The next line in Obama's Weekly Address is: "But history shows that you need to have economic growth before you have job growth."
"History" shows no such thing. History is not in the habit of "showing" things. It takes a lot of supposition and interpretation to wring any confessions out of mute ol' history. What the assertion "history shows..." actually means is that the speaker can't be bothered to present actual evidence supporting a viewpoint, in part because the speaker thinks the opinion is so self-evidently true that it needs no confirmation by careful argument and evidence. In other words, it is a dogma, an article of faith. History shows, in short, that the expression "history shows..." is an evasion of argument and an assertion of dogma. -- Sandwichman _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
