Rules for discernment, analysis, and rebuttal of disingenuous cant, sophistry, and spin.
Rules:
Section A for those with greater familiarity of logic.
A real case example of judgement of subsumption and judgement of comparison.
The local ombudsman applied the following rule in both cases.
Can only investigate where complainant claims or appears to have suffered injustice.
CASE 1...The local ombudsman was given a case against Islington Council in 2004 where strictly speaking, an offence was committed by entering an empty bus lane for 3.4 seconds!
The code of conduct for enforcing such penalties is that evidence has to be produced showing both th vehicle & number plate, AND the context of the offence. No context was provided, and after repeatedly requesting the contextual material I was compelled to go to the office in the city to view and video the infraction. This was not merely injustice (the local ombudsman's terms being distress and avoidable time and trouble).
After initially refusing, the local ombudsman recanted and stated that Islington WAS guilty of maladministration.
CASE 2...The local ombudsman was given a case against Transport for London in 2006 where strictly speaking, an offence was committed by entering stopping at a red light, exiting the vehicle for the duration of lights changing to green, and drove of VDA, (vehicle drove away without having a PCN served properly.
The exchanges between myself and TfL were lengthy, they refused the representation, commenting that my argument was pure semantics, and the offence was committed strictly and had to be enforced. I examined their breaches of the law, and code of conduct equally strictly and with greater purpose. They were found to have breached 5 enactments of the statute RTA 1991. by 6 people willfully and knowingly and criminally over 6 weeks.
The local ombudsman stated that TfLWAS NOT guilty of maladministration.
In the review I stated the local ombudsman had to compare the two cases and reconcile the contradiction, telling them they would fail. I assisted their argument by stripping out the greater injustice of CASE 2, so they propositions were identical. I simply said, set aside the greater injustice and criminal conduct of the TfL case and compare the cases like for like as two cases of equal injustice under the same rule.
Judging a case under a rule is a judgment of subsumption, and comparing two cases is of course a judgement of comparison.
Here is the set of propositions as a formal contradiction of the sentences.
It cannot be the case that proposition P and proposition Not P are true together. FORMALLY ~(P . ~P)
Under the same rule CASE 1 was GUILTY and CASE 2 was NOT GUILTY. But you cannot have two propositions jointly true and false together, the requisite law of thought being, the law of non contradiction.
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It is Not ( the case that (Islington are GUILTY under the rule) AND (TfL are NOT GUILTY under the rule). Do you see the formal construction highlighted in red, ~(P and ~P)
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The truth table of the classic law of non contradiction is shown in other pages of the website, link provided shortly.
How were they going to reconcile it? I told them they could not, and there was only one escape to such a contradiction, but I stated they would probably find it too difficult a route to take.
You will have to read their review reply and my response to see the full detail, tediously pedantic as it has to be, and how the matter ended. An initial index of page links and jump to extracts will be provided very shortly. Butthe final reply to the local ombudsman in its full text, names truncated for the purposes of privacy is HERE.
The final letter to the TfL isHERE
The main contention that flows from all this, when added to my comment from a previous letter,
";It will not make any difference how many ombudsman were to review a casewhere the result is a contradiction like that just shown. There is no comfort to be drawn from the apparent agreement and consequential tyranny of a majority, they will be ALL wrong if they support one conclusion and not condemn (the argument) of the other. Myself included."; In the highly likely event that the agenda to support a fallacy is so powerful as shown, ALL members of the ombudsman will support the decision given by Mr. Moriarty in CASE 2, as well as the review that exonerates him.
If that is the case, then here is the first of a series of arguments that the entire body should be dismantled and set up properly with the members, employees or whatever labels given them are accountable to the public who they should be serving in the first place.
Draft section as at 10/04/2006 please revisit as necessary this section is being augmented every few days.
Section B for the comparative newcomer to logic.
Begin with your instinct, if the argument feels wrong then probably it is, so re-examine it with greater purpose. Remember our great bard: “As there comes light from heaven and words from breath, As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,”
If it does not makes sense then it is probably NON-sense.
Focus on the argument, divesting your thoughts of any monetary considerations or emotional content.
Look for the propositions in the sentences.
A Proposition in logic is “the indicative meaning of a literal sentence”. Sentences like 'all single men are bachelors', 'James is a single man', therefore 'James is a bachelor', are all sentences that can be tested for truth or falsity, unlike the sentence “hello, how are you today?”
Not only the reasoning in 1. above, happens to be true 'a priori' (the proposition is innately true by understanding the terms), but the conclusion follows from the premmisses as valid reasoning. This form of reasoning is known as syllogistic. (reasoning from major and minor premmisses to a conclusion. Whereas:
All dogs are faithful, prince is faithful, therefore prince is a dog, is not a valid form of reasoning, since prince might be a man. The class ALL, must have the instance, not the attribute that belongs to that class, since that attribute may belong to other classes.
The formal aspect makes this perfectly clear when substituting a variable for the sentences. If p implies q, p (being affirmed) leads to q as a valid form of reasoning.
The main focus of your attention is drawn however to the three laws of thought, which as their name suggests are LAWA similar to laws of physics, but irrefutable, undefeatable. One may acquire technology and knowledge to 'as it were' to defeat a law of gravity, like flying, but this is not the same as defeating the law of contradiction.
Take a cool look at a contradiction whose form is ~(P . ~P) which is a formal construction of the proposition “It is NOT the case that P and NOT P are true together (at the same time). I'll not dwell too long on the qualification (at the same time) simply to say that since the time of Heraclitus, it is understood that everything is n flux, so much so that one cannot step in to the same stream twice, nor be the same person so doing.
Now lets look straight at the one the Local Ombudsman tried to resolve.
The local ombudsman argued that they had to follow certain rules, (we shall look at these rules later, since they were assembled by either a person not thinking clearly, or while thinking clearly they set them up so that each word had a variable charge and meaning allowing it to span a world of different instances at different times. This is not the proper use of language, which has to have very clearly defines sense, and references). The rule we are interested in is that:
They may only investigate a complaint IF some injustice had been done. Leaving aside the differences between the OED meaning of justice (want of equity or unfairness) and those used by the local ombudsman, lets us say injustice is better understood as we all know it, from the OED which remains fairly unvaried for the past 700 years.
Consider that rule for a moment and then take the following propositions in good faith as true, since I am setting them down as true, they are true, I have the evidence to rely on to show they are true,and I am not a liar. I have no agenda other than having a passion for TRUTH and a distaste for mendacity, which I find degrading, and wish to not spend my time in exchanging with people who use it as their main diet.
The local ombudsman was presented with two instance or cases where there was the possibility of making a comparison.
In 2004 I had complained to the local ombudsman about Islington Council, who sent me a recorded picture showing I had entered an empty bus lane for 3.4 seconds, wanting £50 for the pleasure. They sent it accompanied by a picture of the vehicle I used, showing its number plate. I could not remember where I committed this of fence if that is the correct appellation one should give to such an inhuman perversity of strictness in the application of the law, on which I have further comment later on. I wrote back asking for a picture of the context, not the number plate.
They of course, in their wisdom, sent me another picture of the vehicle straddling the single white line, and not showing the vehicle actually in the contravention code as described. I made insisted on my rights to see proper evidence, after all £50 for 3.4 seconds I think entitles me to see what they are basing their claim on., and several exchanges followed, whereby I had to actually take the time off to visit their premises, a fortress of a place barricaded against barbaric revenge attacks, like a bomb shelter in warfare. I saw and videoed the offence.
The complaint that followed, was that Islington, in their revenue driven desperation to collect £50 for anything amounting to an excuse for sanctimoniously affirming I had broken the law, had also broken the code of conduct set down for them by TfL which is to proved the owner with a picture of the vehicle and another in the context.
The local ombudsman, like most local and government departments, that invite one to complain, claim or seek a solution by visiting one of the several agencies set up for us to make redress complaints, or if you prefer, air our grievances on paper away from the main shop floor, not getting redress. Delivered a refusal saying as best I can recall while writing this, (the papers will be placed on the web shortly and corrected if I was wrong) there was insufficient injustice. I wrote back and pressed them further with more argument, and they recanted, stating that Islington was indeed guilty of maladministration. The best the local ombudsman delivers in such circumstance isa mere admonishment, and the council can of course take little or no notice which the do, since that date Islingtom has risen to the top of the local authorities list for revenue driven and remarkably prejudicial tax collecting by way of PCN's
Therefore we have our first case of a council guilty of maladministration, because they caused me avoidable time and trouble, along with distress, (the local ombudsman's definition of injustice)
Now I will try to cut the longer story very short. The next case was TfL (transport for London) who's warden ran towards the vehicle as I had stopped at a red light, and in the time intervening got out of the car to rush an envelope into the bank. On returning he had commenced writing the PCN while my wife was addressing him as to the particular want of humanity, since I was now already departing. I remarked at the inhumanity of his exigency and drove off parking a further 50 yard s away waiting for my wife. She had collected the PCN from the warden, all the time being observed by another 4 or 5 wardens and supervisors. On returning home,I had retired to bed, as the timeout was for medication required to abate an awful attack of sciatica. AQ representation was made on human terms for forgiveness. This was refused. I then researched and inspected the conduct of TfL and confirmed the warden was NOT wearing his hat, or his jacket (in such a hurry) and issued the PCN to my wife while I drove away. I discovered, and you can see confirmation in the full complaint pages, elsewhere, that VDA, vehicle drove away, in cases where the PCN was not given to the driver or affixed to the screen, have to be SPOILED on the same day of issue. It also was illegible.
TfL had committed FIVE offences under the law, (RTA 1991) in trying to enforce my SINGLE momentary impulsive stopping.
Look for inconsistencies, and bias that is fundamental to every argument. Stephenson's semantics focus on statements like: “ I love strawberries”, amounts to saying “I like strawberries, you do likewise”. What is your interlocutor trying to persuade you to do and why?
If its an internal review or of a fellow member at work, peer group, or you do not know the composition of the review body, or his/her inclinations then assume it is a set up, since that at least ensures you will be sceptical.
The government no longer trusts the citizens, they require proof of identity, proof of conduct, behaviour, and are distrustful of almost anything one says. There argument is “I don't know you, why should I trust you?”, Just because they appear frequently in the media, does not that familiarity ensures one knows them at all. In real life frequently the public persona is substantially different from the private one.
Separation of powers works in some areas where there is supposed to be no interference between the various bodies concerned, but generally the party holding the purse strings has considerable measure of control over the parties receiving payment.
The first signs of fallacy in the mechanism is a general openness and readiness to review bad decisions, by the use of committees, review bodies and quasi judicial institutions set up and paid for, directly or indirectly by the perpetrators of those bad decisions makers in the first place. This readiness is combined with the agenda to remain in the position, or else for a brief period of excommunication to return to it, which is the first sign of want in integrity. A person guilty of poor decision making, especially those with detrimental consequences should, when presenting his actions for examination, be prepared and offer resignation forthwith, (a reasonable system of compensatory dismissal package being available) as a sign that the the position is to be vacated for a more capable person to assume the position. No one is indispensable being the first criterion for this procedure. The second is that the review body MUST be of a composition that is as freely organised as a common jury, (which present democracy wishes to reduce with economic arguments that compared with financial waste like the Millennium Dome pale into pathetic fallacy and gibberish.) If this rule is not followed then expect and anticipate a 'whitewash'.
The Conduct is misprision towards the taxpayer, and should be made accountable carrying custodial sentencing and severe penalties for what amounts to treasonable conduct towards the citizens embodied in a truly representative state machinery reflecting voters interest under a properly conducted democracy. The present UK machinery is designed to stealth tax and plunder the citizen's personal resources with sanctimonious styled sophistry relying on the credent bulk that is associated with cenralised power mechanisms.
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