Monday, May 7, 2012

[PL 211] At least be consistent



Is Missouri state representative Wanda Brown being inconsistent?

If she thinks that firing someone for owning guns is unjust does logical consistency require that she also think that firing someone for being gay is unjust?

Similarly, if she supports the right of gun-owners not to be fired for owning guns does logical consistency require that she also support the right of gay people not to be fired for being gay?

5 comments:

  1. I do not believe that Wanda Brown is being inconsistent. Even though I might disagree with the basis of Wanda Brown’s views, I would be hard-pressed to call her inconsistent from what she said. Based on the clip from The Daily Show, Wanda Brown is exclusively concerned with the rights of gun owners. The passing of House Bill 1621 further accomplishes this task by prohibiting employers from firing their employees for owning a gun.
    I do not think that someone can call Wanda Brown inconsistent because the right to bear arms and sexual orientation are completely unrelated to each other. I believe that the connection between the rights of gun owners and sexual orientation never would have been made on any other station other than Comedy Network. Wanda Brown is just as consistent in her support of gun owners as she is in her disapproval of homosexuals.
    Logical consistency does not require that Wanda Brown support homosexuals just because she supports gun owners. There is no written rule saying that we have to support all discriminated groups just because we support one. However, I believe that Wanda Brown is being very narrow-minded in your opinions and focus her efforts elsewhere.

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  2. Wanda Brown is absolutely being inconsistent. She is using her political power to make laws that are only beneficial to herself. I think that getting fired for owning a gun was never an issue in the state of Missouri, but rather, I think she thought that she might be judged for owning a gun of her own. It is clear that she is an advocate for gun use since she is seen firing a gun in the footage.

    Her logic is very inconsistent in that she says she disagrees with discrimination. However, she was one of the people who voted against protecting the rights of LGBT employees in discrimination. I think it is very hypocritical to say that you disagree with discrimination, but apparently, not ALL discrimination. Discrimination with individuals and their sexual orientation is more of a prevalent issue than discrimination with individuals that own guns potentially losing their jobs.

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  3. After watching the video, I do think that Missouri state representative Wanda Brown was being inconsistent. She proposed a bill after claiming that people get fired from their jobs because they own firearms. Wanda Brown said that she proposed this bill because it was another way of protecting the second amendment which states that people have the rights to bear arms. However, when the reporter went to interview people, who own firearms, they never got “fired” because of that reason. The funny thing is Wanda Brown, the person who proposes this bill, couldn't even provide some examples of when someone got fired because of owning firearms. She is inconsistent with her claim because there are no logical premises for her to make a truth conclusion. In “Exploring Philosophy”, the author explains that when a person makes a claim he/she should always have some logical facts that can back it up. The argument that Brown made was that people get fired for owning firearm, but she couldn't provide any truthful premises to back up that conclusion. This is an example of invalid argument where the premises fail to provide logically support for the conclusion. Therefore, if the premises are true, then there is a good enough foundation for the conclusion to be true as well. A valid argument/claim should always come with true premises and a true conclusion.

    If Wanda Brown thinks that firing someone for owning firearms is unjust because it has to do with discrimination, then she should also think firing someone for sexual orientation is unjust. This is what people would think because it is consistent with what she is claiming about discrimination, since the gays are being discriminating. Not only that, but the reporter also has examples to back up the statement that is being claim in this situation. Similarly, if she supports the right of gun-owners not to be fired for owning guns, then it is logical consistence for her to also support the right of gay people not to be fired for being gay. She should support it because of everything that she is claiming. She claims that she is against discrimination and wants to prevent it, so if she is consistent with her belief then she should also support it. This example also shows that she is inconsistent with her claim because if she was so against discrimination, then she wouldn't have vote against the right of gays a year ago.

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  4. I agree, Wanda Brown is being inconsistent trying to pass new laws in the state of Missouri preventing discrimination. The definition discrimination is action that denies social participation or human rights to categories of people based on prejudice.
    Wanda Brown passed a law that anyone with a gun may not be fired from employment. This law is already implemented under the constitution on owning firearms. Brown thinks it is unjust to be fired for having a firearm, but when asked about a bigger problem in the United States about human sexuality, she tried to ignore the situation. If Brown’s argument was about helping state residents having equal rights during employment, she should be encouraging the equality of human sexuality. She is picking and choosing on what she thinks is discrimination, creating inconsistency.
    If Wanda supports discrimination against firearms, she should support the discrimination of sexual equality. It would be logical for here to be supporting all equality towards discrimination. When she was asked how many have been fired for having firearms, she had no answer. Wanda did not make any sense on implementing that new law, but was not looking at the bigger picture on trying to help bigger problems on homosexuality. In the state of Missouri there were many cases of firing employees on the discrimination of sexuality. She was not helping any when she was asked about but was in the defense saying, “maybe she was a bad employee”. Also she even voted against human sexuality when the new law was trying to be implemented in Missouri. Wanda is being inconsistent trying to prevent discrimination.

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  5. Assuming Wanda Brown is against "discrimination" in the workplace that would cause someone to be fired over his/her preferences (gun ownership, sexuality, genre of movie), then Wanda is not logically consistent. To say that the workplace is free from discrimination, would require that she support laws that provide a safe and equal enviorment for all workers. By supporting the right of gun-owners not to be fired for owning guns, logical consistency requires that she also support the right of gay people not to be fired for being in a "gay" relationship.

    John Desepoli

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