I disagree with Hightower.

What you will find here is: a centrist's view of current events;
a collection of thoughts, arguments, and observations
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He not busy bein' born, is busy dyin'. - Bob Dylan

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The nirvana fallacy

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The Nirvana fallacy is the logical error of comparing what is available to some ideal solition that someone would like to see. An example of it appeared on Jan. 25th on CNN, which has apparently started using comedians as a source of social commentary. Wolf Blitzer was talking to Bill Maher who thinks that we have two parties: a center right party and right wing party. He doesn't understand why the debate is about what we can afford since the obvious solution is Medicare for all. The fact that his side would lose that debate is apparently totally lost on him.

Voltaire summed up this fallacy with some French variation of:

"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
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