Posted on 02/11/2012 6:49:52 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
Suffer me to begin with a suggestion: if you ever have the chance to hear the Rev. William Dailey of Notre Dame law school speak, jump on it. Dailey is a stunningly brilliant advocate, among the best I have ever encountered on any issue.
Dailey appeared on today's Up With Chris Hayes on MSNBC, where he masterfully made the case against the Obama administration's order forcing Catholic institutions to provide services that violate their moral principles. Predictably, the panel resorted to an ad hominem argument against him. Panelist Michaela Angela David implicitly, and Hayes himself explicitly, argued that celibate Catholic priests lack the moral authority to make arguments on the issues at hand. Dailey adeptly turned the tables. Video
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
If you can’t beat them on the merits, play the old “celibate men have no right to speak on moral issues” card. Ping to Today show list.
PS: would appreciate people pinging this to Catholic and other appropriate ping lists.
They’re in a hole and they keep digging.
In the clip I watched at the link, he got under the table. :(
I did not hear him respond to that point effectively. Not even close.
That would not be by definition an “ad hominem” argument.
Hayes and Davis were claiming that because of their personal status, Catholic priests lack standing to argue the merits. I would call that a quintessential ad hominem argument.
I have a pretty good vocabulary, even in the realm of theology and I’m a lawyer but he used a word I don’t know and can’t even remember. I do think he rebutted their two points pretty effectively re: celibate priests and 98% although he should have mentioned (and maybe did elsewhere mention) that once you mandate contraception, then you can mandate abortion and the stats are much different in that regard. I also liked I think Dolan’s comment that we are not in the business of polls but of morality or words to that effect.
Might the word have been “epistemic”? It certainly sent me to the dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epistemic
I’d appreciate your thoughts on a related matter. Occasionally when I write at NewsBusters I use, often but not always when quoting others, words with which I imagine many readers may be unfamiliar. Is it condescending or insulting to readers to link to the word’s definition in the body of the blog item?
You probably mean “epistemic?”
Far as I’m concerned he did not answer the question, but yeah, words like epistemic can certainly fill time and provide cover.
Well technically, he responded to an ad hominem with a tuo quoque so the fallacious reasoning is all around in the case.
And who the hell gave Zero any power to do any of this garbage? Where are the other two powers of government? Why do we have the legislative and judicial branches of government for checks and balance?
I would immediately respond that "The Government" led by a Muslim "lacks the moral authority to make arguments on the issues at hand", let alone the Contitution which BARS it!
per Governsleastgovernsbest request, pinging a few Catholic pingers. Notre Dame law professor’s wonderful comeback to MSNBC’s ever so worldly/sophisticated panel.
my earlier attempt to ping some FReepers holding Catholic ping lists doesn’t seem to have worked. This is a ‘must see.’
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
How does an argument this monumentally STOOPID keep getting trotted out? By that logic, every judge and jury in the country would have had to commit every crime known to man in order to be able to determine any defendant’s guilt.
I’d be delighted! Why is that any different from citing sources? At least the reader would be clued in to exactly what YOU meant by the word.
Menopausal lesbians lack the moral authority to make arguments on abortion.
People who make less than 250000 per year lack the moral authority to make arguments on taxes on income over 250000.
I'm sure I can think of some more after I've had some coffee.
I can’t tell you what other readers might think but I would always click that link. I just finished listening to Benedict’s first Jesus of Nazareth book. I love listening to both theology and physics because I don’t get bogged down as much as if I read the hard copy. I faintly remember seeing that word or a variation of it in that book but in context. I didn’t catch the context which this gentleman was using it. Perhaps if I had heard the entire interview but listening to the commentators on MSNBC is not something for which I am spiritually fit.
I can’t tell you what other readers might think but I would always click that link. I just finished listening to Benedict’s first Jesus of Nazareth book. I love listening to both theology and physics because I don’t get bogged down as much as if I read the hard copy. I faintly remember hearing that word or a variation of it in that book but in context. I didn’t catch the context which this gentleman was using it. Perhaps if I had heard the entire interview but listening to the commentators on MSNBC is not something for which I am spiritually fit.
Yeah, you are right. After actually watching the edited video clip, Davis and Hayes certainly were appealing to emotion and prejudice against the celibate male priesthood. I would rather have read a full transcript anytime to analyse the logical fallacies of a debate like this.
Every woman and many men I know, though, argue it should be implicitly conceded and accepted by men that reproductive issues cannot be understood by men, celibate or not. And no amount of argument using the rules of logic, and calling them on logical fallacies, will make any headway with them whatsoever.
Celibate men lack moral authority? I guess that leaves out Jesus...
Much appreciate the feedback!
PS: are you a pilot? I’m a PPL with instrument rating, but of the Mach .25 variety ;-)
Does not the Ten Commandments accepted by Jews,Christians, and supposedly by Muslims require ALL unmarried persons to be celibate?
How else would fornication be a sin?
I wonder if as large a % of people are having unmarried sex in real life as in the movies,TV, and music.
It is precisely celibate men and women who have the moral authority to call other people for sexual continence.
Journalists are cretins.
It is precisely celibate men and women who have the moral authority to call other people to sexual continence.
Journalists are cretins.
Just because the stupid liberal twits interrogating the priests can't keep their pants zipped or their legs together doesn't mean other people can't.
MICHAELA ANGELA DAVIS: I was getting uncomfortable with often hearing "gravely immoral and injust" [a term Rev. Dailey had used to describe the Obama mandate] particularly around issues that women generally have to face, coming from men constantly that will never have to face this choice.
. . .
CHRIS HAYES: I want you to respond to one specific thing--two specific things. One is the argument that is made--and to me it's quite compelling--that it's a little hard, in a moral/secular conversation about a policy choice in civic society, to listen to the bishops, who are, by definition, a group of celibate men, right? There is a disconnect that I think is extremely difficult when we're having this debate for certain people who are listening to get over.
WILLIAM DAILEY: As to your first specific question, which I guess the heart of it is whether there's some kind of epistemic divide between the men who in the Church who proclaim this teaching, who are the bishops, who have the teaching office in the Church. I reject the notion that there's an epistemic divide, that the women panelists there can't talk to us and we can't talk to them, and use publicly available reasons, right? And yes, are these religious authorities? Sure. But President Obama was invoking religious authority at the prayer breakfast last week in favor of his largely liberal social agenda--the winning agenda as you would call it--and I haven't seen a hue and cry from most of the liberal side that the president shouldn't be invoking biblical principles, theological principles, principles that come from his faith, to support what are the correct means in society to achieve ends that we probably all agree are good for people: equality among men and women, equality among the races. So when the president invokes his own biblical and theological principles to do that, I say he's welcome to do so in the public square, and that's squarely within American tradition.
Catholic Ping
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Following this logic only teachers could talk about education issues. Only the military could decide our foreign policy etc, etc.
It’s a logical fallacy.
I have to totally disagree with Rev. Hayes. While his first segment gave me hope, I was sorely disappointed in his response after the commercial break.
Let me say this, “family morals” mean more to me than anything. I can trace my family's linage and our involvement in the Catholic church back more than 400 years. It is probably longer, but records in Ireland over the centuries have become lost, but back to the point.
When queried about the 98% of catholic women that reportedly ( and I doubt that the figure is that high ) use some form of birth control, his response was that “the church believes in redemption” that may not be completely accurate, but that was the sentiment and what I understood his response to be.
To that, I would say, “leave it to a lawyer to equivocate so masterfully”
The path to redemption is simple and non-negotiable. First there must be confession of ones sins. Understanding that it is wrong, and admitting such is paramount. Without confession, there can be no redemption.
Then there is the willingness to atone for ones sins. To pay for ones ill-deeds. Without penance, there can be no redemption. And most importantly, is the willingness to not commit that sin again. Every catholic has heard the phrase, “go forth and sin no more” from his priest in the confessional.
To that end, if a woman confesses to using birth control, and the priest ask her if she intends to continue in the practice, and she answers in the affirmative, he WILL NOT offer penance, communion, or absolution. She is neither contrite or honestly seeking the forgiveness upon which her salvation depends. In short, if she INTENDS to continue with her sin, confessing it means absolutely nothing.
Without penance, or the sacraments, their is no redemption, and the soul is condemned to hell.
Now people may try to argue this point, but the catholic tradition in my family is long and devout, and I found father Hayes equivocation and hedging on the issue almost blasphemous.
He should have clearly stated, that if a woman is contrite, confesses her sins, and does penance, with the intent to do that sin no more, then and only then can she find redemption, and manage to save her soul from eternal damnation.
Let us leave it to the democrats and liberals to be total hypocrites, we must stand for our values, if not, then we are no better.
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