by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyThe 14th-century philosopher William of Occam said Multiplicity ought not to be posited without necessity. In other words, the best hypothesis is the one with the fewest number of unproven assumptions. Simple folk complicate Occam in the name of 'simplification'. Occam did not say that the 'simplest' explanation is the best, nor did he say that the simplest explanation is always true.The key to Occam is the phrase: "...the fewest number of unproven assumptions". So called 'simple explanations' which assume as 'fact' propositions for which there is no evidence do violence to Occam's simple dictum: multiplicity ought not to be posited without necessity. Occam's razor is problematic for the conservative mentality accustomed to thinking in terms of absolute truths —a world of black or white, a world of you are either for us or against us, a world of if you are liberal you are a traitor! This mentality will discount a 'proposition' if conflicts with a pre-conceived notion, of one for which there is neither proof nor evidence. The GOP inclined, for example, will discount empirical evidence if it conflicts with cherished ideology. In other centuries, this 'top down' mentality burned witches, disemboweled heretics, and, more recently, in Kansas, forbids the teaching of biological science.
In advance of his time, Occam introduced a measure of probability into the very concept of truth i.e., the simplest solution is most probably correct.
Occam presaged Heisenberg's uncertainty principle by some 500 years or so. Heisenberg posited that either the position or the velocity of a sub-atomic particle may be known with certainty —but not both at the same instant. If one value is known, the other is only a probability. If the velocity is known precisely then the location may be expressed only as a probability inversely proportional to the degree to which the location is known.
More recently, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem strikes at the very heart of Russell and Whitehead's grounding of mathematics in pure logic. Gödel proved that in any formal system —consisting of a finite set of axioms and the meta-language in which the rules for inference are set —there will always be at least one true theorem that is not derivable by inference.Both developments harken back to Occam. Truth is always fuzzy but common-sense has always been the enemy of bigotry, moral certitude, propaganda and state-sponsored lies. That's because liars and moral absolutists have something in common: God and truth is always on their side. Or so they would have you believe.
I would like to be as certain of one thing as Bush and Bushies are of all things. How is it possible that Bush and the GOP are so absolutely correct about all things as Bush would have you believe? The simplest and best explanation is simply: they are not! They know nothing. And what is known they lie about. Global warming is just such an issue. Bushies must surely know the truth of it but lie about it in order to protect a robber baron constituency of corporate sponsors.
The falsehoods of the Bush administration can be classified as:
- Deliberate, planned campaigns of lies, falsehoods and propaganda!
- Incompetent mistakes!
Let's try to make clear the significance of this series of lies. If Bush deliberately misled the American people and the world in order to justify his attack and invasion of Iraq, then the war, itself, is and continues to be, a crime against the peace. Its continuation is but a series of individual crimes against humanity. As such, it violates the Nuremberg Principles that the United States had insisted upon at the end of World War II. Violations of Nuremberg are criminal offenses in the United States, prohibited specifically by U.S. Codes, Section 2441.
(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.Bush's order to attack —whatever Congressional authorization he may claim —violates both Nuremberg and U.S. Codes. Moreover, if Bush lied to the American people and to the world, he lied also to Congress. Whatever was passed by Congress is, therefore, null and void by virtue of Bush's deliberate fraud, itself a deliberate subversion of the Constitution. As such, it is most certainly high treason. Sadly, the War against the people of Iraq is not the only fraud that Bush has perpetrated upon the world and the American people. A short list includes Global warming —about which the GOP and the oil industry waged a 15 year long campaign of lies and misinformation. Other lies, frauds, and hoaxes include the tax cut; faith-based initiatives; the unilateral and quite possibly illegal abrogation of Kyoto; "no child left behind"; his attack on Social Security; his illegal, unconstitutional widespread domestic wiretapping program; the Bush crack down on American civil liberties; his having arrogated unto himself the powers of judge, jury, and legislature.
All are based on lies!
All are illegal!
All make up the gestalt of frauds that ARE the Bush administration!
All make this administration the very worst in American history.
All make this "President" a clear and present danger to America and to the world.
Bush lies - he wanted war
For a long time, it seemed that I was the only blue-state person who did not think George Bush lied about how we came to invade Iraq. Then, last week, indomitable journalist Helen Thomas asked the President why he wanted "to go to war" from the moment he "stepped into the White House," and the President said, "You know, I didn't want war." With that, the last blue-state skeptic folded.
I would not go so far as to say that Bush wanted war from Day One in the White House, but there is plenty of evidence he had Saddam on his mind and in his sights from the very moment he got the news of the 9/11 attacks.
Richard Clarke, formerly the White House's chief anti-terrorism official, writes in his book "Against All Enemies" that within a day Bush was inquiring if Saddam might have had a hand in terrorist attacks. When told no, the President said testily, "Look into Iraq, Saddam."
Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack" says that not only was Bush fixated on Iraq, but by Thanksgiving of 2001, he had told Donald Rumsfeld to prepare a plan to invade that country, but not to tell anyone. Rumsfeld said he would eventually have to take CIA director George Tenet into his confidence. "Fine," Woodward quotes Bush as saying, "but not now." ...
When will Bush's lies be punished?
Mar. 27, 2006 12:00 AMAccording to NBC news, the United States paid a six-figure salary to the Iranian foreign minister to keep us briefed on the situation in Baghdad.
Moreover, it was reported that he told the United States well before our invasion that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which turned out to be true.
If this is so - and it would be amazing for NBC to report such news without factual support - Congress must immediately begin impeachment proceedings.
For the president of the United States to have had prior knowledge of the lies he was telling us and still go to war would be treason of the highest order.
When will the last of his lies be revealed?- Don McGuire, Glendale
Image: irregulartimes.com
4 comments:
Love to see Godel getting a guernsey, Len! You're not really living until you've understood the Incompleteness Theorem. Prior to 1931 we knew that theorems were either true or false, and that it was just a matter of hard slog to show one or the other. So we can prove that two odd numbers always add up to an even number(T). We can prove that not every number can be written as the sum of three squares (F) since 7 can't be done this way. Godel showed that there was a third category: statements that were always true but that, no matter how hard you tried, you could never prove. They were inherently unprovable. Beautiful stuff!
It's hard to get at truth in mathematics. Which has always made me wonder why people should reach such glib conclusions about society - an infinitely more complex system.
My pet maths discovery (for afficianados only): you can wrap any colored map in R2 around a colored 24-cell polytope in R4 so that the colors match up. R2 is essentially the surface of an object in R4. Pretty, and fun! Ok, ok, I'll leave....
Damien, always enjoy your take on things philosophical. Indeed, the incompleteness theorem is an elegant bit of deduction with truly cosmic implications. I am, in fact, comforted by at least one of those implications: NO computer and no computer program will ever become a "universal truth machine" or UTM. Human beings will never be entirely replaced by machines of our own invention.
Now I am beginning to understand the mind numbing "Bush lied" mantra. The people who exclaim it aren't even aware of the reason for the Iraq War. Saddam was to disarm. Disarmament meant full compliance with the disarmament procedures as prescribed in the 17 UNSCRs against Iraq. Saddam did not comply and certainly Saddam failed UNSCR 1441 (see: Dr. Hans Blix testimony before the UNSC Jan 27, 2003: Cooperation of Substance, Cooperation of Process).
The onus was not on George Bush to find WMD -- The 15 nations of the UNSC had declared Saddam armed with WMD. The onus was on Saddam to prove there were no WMD through total compliance with the terms of disarmament in the UNSCRs. Saddam failed in his obligation to the world.
But the "Bush lied" thing is cute in a mind numbing way.
No...the burden of proof is upon anyone making an assertion. Bush told MANY lies about the Iraq, primarily: that Iraq had WMD. The ONUS is on Bush. Not only was the ONUS on Bush, Bush lied about it. Deliberately. Colin Powell, himself, has apologized for the concerted, deliberate, and conspiratorial nature of the pack of malicious, black-hearted lies told by Powell to the United Nations.
To the extent that Bush ordered, consentered, and conspired with Powell, he is impeachable. In fact, a CRIMINAL FRAUD of this magnitude is not merely an impeachable offense, it is high treason. A first year law student could make that case with evidence available in the public record. Can you imagine what a special prosecutor can do with subpoena powers?
As Bush jacked up the rhetoric in the run up to war, the story varied, presumably in response to polls and GOP focus groups. Here was a gang of crooks looking for the lie that would poll well, the lie that would stick! They found it, apparently, in the WMD story.
Numerous mainstream media have since published credible summaries of the conversations held by Bush and Blair. The accounts prove that Bush and Blair conspired to lie about the WMD situation KNOWING it was a lie. This is a crime of many sorts, not the least of which is high treason!
THIS WAS A FRAUD...perpetrated upon the American people and upon the world. When the indictment are returned against Bush, the prosecution need only prove that Bush's various rationales for war were all bogus. He need only cite the Downing Street memos to prove that that they were known by both Bush and Blair to be bogus at the time. Bush, moreover, must prove the truth of his assertions. It will be his only defense. And, of course, he doesn't have one. But —make no mistake about it. I believe that George W. Bush has a right to his day in court, a right, by the way, that he would deny to those that he imperiously decides are "enemy combatants"! No...I would grant to Bush rights that he would deny to everyone else. Let him have his day in court —the International Tribunal in the Hague! Like Hermann Goring, he must be given even the right to defend himself —UNDER OATH!
That Bush began the war against Iraq upon a criminal fraud, the war itself is a violation of the Nuremberg Principles which the U.S. literally insisted upon at the end of WWII. Moreover, because Bush violated Nuremberg, he is therefore in violation of U.S. Criminal Codes; Section 2441 which makes deaths resulting from war crimes (violations of Nuremberg specifically) CAPITAL CRIMES!
Your case for Bush, therefore, doesn't even speak to the issue.
At last, WMD was only ONE of many lies told by Bush to invade Iraq. And the lies continue: "From its creation by the loonies of the American right - as a pro-Israeli policy to aid Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu - and then foisted on Bush, to the hell-disaster that Iraq now represents, the real war had to be turned into myth; nightmares into dreams; destruction into hope; terrible truths into profound mendacity.
Even today the occupation powers tell awesome lies. Democracy is taking hold when the "Iraqi" government controls only a few acres of Baghdad greensward. The insurgency is being crushed when 40,000 armed Iraqis are ripping into the greatest army on Earth; freedom is taking hold when thousands of Iraqis are dying each month. "Operation Swarmer" is now supposedly targeting those who want a civil war in Iraq. Some of the men who are trying to provoke civil war however, work for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, and are paid, ultimately, by us. —Robert Fisk, The Iraq War: Three Years On"
Bush never told the truth about the reasons Iraq was invaded. But, I suspect, it has something to do with the BILLIONS of dollars that have been given given to Halliburton in the form of NO BID contracts. The U.S. is not the only empire to have sold out to corporate interests, but Cheney and Halliburton have most certainly raised it to new and evil levels of crime and duplicity.
It's one thing to die for one's country —BUT FOR HALLIBURTON? I don't think so!
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