Observe and report

Hey Y’all!

Yesterday was Inauguration Day. It seemed to go off without a hitch, even though some people are still bent out of shape.

Since Jan. 6, Auntie Beth’s social media feeds have been filled with angry people posting a variety of logical fallacies.

Auntie Beth thinks it might be helpful for some people to understand a particular one: false equivalency.

Let’s talk about it in terms of protests.

Here are three well-known ones:

1. Women’s March on Washington
2. Black Lives Matter
3. March to Save America

Here are the pertinent details of each:

Women’s March on Washington
Who: 500,000+ women (mostly) in pink hats.
When: Jan. 21, 2017.
Why: Gender equality mixed with protesting the Trump election.
Violence? None.
Arrests: None.
Deaths: None.
Outcome: More women running for office.

Black Lives Matter 2020
Who: Could be as many as 26 million people.
When: May 26 to present.
Why: Anti-racism. Summer protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Violence? Yes, in 7 percent of protests. Some violence perpetrated by protestors, some by police.
Arrests: 14,400 over the summer.
Deaths: Numbers vary. Could be as high as 19. One set of scholars studied 7,305 protests and found deaths or injuries in 1.6 percent.
Outcome: Police reform, social change, increased important conversations, etc.

March to Save America (also called Stop the Steal, Rally to Revival, etc.)
Who: Could be as many as 10,000 people.
When: Jan. 6, 2021.
Why: Supposed election fraud.
Violence? Yes. By protestors.
Arrests: No arrests on site. Arrests later. The count is up to 100.
Deaths: Five.
Outcome: Hard to say. Biden was sworn in.

On Jan. 6 and afterward, Auntie Beth saw loads of people trying to compare the Capitol event with the Black Lives Matter protests.

So let’s break down the concept of false equivalency.

Why might a comparison not be a fair one? There are two big reasons:

1. The comparison notes similarities but not differences. For example, I listed three major protests. They have in common inciting incidents — the election of Donald Trump, the killing of George Floyd and the 2020 election — and that they were all protests. But there are major differences: number of people protesting, nature of inciting incidents, amount of violence, number of arrests.
2. The comparison ignores magnitude and/or nature of difference. The number of arrests in BLM versus MSA is huge. That would indicate that the BLM protests were much more violent than MSA. Were they? Or is there something else at play? According to a recent study, it is the latter. Police are three times more likely to use force against left-wing protestors than right-wing. Arrests follow.

In the Facebook examples above comparing BLM to MSA, it is not accurate to identify “Democrat” response to BLM versus MSA as hypocrisy. That is false equivalence. Why? Three reasons:

1. Peaceful assembly is a First Amendment right. Nancy Pelosi, etc., can call for protests just as Trump, etc., can. Calling for violence is a completely different thing. (Also, please note that the remarks in the meme are missing context. And let’s also note the peacefulness of the Women’s March. That’s how you protest, folks!)
2. Democrats did not condone the BLM violence. In fact, many spoke out against it, including Biden.
3. The underlying reason for the protests is markedly different. The BLM movement began because police killed black men. The MSA protest began because Trump told a lie about a “stolen” election. We can agree to disagree on approaches, but facts are facts: There is no evidence of election fraud. Plus, death ≠ fraud, asking for power ≠ displaying power.

Many people who believe “the big lie” also believe that Democrats and the Hollywood elite are Satanists running a cannibalistic child-trafficking operation.

Reread that sentence.

Allow Auntie Beth her massive eye roll.

🙄

Believing in conspiracies like that has consequences. Look at this slide Auntie Beth took from a recent talk on child trafficking that she attended.

See that second point? People drawn in by conspiracy theories took away from services for actual victims. (Educate yourself here.)

Y’all, Auntie Beth would like to remind you of the concept of Occam’s razor: The simplest explanation is likely the right one.

So you can believe in a vast pedophilia ring led by Tom Hanks, among others, or just freakin’ NOT. (Auntie Beth cannot believe she had to write that.)

You can believe that local, state, national and international forces banded together to “give” Biden the win, or you can believe that more people voted for him than voted for Trump. (I mean, just think about the former. All those people can keep a secret? Please.)

Auntie Beth hopes this little lesson was helpful.

Happy fact-finding!

*Apologies to Salt-N-Pepa.