Weaponising Illogical Negativism

The core principle of logical positivism which underpins verification as the basis for scientific investigation of the truth of any statement:

A statement that cannot be conclusively verified cannot be verified at all. It is simply devoid of any meaning.

This then is the principle of illogical negativism, now applied near universally across the media and throughout the Left. It is the principle that denies any need whatsoever to verify any statement that suits the political outcome sought by the person making the statement or hearing it.

A statement that cannot be conclusively denied cannot be denied at all. It is simply true because someone has said it and conforms to what those who hear the statement prefer to believe.

Let us look a little more deeply at this principle, seen everywhere among the empty heads of the Republican Party as much as among Democrats. No evidence or factual underpinnings are required, only that someone says it and it suits others that it has been said. Begin here with Anita Hill’s testimony about Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1993:

Hill alleged lurid details about her time with Thomas at the Department of Education: “He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes… On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess.” Hill also said that the following incident occurred later after they had both moved to new jobs at the EEOC: “Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, ‘Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?’”

Ridiculously mild by today’s standards and not a word of it ever verified or confirmed by anything outside of the statements made by Anita Hill herself and then repeated ad nauseum as part of this “high-tech lynching” by everyone opposed to his confirmation. But now we have this: Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32 – 38 years ago but not mentioned until now – and moreover from The Washington Post, as untrustworthy a source as could be imagined. Here’s the only part I will quote with the bit in bold quite to the point:

In a written statement, Moore denied the allegations.

“These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign,” Moore, now 70, said.

The campaign said in a subsequent statement that if the allegations were true they would have surfaced during his previous campaigns, adding “this garbage is the very definition of fake news.”

No wonder the left laughs at the right, so politically stupid it is almost beyond idiocy. A similar story about a Democrat would not even make it into the press. Let us go further with a few links picked up at blog site Ace of Spades.

• Even Roy Moore is Innocent Until Proven Guilty
• Moore Defiant: “I Will Never Give Up”
• McConnell, GOP Immediately Throw Moore to the Wolves, Demand He Withdraw from Race
• PDT: Moore Will “Do Right Thing” and Step Aside IF Allegations Are True

And from the last of those stories:

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters traveling with Trump in Asia that the president believes a “mere allegation” — especially one from many years ago — shouldn’t be allowed to destroy a person’s life.

But Sanders says: “The president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.”

And from J.E Sefton at Ace of Spades who thinks as I do:

The weekend is here and with it the cold slap in the face of yesterday’s accusations against Roy Moore. I probably reflect the sentiments of most if not all of you in the Horde in that my initial reaction was to call this an abject, unmitigated smear to derail Moore’s candidacy and throw a gimme seat to the Democrats. I still feel this way, and in fact, considering the absolutely disgraceful reaction from the GOP, I would not be at all surprised if it is they who were behind this. I’m looking at the be-goitered, flabby face of Mitch McConnell. The GOP pumped millions into that race to install Establishment lackey Luther Strange and he was rejected. . . .

Unlike the GOP, the MFM, Dems and others, who it’s safe to say couldn’t give two shits about the alleged victims but are more interested in derailing Moore for political gain, guilty or innocent, I will stand by Roy Moore until it is absolutely proven beyond any doubt that he is guilty of a crime or of behavior that would have obviated my support at the outset of his candidacy. Sadly, as the shabby Dick Gephardt would say, it’s not about guilt or innocence, it’s all about the seriousness of the charge. So guilty or innocent, odds are Moore may be sunk. That stinks to high heaven and I hope he can overcome what is now a cheap, desperate smear.

For myself, any evidence of any kind would be a help: a note he wrote, a photo someone took, an earlier application to the courts. Anything at all because without at least that, no one outside those utterly on the inside can enter public life without the certainty that some allegation of this kind will be made. Instead we have this:

• Moore accuser worked for Hillary!!!
• Witness comes forward, says WaPo tried to bribe women to accused Roy Moore
• The Alabama GOP’s Awful Responses to the Roy Moore Sexual Assault Allegations Are Dead-End Partisanship At Its Worst

If the conservative side of politics keeps folding under this kind of pressure we will never win. Punch back twice as hard, as Barack Obama put it, rotten liars that they are.

Steve Kates teaches economics at RMIT University