Capital punishment

I just heard another one of those arguments against capital punishment that goes like this:  "If we are really against killing, then you have to be against capital punishment because it is a kind of killing."

It is fine with me to abolish capital punishment, but this argument is so pitiful.

1.  When we make murder illegal (and punishable at all) we are not opposing all killing, only the kind that qualifies as murder. 

To say all killing is equivalent is as foolish as saying all sex is equivalent.

2.  If X imprisons someone and is sentenced to prison himself, what do those who use the argument above say about that?  Do they say:  "If we are really against imprisonment, then you have to be against sending X to prison, too."

It is ironic that they are inconsistent about applying their consistency argument.

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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