Lawprof Roger Groves comments:
Some have already blamed the youth who rioted as the sole culprits, the only cause of the problem. That reminds me of those who can’t understand why their weeds continue to grow when their lawn mower only cuts off the leaves. They didn’t see that the root of the problem requires digging deeper than what was on the surface....I'll just add 2 things:
That does not excuse bad behavior.... But as for the baseball aspect of this, playing a game without fans is not the answer.... Yes, a fan-free game minimizes the risk of a lawsuit for having a game in which they could get hurt. But even if it was more expensive to the owners and MLB, sacrificing fans for the profits and logistics is not a good idea. Ticket refunds may ameliorate the problem a bit. But I suspect the fans that paid that hefty ticket price would much rather see the game than have the same money back they already decided to spend.
1. Playing before the empty stands makes a powerful visual statement that is entirely different from a postponement. If there's a postponement, there's nothing to see, and seemingly nothing is lost. Some later game between those 2 teams is turned into a double header. But when a game is played to empty stands, the disturbing spectacle will be on TV and radio. Many people will watch/listen and experience the theater of sadness. Fans will live through hours of What Has Happened to Our Proud City. On TV, there will be none of the shots of kids and weird guys and pretty girls to amuse us during the inevitable longueurs of baseball. You might think it won't matter so much on the radio, but it will. The crowd sound in the gaps in the chatter are integral to the beauty of baseball on the radio.
2. Groves's statement "That does not excuse bad behavior" will, I am sure, sound lame to many of you, but I happen to have my copy of Michael LaBossiere's "76 Fallacies" open to the precisely relevant page: "Confusing Explanations and Excuses":
This fallacy occurs when it is uncritically assumed that an explanation given for an action is an attempt to excuse or justify it. This fallacy has the following form: 1. Explanation E is offered for action A. 2. Therefore E is an attempt to excuse or justify A. This is a fallacy because an explanation of an action need not involve any attempt to excuse or justify that action. This fallacy can be committed by accident due to a failure to distinguish between an explanation and an excuse or justification. This most often occurs because people confuse explanations and arguments.The reason my "76 Fallacies" was open to that page is that it comes right after something I was just using the other day, "Confusing Cause and Effect Also Known as: Questionable Cause, Reversing Causation Description." I was looking for that in connection with Lanny Davis's statement that the rooster crowing at sunrise is a coincidence because the rooster's crowing doesn't cause the sun to rise. (It's wrong, of course, to say the sun rises because the rooster crows, but that's only because you've confused cause and effect, not because it's a coincidence.)
Explanations are attempts to provide an account as to how or why something is the case or how it works. Arguments, in the logical sense, are attempts to establish that a claim (the conclusion) is true by providing reasons or evidence (premises). What can add to the confusion is the fact that explanations can be used in arguments, generally to establish an excuse or to justify an action. To illustrate, if someone said, “John missed class because he was in a car wreck”, this would be an explanation rather than an argument. However, if someone said, “John’s absence from class should be excused because he was in a car wreck,” then this would be an argument. This is because John being in a car wreck is being offered as a reason why his absence should be excused....
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57 comments:
And, yes, I know: he said "youth."
Arguments, in the logical sense, are attempts to establish that a claim (the conclusion) is true by providing reasons or evidence (premises).
That's a premise.
It's not even true.
I thought it was pretty rich for Orioles owner Angelos' son to try and blame outsourcing and the poor local economy for the riots--haven't the Orioles enjoyed the sort of tax subsidies to keep them in the city that could otherwise have gone to encourage local industries to stay in Baltimore?
I'm surprised they didn't just change the location of the game--isn't the White Socks home stadium available? They could even things out by agreeing to play a future scheduled series at Baltimore instead of Chicago.
Or, if the Socks' stadium isn't available there surely is another nearby park that meets official MLB criteria that they could have played at. It just seems silly to give up ALL gate revenue in this case.
Baseball played in empty stadium? Sounds like the late 70s Chicago Cubs.
I thought it was pretty rich for Orioles owner Angelos' son to try and blame outsourcing and the poor local economy for the riots
Sure, probably true as far as it goes, but the argument you will never hear from anybody in a public position out of fear of being tarred as a nativist or racist is that flooding the unskilled labor market with uncontrolled immigration is also a huge contributor to black poverty.
Consequences; appears that the citizens of Baltimore have been given the equivalent of a "time out" to consider their responsibility for the chaos. For the sake of argument, it seems the baseball teams are backing the pain and suffering of those citizens adversely affected by looting and burning of local businesses. What better way to shame the populace for allowing a small minority to ignore the rule of law.
It's a fallacy to assume that something is a fallacy just because LaBossiere says it is. When you get a long explanation of why it's society's fault and contained within it is a tossed off "that doesn't excuse..." phrase, I'm not impressed. Show me the companion piece where he explains why the rage is misdirected and we can reopen this discussion, but until then...
But to your other point, I agree--playing in an empty stadium is a fascinating exercise, one I haven't witnessed since the Cleveland Indians of the 1980's.
Blacks are caught between Republican Chamber of Commerce types who want low wages, Democrat billionaires who also want to limit the power of workers to demand higher wages, in their case through flooding the technology labor marketplace with visas, and Democrat politicians who are trying t re-engineer the electorate to establish a one-party state.
And yes, that is an argument masquerading as an explanation.
Truth is just concordance with Reality, isn't it? With Reality being the existential 'given'.
Our job is to discover the nature of this existential given, using our existential given, the ability to Reason, and the proper method, Logic (thanks, Aristotle).
Here's the rub. Unlike, say, digestion or blood circulation, whether or not to use Reason and Logic, always and everywhere requires a volitional choice and action.
And there are a thousand ways to lie to oneself.
To Lanny: you know what real evidence in the Clinton graft arena would be? Something exculpatory, like, say, the existence of a large donation from an obscure Russian company, and then the fact that they subsequently got NOTHING. No favors, no mentions, no contracts, no appearance fees. No links to complimentary interests that might portend the opportunity for future favors. Nothing. Just true charitable giving, as you would expect to see in a real charitable foundation. Got any evidence of things like that?
And Ann is right. The rooster analogy is childish and wrong. Shame also on on Wallace, for not catching it at the time. There are mediocre-ers everywhere, alas.
One question is how the stadium is empty. If it's by slowly removing people, then you can ask what happens to the speed of a stadium wave, an interesting physics question.
"And, yes, I know: he said "youth."
WE all know how to translate that as we translate "South Asian" in Britain.
Well, I guess they describe the rioters as "youth" do be clear that local Social Security recipients aren't out smashing windows and taking things.
It is too bad that the riots have overshadowed the death of Freddie Gray, which otherwise might finally have proved to be due to a case of police misconduct (Of the late celebrated cases that is. I am sure there are real cases around this large country that have not "gone viral.")
Though "Sundance" has a post that says someone has found evidence that Freddie Gray had spinal cord surgery just a week before he was arrested. If true, that may explain why his spinal cord was easily severed, but not why it was severed, easily or not.
The late '70s Cubs were in the upper half of National League and Major League Baseball attendance.
Back then the weekday Wrigley Field crowds contained a lot of children, especially after the school year ended. Free ranging (roaming?) children.
Now they play at night for a drunken crowd of yuppie Gen-Xers.
Whatever happened to Freddie Gray, I think it will be months or years before we get anything but "cannot comment due to an ongoing investigation."
Sure they can, just give them a little time. They'll find a way to blame all of their problems not only on whites but most especially white Republicans. They're Democrats, it's what they do. You'll almost never get Democrats to admit the failures of their own policies and ideas.
I know they're TRYING to do so in Baltimore, which is funny, since no mayor has been a Republican since Johnson and the city council is basically all Democrat.
"PB said...
Baseball played in empty stadium? Sounds like the late 70s Chicago Cubs."
Sounds like you don't know what you are talking about. The Cubs had decent attendance, about 1.5 million. Not too bad, about 18,500 per game. Considering it was day games only and Wrigley's capacity was only 37,000, half full is not empty.
Baseball played in empty stadium? Sounds like the late 70s Chicago Cubs
I was thinking more like the Brewers if they don't start improving.
Moved 6 yards of mulch around last night. Oof. Would've rather been in an empty stadium.
"Though "Sundance" has a post that says someone has found evidence that Freddie Gray had spinal cord surgery just a week before he was arrested. If true, that may explain why his spinal cord was easily severed, but not why it was severed, easily or not."
that sounds so far fetched it's almost unbelievable. Though if he did have such surgery, then it would easily explain why his spinal cord severed. He ran from cops. A week after having surgery. If you have her is surgery, the recovery time is three weeks. If you're running around a week afterwards you're liable to tear your hernia.
Can you imagine if all of this rioting and the reason the guy died was because he had surgery a week before, and tore his neck simply by running. If the cops barely touched him?
Not that it would. Get the rioters to back down but can you imagine the egg on people's faces.
They do this with soccer in Europe a lot, to punish fans (usually who have done racist things like throw bananas at black players).
I don't know what the truth is, but I do know that the truth doesn't matter.
Trillions of dollars spent on the Great Society and they feel we haven't spent enough money?
Chatting with some of my online buds from Europe about this yesterday, I was surprised to find out that this sort of thing (official match played in an empty venue) happens quite a bit for professional soccer.
Roger Groves should avoid private practice. Playing the game in the middle of a riot is stunningly bad legal advice.
The TV Contract is all that matters anymore. The stadium and a crowd are a set and unpaid extras. So this TV production can be put on many other places. But we better hope that a white pitcher doesn't throw at a black batter's head and spine.
Between the way the police spokesman chose his words, the stop to put Gray in leg irons, and an offhand reference I heard to a BPD practice of something called "giving a suspect a rough ride," there is room for suspicion.
All that the riot prove is that there is so much more "work" these Democrat social justice warriors have to do in their communities.
And the longer they sit on it, the riper the mess will get.
That reminds me of those who can’t understand why their weeds continue to grow when their lawn mower only cuts off the leaves. They didn’t see that the root of the problem requires digging deeper than what was on the surface
In the other recent case of Ferguson, the FBI determined that the root of the problem was that the city police issued traffic tickets disproportionately to African-Americans.
I assume that the FBI is zealously investigating the issuance of traffic tickets in Baltimore too.
If it turns out that this indeed is the root problem in Baltimore, then that determination would not excuse the youth rioting, but it surely would explain it.
Larry J said...
"[deleted] said...
'At least we can't blame white politicians and white leaders for taking too much power in Baltimore.'
"Sure they can, just give them a little time. They'll find a way to blame all of their problems not only on whites but most especially white Republicans. They're Democrats, it's what they do. You'll almost never get Democrats to admit the failures of their own policies and ideas."
The police anywhere give out most tickets to young males for driving violations and to older cars for burned out lights, unreadable or missing license plates, etc.
If a town is 67% "black," most such tickets will go to "blacks."
"Between the way the police spokesman chose his words, the stop to put Gray in leg irons, and an offhand reference I heard to a BPD practice of something called "giving a suspect a rough ride," there is room for suspicion."
There've been enough reports of the BPD using "rough rides" on suspects that it may be an unofficial regular practice--if that's what they did with Gray it would explain the injury. Unless the investigation uncovers something new (like a preexisting spinal injury, or the intervening action of another inmate) it'll be pretty clear the police at best were grossly negligent.
BPD needs to impose better discipline on its officers--if they're roughing up suspects (particularly when scooping them up for petty offenses) it's no wonder they get no cooperation from the locals. And you can't do your job effectively if even the law abiding locals see you as an occupying force.
This is an accountability issue most of all--the machine running the city has grown complacent and corrupt over time, because what do they have to fear? A Republican getting elected? Hopefully at least the outrage spurs some reformist Democrats to challenge the machine.
Take a look at Africa, the Caribbean and Brazil. The so-called black disfunction described some 50 years ago by Moynihan and Banfield is the black norm. Single mother families, illegitimacy, violence, illiteracy are all genetic. "Out of Africa" was a speciation event.
The only social policy that can deal with "black disfunction" is segregation. Not the scattered ghettos we have now, but regional multistate segregation.
One of the teams pitching a Perfect Game in the empty stadium would make the metaphor complete.
We'll just have to decide on the metaphor.
I am Laslo.
It's a metaphor for cities and the Blue Model. Look Baseball fans, this is your future. Look Baltimore, this is what your leaders have wrought.
"If it turns out that this indeed is the root problem in Baltimore, then that determination would not excuse the youth rioting, but it surely would explain it."
Nothing "justifies" the rioting, but what "explains" it is a combination of factors--a sense that the police are abusive (to some extent true, if you're constantly seeing people arrested over petty offenses), jobs are scarce (particularly for those with arrest records, little skills and poor access to transportation) and lack of family structure. Such people will have no faith or trust in authority and little to lose. Some will instigate trouble, or become violent, while others may simply be opportunists seeing a chance to loot freely.
What's clear is the big city Leftist prescription of beating up on business, leaving the police unaccountable and fostering dependence on the humiliation of government assistance has made these problems worse over the decades.
Hardest hit: peanut and hot-dog vendors.
No one seems to care about them.
I am Laslo.
Six yards of mulch is a lot of mulch.
Sox, Brando. Sox.
Whatever the delicate differences between an explanation and an excuse, there's a stark difference between therapy and trauma. Riots are a traumatic event. They are in no way the therapeutic and cathartic release of anger.......It is good to see a fair number of black people openly, if gently, condemning the rioters. Maybe something god will come of this.
Explanation or excuse:
"U.S. economy nearly stalls in first-quarter as weather, lower energy prices bite".
Ya know, I cannot understand why it is against the rules for the cops to fight back. Spraying the rioters with water would slow things down a lot. No need to blast then down the street. Soaking them with overhead rain like spray would be a bit of a deterrent. I guess the image of the bad old days makes it politically incorrect to make the porr darlings uncomfortable.
Monday, the thieves were down to stealing toilet paper and paper towels and potato chips. No need to riot anymore, everything good already stolen.
I think that this is important to keep in mind: Riot-Plagued Baltimore Is a Catastrophe Entirely of the Democratic Party’s Own Making. Democrats have run the city for most of the last century, at least. This is Nancy Pelosi's home town, where both her father and brother were mayor. And, that is little different from most of the other failing big cities across the country - the biggest thing that they have in common is long term one party (Democratic) rule.
You hear from the left that the only thing that will help would be to shovel more state and federal money into Baltimore (and these other failing Democratic run cities). But, of course, the money doesn't end up in the poor inner cities. That isn't how Democrats work. Rather, it ends up sticking to the fingers of rich urban Democrats who are cozy with the rulers of the cities. That is how Democrats work (and, yes, we saw this in action, when Nancy Pelosi, scionette of Baltimore mayors, explained how shoveling money to cronies would get us out of the recession with her "stimulus" bill).
Keep this in mind - the Dem party in these cities is a confederation of interest groups. One of these interest groups contains poor blacks. But, another, probably more powerful one, consists of government employees. And, these include the very same police who may have instigated some of this with their violent approach to policing. Probably most disconcerting to me though is the ease that the leadership of these interest groups, and esp. of poor blacks, is inevitably bought off. They get their skim, and end up supporting the mayor and city council in whatever they want to do.
Camden Yards is located in the wrong part of Baltimore. It's much too dangerous for fans to attend games there, and the fans now know that. Attendance is going to plummet, and in a couple years the Orioles will either move to a new stadium in the suburbs or move to another city altogether.
Playing in an empty stadium this week is a peek into the future.
I wish I'd known about the explanation/excuse fallacy while growing up.
Many people will watch/listen and experience the theater of sadness.
Outstanding, succinct piece of writing. Almost poetic.
Six yards of mulch is a lot of mulch.
It never looks like that much sitting in a pile on the ground. Then you start to move it around.
"MadisonMan said...
Six yards of mulch is a lot of mulch.
It never looks like that much sitting in a pile on the ground. Then you start to move it around."
You want some real fun, move six yards of "road mix" (sand and gravel) in five gallon buckets to repair a washed out driveway.
Keep this in mind - the Dem party in these cities is a confederation of interest groups. One of these interest groups contains poor blacks. But, another, probably more powerful one, consists of government employees. And, these include the very same police who may have instigated some of this with their violent approach to policing. Probably most disconcerting to me though is the ease that the leadership of these interest groups, and esp. of poor blacks, is inevitably bought off. They get their skim, and end up supporting the mayor and city council in whatever they want to do.
Indeed. I told black students in college that with their vote, why would anybody EVER want to help them?
Democrats own your vote. They can crap in your food and you'll still vote for them. You're their slave and they know it.
The Republicans know that if they turn your life around and make it perfect...you'll STILL vote Democrat. So...why try? Why bother?
These problems are both self-caused AND part of a pattern. You cannot name a large city that doesn't have these huge problems that Dems run (and since they run most major cities, you have a large pool of ones to look at).
Does anybody TRUST, say, the LAPD? Why not? LA is a Dem town. Been one for years. Detroit police? Baltimore? NYC? Boston? Philly? St. Louis? Chicago? Seattle? Atlanta? No, you'd be an idiot if you did.
How about their governments? Are they clean or corrupt?
How about income inequality? How bad is it in those cities? Not just a few of them...ALL of them?
Letting Dems run youur city has a proven track record of failure, corruption, and government arrogance. Yet they KEEP voting them in while whining about how bad things in the city are.
There is a ripe constituency in our cities for reform and change--the day to day locals who haven't much money, may be sporadically employed, and suffer as much from police abuse as they do from crime and don't feel as though their city government is doing much about either. But this constituency doesn't see much alternative--they live in a one-party regime, in part because they don't trust Republicans (which is understandable, because Republicans talk in the language of cracking down on crime--the locals want crime to drop, but they also know that "cracking down" often means them or their loved ones getting railroaded on specious charges, and they believe the police are more interested in protecting some nicer part of town. And when the GOP talks about "jobs" they usually talk about lower taxes--which to the working poor sounds like "tax breaks for someone else but no better job prospects for me; a new stadium across town but no new stores on my street which is largely boarded up).
So with the Democrats the only game in town, this constituency has to either hope the machine will do something for them--which, fat chance, as long as unions and connected interests are more valuable to them, reforms simply won't happen--or that some reformer will leak through. Sometimes you get someone like Adrian Fenty, who runs against the machine but only lasts a term--and perversely, is tarred by the machine as only representing white rich people interests!
I'm not sure what, if anything, could change this--maybe a generation of urban-focused Republicans who can offer a program for changing these trends, or maybe things get bad enough that the machine gets upended.
"Confusing Explanations and Excuses"
Combining a lame explanation with a lame excuse doesn't confuse anything or anyone. It also doesn't help.
I'm seeing a pattern.
Liberals in charge of "something". Things begin to go seriously wrong but liberals cannot bring themselves to blame liberals and call for reform. The only way the problem can even be discussed is if it can be blamed on conservatives. And it can't be fixed because the true cause is not discussed.
So colleges, now totally dominated by liberals, have become a hostile environment for women. This can't be mentioned unless in the context that white men, preferably Republicans, are the villains.
Big cities, totally run by Democrats, are abusing the blacks, closing budget deficits by quota-driven fines for small offenses - a policy which which hurts blacks more because blacks are poorer. The problem can't even be mentioned except in the context of white police officers as the villains.
Cities and states run by Democrats are going bankrupt. The problem is unfunded social services, especially pensions. The problem can't be mentioned except as a problem caused by white Republicans on Wall Street.
This isn't a racial problem. The problem is the inability of liberals to admit mistakes made by themselves. They shift the blame to imaginary villains and that means nothing is done in the way of reform wherever liberals are in power.
An empty stadium and a street filled with rioters - that's the blue state future.
Vote the red-state model.
What we're witnessing in Baltimore is Broken windows unpolicing.
The criminals believe in "broken windows" too
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/us/baltimore-crowd-swells-in-protest-of-freddie-grays-death.html
...Saturday’s trouble began in the early evening, when a group of protesters, as many as 100 by some accounts, split from the main group as the City Hall rally was breaking up and went on a rampage, throwing cans, bottles and trash bins at police officers, and breaking windows in some businesses.
As the breakaway group reached Camden Yards, where the Baltimore Orioles were playing the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night, it was met by police officers in riot gear.
Protesters smashed windows of some cars and blocked the corner of Pratt and Light Streets, a major intersection that is a main route to Interstate 95 and out of the city....
3 years ago:
http://www.abc2news.com/news/crime-checker/baltimore-city-crime/delegate-warns-of-black-youth-mobs-in-baltimores-inner-harbor
2 years ago:
http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76485825/
The murder had been reduced by aggressive policing.
The criminals had to strike back.
So colleges, now totally dominated by liberals, have become a hostile environment for women. This can't be mentioned unless in the context that white men, preferably Republicans, are the villains.
Except that the colleges and universities (as well as K-12) have actually become hostile to males. If not toxic. The Lesbian Feminists invented the campus "rape" epidemic (and, many have wondered if it was because no one would think of raping them). It is so bad that the DoE has pushed eliminating pretty much all due process rights from the accused males, including representation by an attorney, to confront witnesses, to call witnesses, etc. The claim of rape is sufficient on many campuses these days, and the trial/hearing is no longer necessary. After all, why would a woman lie about such an important subject? And, to the surprise of few, President Obama has repeated the massively discredited 1 in 4 or 5 statistics.
There is no real "War on Women" these days. Rather, there has been a pretty blatant War on Men for quite some time - they are considered defective (esp. in K-12 public schools) because and to the extent that they are not women or girls. And, yet, of course, the left pushes the War on Women meme shamelessly for votes.
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