbro has moved away from sexism, they create the fiction of cancel culture. This is a moral mask: they present themselves as defenders of free expression since openly advocating for racism and sexism would be bad for their public brand. That said, there are some on the right who are honest about this: they are openly racist and sexist, which makes them oddly better than those who share their views but lack the courage to do so openly.