Archive for the ‘logic’ tag
Why Journalists Should Never Teach Logic
This piece ran in The Independent from London:
They came in their thousands, queuing through the night to secure one of the coveted wristbands offering entry into a strange parallel universe where medical care is a free and basic right and not an expensive luxury. Some of these Americans had walked miles simply to have their blood pressure checked, some had slept in their cars in the hope of getting an eye-test or a mammogram, others had brought their children for immunisations that could end up saving their life.
In the week that Britain’s National Health Service was held aloft by Republicans as an “evil and Orwellian” example of everything that is wrong with free healthcare, these extraordinary scenes in Inglewood, California yesterday provided a sobering reminder of exactly why President Barack Obama is trying to reform the US system.
The LA Forum, the arena that once hosted sell-out Madonna concerts, has been transformed – for eight days only – into a vast field hospital. In America, the offer of free healthcare is so rare, that news of the magical medical kingdom spread rapidly and long lines of prospective patients snaked around the venue for the chance of getting everyday treatments that many British people take for granted.
So, the mere fact that people will line up for something that is free is somehow proof that it ought to be publicly paid for?
Let’s think about this for a second.
If I set up shop in the LA Forum for a week offering free automobiles, how many people would come from hours away? Would the teeming throngs constitute “proof” that we should socialize transportation?
If I set up in the LA Forum for a week offering free steaks and beer, how many people would show up? Would the numbers arriving be prima facie evidence that the government ought to pay for everyone’s lunch?
If there were a gun show in the LA Forum sometime in the near future, and vendors started offering free ammunition, I wonder what Guy Adams would write…
