Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

I do not normally comment on politics.  However…

There exists in logic the concept of post hoc ergo propter hoc, a logical fallacy which states that if something happens after something else, it happened because of it.  For example, if you eat an apple, and later become sick, you might be inclined to blame the apple.  You might be right, but there are other possible reasons for becoming sick.  It may have been something else you ate, germs you came into contact with somewhere else, etc.  Blaming the apple simply because you got sick after eating it is called a post hoc argument.

In the wake of the Obama inauguration, many people have come out of the woodwork to praise George W. Bush, because American has avoided any post-9/11 attacks because of his leadership.  This makes just as little logical sense as blaming the Bush Administration for being “asleep at the wheel” and allowing the 9/11 attacks to occur.  If your store is robbed, and you provide the night watchman with a bigger stick, you might later claim responsibility for preventing further thefts because of that big stick.  But it’s also possible that the theft in and of itself made your night watchman more vigilant.

I know that many people like to live in a world where answers are simple and lines are drawn in black and white.  The problem with that notion is that answers are almost never simple and lines are rarely drawn in black and white.

What I know is this:  The intelligence community is still as fouled up as it always was, despite laws that are supposed to straighten it out.  And revoking civil rights didn’t help ferret out any terrorists, at least none that I’m aware of.  What has worked has been the individual contributions of men and women determined not to let “the terrorists win”, to reuse an overused phrase.  It has nothing to do with the efforts of our previous President.