logical gaffs

[Robin Turner <robin@BILKENT.EDU.TR>]

 On the subject of logic and politics, here is a collection of "gaffs"
which I have used in a "critical thinking" lesson (part of the English and
academic skkills support programme at an English-medium university in
Turkey).  More experienced Lojbanists than myself may care to see if it is
even _possible_ to translate some of these into Lojban! On the other hand,
most of the problems concern not the "bridi" but the (il)logical links
between them, and I'm not sure to what extent Lojban would expose these.


(a) [Nazi soldiers] were victims, just as surely as the victims in the
concentration camps.
                                                        Ronald Reagan (Kahane 1992:33)

(b) Iraqi ambassador: We deplore Saudi participation with the West in this
attack on Iraq, because we hate to see Arabs fighting Arabs...
Larry King: You say you hate to see Arabs fighting Arabs, but you went into
Kuwait.
Ambassador: Er....but we did not fight when we went into Kuwait!
                                                                        (Kahane, 1992:35)

(c) I have never had any doubt about [the Bible] being of divine origin.
And to those who... doubt it, I would like to have them point out to me any
similar collection of writings that have lasted for as many thousands of
years and is still the best seller worldwide. It had to be of divine origin.
                                Ronald Reagan again (Kahane, 1992:55)

(d) I'm against censorship but ...we will do anything in our power to stop
pure blasphemy.
                George Bush, justifying banning art on religious grounds (Kahane, 1992:55)

(e) You talk about student rights. Just remember that it was your friends
who murdered =D6zdemir Sabanc=FD!
                Participant in Siyaset Meydan=FD [a Turkish political discussion=
 programme]

(f) Our law is not to forbid people to eat pork. We are very democratic
here. What we want is people not to be able to sell pork.
                        Rabbi Avraham Shapira, defending a proposed law to ban the sale of pork
in Israel
        =09
(g) I did not visit a tekke. I visited a dergah.
                                                Recep Tayyip Erdo=F0an [an Islamic fundamentalist politician - "tekke"
and "dergah" both mean a religious lodge]

(h) There's a non-partisan - no, but I really mean this one, that from the
heart in the sense that some things, at least the way I look at this.
                                        George Bush again (Trudeau 1992)
=20

Robin Turner

Bilkent Universitesi,
IDMYO,
Ankara,
Turkey.

<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309>