Month: May 2010

Frondizi on the Philosophical Attitude

Risieri Fondizi's What is Value? An Introduction to Axiology, tr. S. Lipp (Open Court, 1963) has stood up well since its English debut over forty five years ago. What follows is a noteworthy metaphilosophical observation of Frondizi's:

The philosophical attitude is basically problematic. He who is not capable of grasping the sense of problems and who prefers to seize upon the first solution that presents itself, and which offers him illusory stability, runs the risk of being submerged, together with his so-called solution, in a sea of difficulties. (p. 26)

'Problematic' can mean dubious. But what Frondizi intends is best rendered by 'problem-oriented.' A philosopher is someone who is sensitive to puzzles, problems, and mysteries. Or, as I like to say, the philospher is one who has the aporetic sense.   I once heard Roderick Chisholm say that one is not philosophizing until one has a puzzle. That's exactly right. But of course it's an old thought. At Theaetetus 155, Plato tells us that philosophy begins in wonder or perplexity, this being the characteristic feeling of the philosopher. Aristotle echoes the idea at Metaphysics 982b10.

Wilfrid Sellars once likened the philosopher's touch to that of King Midas. Whatever the king touched, turned into gold; whatever the  philosopher touches turns into a puzzle. The trouble with this comparison is that it suggests that philosophers create their difficulties. Not so: they discover them, or at least some of them. We could call the ones that are discovered the ground-level problems, distinguishing them from problems that arise as artifacts of theories proposed in solution of the ground-level problems. The ground-level problems are in a  certain sense 'out there' independent of our linguistic and conceptual operations. Pace Wittgenstein, they are not engendered by a  "bewtchment of our understanding by language" (eine Verhexung unseres  Verstandes durch die Sprache). Pace Rorty, they do not arise as artifacts of arbitrarily adopted ways of talking.

The problem of universals, for example, is a perennial problem. It may not interest you, or seem important, but it is there whether you like it or not, and it has repercussions for problems you probably will find important. We attribute properties to things, and sometimes the things to which we attribute the properties actually have them. But what are properties? Are they mental in nature, or perhaps linguistic? Or are properties independent of language and mind? If the latter, are they universals (repeatable entities) or particulars (unrepeatable entities such as sets or tropes)? If properties are universals, can they exist uninstantiated, or can they only exist when instantiated?  How are properties related to the things that have them. 

These are some of the questions that arise when we think about what is somewhat misleadingly called the problem of universals. 'The problem of properties' is perhaps a better moniker.

The onus probandi is on anyone who claims that this problem (or cluster of problems) is not genuine.

Another Round with Reppert on AZ SB 1070: Reasonable Suspicion

In his most recent post on this topic, Victor Reppert tells us that his "main concern is with the 'reasonable suspicion' clause. That strikes me as horribly vague."  Here is the relevant SB 1070 passage as amended by HB 2162 which contains the clause in question:

For any lawful contact stop, detention or arrest made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of this state or a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who and is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation. 

Reppert continues:

In our state, most illegals are Hispanics, but most Hispanics are not illegals. If you define your conception of what it takes to have reasonable suspicion, and on my blog I made an un-remarked-upon recommendation that we have reasonable suspicion just in case we have objective criteria leading to the conclusion that it is more likely than not that the person is illegal, then you could at least eliminate the worst of the profiling problems. You can't just stop a Hispanic and make an immigration status inquiry, because being Hispanic is not sufficient for it to be more than 50% likely that the person is here illegally. (Emphasis added)

I believe Reppert is missing the point here.  I agree with the last quoted sentence.  But the  1070 law does not mandate that Hispanics be stopped at random to have their status checked.  The law clearly states the conditions under which an immigration inquiry may proceed:

1.  There must be a lawful stop, detention, or arrest.

2. The stop, detention, or arrest must be made in the enforcement of a law other than 1070.

3.  There must be reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien.

4.  The immigration inquiry must be practicable.

5.  The immigration inquiry must not hinder or obstruct an investigation.

I should think that Reppert's 50% rule is satisfied if all the conditions are observed.  For example, during a lawful traffic stop, the cop has the right to ask for a driver's license.  If the Hispanic driver has no license, no proof of insurance, no registration, has a campesino sticker on his bumper, is driving a junker, etc.  then the the chance that he is illegal is way over 50%.

There is a distinction I made earlier which is very important and which Reppert may be ignoring, the distinction between a law and its enforcement.  If a law is reasonable and just, it is these things whether or not some cowboy of a cop oversteps his legitimate  authority in its enforcement.  It would be absurd to argue that a particular law should be repealed because there may be abuses in its enforcement.  For any such argument would 'prove too much': it would prove that every law ought to be repealed.  For every law is such that an abuse can occur in its enforcement.

Five Grades of Self-Referential Inconsistency: Towards a Taxonomy

Some sentences, whether or not they are about other things, are about themselves. They refer to themselves. Hence we say they are 'self-referential.' The phenomenon of sentential self-referentiality is sometimes benign. One example is 'This sentence is true.' Another  is 'Every proposition is either true or false.' Of interest here are the more or less malignant forms of self-reference. One example is the so-called Liar sentence:

1. This sentence is false.

If (1) is true, then it is false, and if false, then true. This is an example of an antinomy. In pursuit of a taxonomy, we might call this Grade I of self-referential inconsistency. Grade I, then, is the class
of self-referentially inconsistent sentences that issue in antinomies.

There are other self-referential sentences that are not antinomies, but imply their own necessary falsehood. These are such that, if true, then false, and if false, then false, and are therefore necessarily false. For example,

2. All generalizations are false.

If (2) is true, then, since (2) is itself a generalization, (2) is false. But its falsity does not imply its truth. So, if false, then false. Assuming Bivalence, it follows that (2) is necessarily false, whence it follows that its negation — Some generalizations are true  – is necessarily true, and moreover an instance of itself. A second example might be

3. There are no truths.

If (3) is true, then it is false. And if false, then false. So, (3) is necessarily false, whence it follows that its negation — There are truths — is necessarily true.

Examples (2) and (3) belong to Grade II in my tentative taxonomy. These are self-referential sentences that entail their own necessary falsehood. Grade III comprises those self-referential sentences that are such that if true, then neither true nor false, and if false, then false. For example,

4. There are no truth-bearers.

If (4) is true, then, since (4) is a truth-bearer, (4) is neither true nor false. But if false, then false. If we define the cognitively meaningful as that which is either true or false, then (4) is either cognitively meaningless or false. A more interesting example that seems to belong in Grade III is the Verifiability Principle of the Logical Positivists:

5. Every cognitively meaningful sentence is either analytic or empirically verifiable in principle.

If (5) is supposed to be cognitively (as opposed to emotionally) meaningful, and thus not a mere linguistic recommendation or pure stipulation, then it applies to itself. So if (5) is true, then (5) —
which is clearly neither analytic nor verifiable — is meaningless. So, if true, then meaningless, and if false, then false. Therefore, either meaningless or false. Not good!

Grade IV comprises those self-referential sentences that can be described as self-vitiating (self-weakening) though they are not strictly self-refuting. For example,

6. All truths are relative.

If (6) is true, then (6) is relative, i.e., relatively true. It is not the case that if (6) is true, then (6) is false. So (6) is not self-refuting. Nevertheless, (6) is self-vitiating in that it relativizes and thus weakens itself: if true, it cannot be absolutely true; it can only be relatively true. It is therefore a mistake, one often made, to say that he who affirms (6) contradicts himself.  He does not.  He would contradict himself only if he maintained that it is nonrelatively true that all truths are relative.  But no sophisticated relativist would say such a thing.  Other examples which seem to fall into the category of the self-vitiating:

7. Every statement is subject to revision. (Quine)
8. Every theory reflects class interests. (Marxism)
9. All theory is ideology. (Marxism)
10. Nothing can be known.
11. Nothing is known.
12. Nothing is certain.
13. All truth is historical.
14. All is opinion.

What is wrong with self-vitiating propositions? What does their weakness consist in? Consider (8). If (8) is true, then the theory that every theory reflects class interests itself reflects class interests. Suppose (8) reflects the class interests of the proletariat. Then what is that to me, who am not a proletarian? What is it to anyone who is not a proletarian? If (8) is true only for you and those with your interests, and your interests are not my interests, then I have been given no reason to modify my views.  The trouble with (7)-(14) and their ilk is that they make a claim on our rational attention, on our common rational interest, while undercutting that very claim.

It seems we need a fifth category. The sentences of Grade V are such that, if they are true then they are, not false, and not self-vitiating, but non-assertible. Consider

15. No statement is negative.

(15) applies to itself and so at first appears to refute itself: if (15) is true, then it is false. And if false, then false; hence necessarily false. But consider a possible world W in which God destroys all negative statements and makes it impossible for anyone to make a negative statement. In W, (15) is true, but non-assertible. (15) does not prove itself to be false; it proves itself to be non-assertible.

Can the same said of

16. All is empty (Buddhism)?

I think not, for reasons supplied here.

Finally, we consider

17. All memory reports are deceptive.

This is subject to the retort that one who asserts (17) must rely on memory, and so must presuppose the reliability of the faculty whose reliability he questions by asserting (17). For if anyone is to be in a position responsibly to affirm (17), to affirm it with a chance of its being true, he must remember that on some occasions he has misremembered. He must remember and remember correctly that some of his memories were merely apparent. It seems obvious, then, that the truth of (17) is inconsistent with its correctly being affirmed as true. If true, it is unaffirmable as true. But this is different from saying that (17), if true, is false. Although (17) is unaffirmable or non-assertible if true, it seems that (17) could be true nonetheless.

Illegal Immigration, The Catholic Bishops, and the Misuse of Scripture

(Written 26 April 2006, revised 23 May 2010)

At the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, we read:

Why is the Catholic Church involved in the immigration issue? There are several reasons the Catholic Church is involved in the  immigration debate. The Old and New Testaments, as well as the encyclicals of the Popes, form the basis for the Church's position.  In Gospel of Matthew, Jesus calls upon us to "welcome the  stranger,for what you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. " (Mt. 25-35, 40).

There is a deep mistake being made here, and we should try to understand what it is. The mistake is to confuse the private and public spheres and the different moralities pertaining to each.

Note first that if one scriptural passage can be invoked as a basis for public policy and law, then any can. We are enjoined in other New Testament places to "Resist not the evildoer," "Turn the other cheek," and the like. 

Injunctions such as these cannot be made the basis for public policy whatever value they have in the private sphere.

Imagine a society that implements a policy of not resisting (apprehending, trying, convicting, incarcerating) rapists, murderers, and miscreants generally. Such a society would seal its own death
warrant and cease to function. It is a fact of human nature that people, in the main, behave tolerably well only under threat of punishment. People for the most part do not do the right thing because  it is the right thing, but out of fear of punishment. This is not pessimism, but realism, and is known to be true by all unprejudiced students of history and society.  Conservatives know this 'with their bones'; liberals need to learn it the hard way.  Therefore not even a 'Christian' society can afford to make "Resist not the evildoer" a principle of public policy.

As for turning the other cheek, it is a policy that works well in certain atypical circumstances. If a man has a well-formed conscience, and is capable of feeling shame, then turning the other cheek in the face of his affront can achieve a result far superior to that achieved by replying in kind. Nonviolence can work. Gandhi's nonviolent resistance to the British may serve as an historical example. The Brits could be shamed and in any case Gandhi had no other means at his disposal. But imagine what would happen if Israel turned the other cheek in the face of its Islamist enemies who would blow it off the face of the earth at the first opportunity?

Once your enemy has reduced you to the status of a pig or a dog fit only to be slaughtered, then there is no way to reach him, shame him, or persuade him by acts of forebearance and kindness. You must resist him, with deadly force if necessary, if you wish to preserve your existence.  The evil triumph when the good fail to defend themselves.

But is it not better to suffer wrong than to inflict it, as Socrates maintained? Would it not be better to perish than to defend one's life by taking life? Perhaps, but only if the underlying metaphysics and
soteriology are true. If the soul is immortal, and the phenomenal world is of no ultimate concern — being a vale of tears, a place through which we temporarily sojourn on our way to our true home —
then the care of the soul is paramount and to suffer wrong is better than to inflict it.

The same goes for Christianity which, as Nietzsche remarks, is "Platonism for the people." If you are a Christian, and look beyond this world for your true happiness, then you are entitled to practice
an austere morality in your private life. But you are not entitled to impose that morality and metaphysics on others, or demand that the State codify that morality and metaphysics in its laws and policies. For one thing, it would violate the separation of Church and State. More importantly, the implementation of Christian morality would lead to the destruction of the State and the State's ability to secure life, liberty, and property — the three Lockean purposes for which we have a state in the first place.

The problem of confusing private and public morality is well understood by Hannah Arendt ("Truth and Politics" in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1968, p. 245):

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked "to do as much evil as they please"), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with "what is good for themselves" cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the "common good," the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher/Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher/Christian, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic "Better to suffer wrong than to do it" and the Christian "Resist not the evildoer." But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to influence public opinion, people like Catholic bishops. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

A Catholic bishop, therefore, who is pro illegal immigration on the strength of the "welcome the stranger" passage demonstrates a failure to understand the simple point that Arendt undescores.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his perishable body, is not applicable to me as citizen. As a citizen, I
cannot "welcome the stranger" who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug-smuggler or a human-trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I cannot aid and abet his law-breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger's lawbreaking, I would not be "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's."

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops who cannot comprehend the simple distinctions I have tried to set forth.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Three More Torch Songs

A couple of weeks ago I hauled out some old torch songs from the musty mausoleum. Here are a couple more.  The definition again: "A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, where one party is either oblivious to the existence of the other, or where one party has moved on." (Wikipedia)

Gogi Grant, The Wayward Wind (1956).  Made the #1 Billboard position.  The tune has haunted me since I was six years old.  Toni Fisher, The Big Hurt (1959).  Made the Billboard #3 slot.  The first verse hints at the origin of 'torch song':

Now it begins, now that you've gone
Needles and pins, twilight till dawn
Watching that clock till you return
Lighting that torch and watching it burn

Is this the first recording to use a phase shifter?  Pretty far-out for the 'fifties.  While we're on the topic of special effects, the first fuzz tone occurs as far as I know in Marty Robbins' Don't Worry About Me (1961).

 

Atheism, Materialism, and Intellectual Respectability

Joseph A.  e-mails:

Just a quick question. You recently posted that you think atheism can be intellectually respectable. Fair enough. But wouldn't you agree that intellectual respectability in general seems to be assumed more often than it should be?

To put a point on the question: Do you think materialism is intellectually respectable? I seem to recall you saying that (at the least) eliminative materialism is a view you wouldn't bother teaching in a philosophy course. Yet it also seems that some people, even those who would argue that theism isn't intellectually respectable, would bend over backwards to deny that EM isn't as well.

We should begin with a working definition of 'intellectually respectable.'  I suggest the following:

A view V is intellectually respectable =df V is logically consistent with (not ruled out by) anything we can legitimately claim to know.

People claim to know all sorts of things they do not know, which explains the qualifier 'legitimately.'   Note also that truth and intellectual respectability are different properties.  What is true might not be intellectually respectable, and what is intellectually respectable might not be true.  Truth is absolute while intellectual respectability is relative to the class of people to whom 'we' in the definition refers.  And which class is this?  Well, it would include me and Peter Lupu and other astute  contemporaries who are well apprised of the facts of logic and mathematics and science and history and common sense.  It would not include a lady I once encountered who thought that the Moon is the source of its light.  That opinion is not intellectually respectable. 

There are indefinitely many views that are clearly not intellectually respectable, and indefinitely many that clearly are.  The interesting cases are the ones that lie in between.  Let's consider two.

1. Eliminative materialism.  This is defended by some otherwise  sane  people, but I would say it is not intellectually respectable.  For it is ruled out by plain facts that we can legitimately claim to know, such facts as that we have beliefs and desires.  It is a  position in the philosophy of mind that denies the very data of the philosophy of mind.  Here is an argument that some might think supports it:

(1) If beliefs are anything, then they are brain states; (2) beliefs exhibit original intentionality; (3) no physical state, and thus no brain state, exhibits original intentionality; therefore (4) there are no beliefs. 

But anyone with his head screwed on properly should be able to see that this argument does not establish (4) but is instead a reductio ad absurdum of premise (1) according to which beliefs are nothing if not brain states.  For if anything is obvious, it is that there are beliefs.  This is a pre-theoretical datum, a given.  What they are is up for grabs, but that they are is a starting-point that cannot be denied except by those in the grip of  an ideology.  Since the argument is valid in point of logical form, and the conclusion is manifestly, breath-takingly,  false, what the argument shows is that beliefs cannot be brain states.

2.  Theism.  Not every version of theism is intellectually respectable, obviously, but some are.  If you think otherwise, tell me which known fact rules  out a sophisticated version, say, the version elaborated over several books by Richard Swinburne.  ('Known fact' is not pleonastic in the way 'true fact' is; a fact can be unknown.)

a.  Will it be the 'fact' that nothing immaterial exists?  But that's not a fact, let alone a known fact.  Abstracta such as the proposition expressed by 'Nothing immaterial exists' are immaterial but indispensable.  Arguments to the effect  that they are dispensable merely show at the very most that it is debatable  whether abstracta are dispensable, with the upshot that it will not be a known fact that nothing immaterial exists.  No one can legitimately claim to know that nothing immaterial exists.

 b.  Will it be the fact that nothing both concrete and immaterial exists?  Even if this is a fact, it is not a known fact.  I am arguably a res cogitans.  We do not know that this is not the case the way we know that the Moon is not fifty miles from Earth.

c. Will it be the fact of evil?  But how do you know that evil is a fact at all?  Can you legitimately claim to know that the people and events you call evil are objectively evil and not merely such that you dislike or disapprove of them?  But even if evil is an objective fact, what makes you think that it is logically inconsistent with the existence of God? The Hume-Mackie logical argument from evil is almost universally rejected by contemporary philosophers. 

My claim is that there is no fact which we can claim to know — in the way we can claim to know that the Moon is more than 50 miles from Earth — that rules out the existence of God.  But I also claim that there is no such fact that rules it in.  Both theism  and atheism are intellectually respectable. I take no position at the moment on the question whether one is more respectable than the other, or more likely to be true; my claim is merely that both are intellectually respectable — in the way that eliminative materialism and the belief that the Moon is its own source of light are not intellectually respectable.

Eat, Drink, and Beat Harry

IMG_0363 There are cartoons we never forget. One in Chess Life some years back depicted two intense guys bent over a chess board. The caption read, "Eat, drink, and beat Harry."

Emmanuel Lasker would have liked that. He was always going on about the role of Kampf, stuggle, in chess. Lasker would also have liked this quotation lifted from Michael Gilleland's erudite weblog:

After all, what would life be without fighting, I should like to know? From the cradle to the grave, fighting, rightly understood, is the business, the real highest, honestest business of every son of man. Every one who is worth his salt has his enemies, who must be beaten, be they evil thoughts and habits in himself, or spiritual wickednesses in high places, or Russians, or Border-ruffians, or Bill, Tom, or Harry, who will not let him live his life in quiet till he has thrashed them. (Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays, Part II, Chapter V.)

Next time I'm paired with Crazy Harry, I'm going to thrash that meshuggeneh patzer and I'm going to thrash him good.

The Ambiguity of ‘Verify’

There are sentences the uttering of which falsifies them, and sentences the uttering of which verifies them. An example of the former is 'I am not talking now.' The act of uttering this sentence falsifies it. By contrast, the act of uttering 'I am talking now' verifies it.  If to falsify is to make false, then to verify is to make true.

But 'verify' (from L. veritas, truth) is ambiguous, and clarity will be served if we distinguish its two senses, one epistemological, the other ontological.

In the epistemological sense, to verify a claim is to ascertain whether or not it is true. In its ontological sense, to verify is to make true. My saying 'I am now talking' makes true the proposition expressed by the sentence; it is not part of any ascertaining of the truth of the proposition expressed. The utterance-event is the truth-maker of the proposition in question. It is the ontic ground of the proposition's truth.  There is, therefore, a clear sense in which the truthmaker of a truthbearer is its verifier.

Liberace and Liberation

Did Liberace seek liberation? No, he sought to make a big showy splash in the world — which he did. But now the ripples have all subsided, and all that is left is a cheesy Las Vegas museum stuffed with his gaudy possessions –except that he no longer possesses what once possessed him.

Are Immigration Laws Discriminatory?

Liberals routinely complain that immigration laws such as the recently enacted Arizona Senate Bill 1070 are 'discriminatory.'  This is nonsense, of course, but it is important to understand why.

1.  Let's start with the very notion of discrimination.  Discrimination as such is neither good nor bad.  In this respect it is like change.  Change as such  is neither good nor bad: there is change for the good and change for the bad.  Change for the good is improvement, but not all change is improvement.  (Obama take note.)  Similarly, there is justifiable discrimination and unjustifiable discrimination.  As a matter of fact we all discriminate all the time.  When you refuse to eat rotten food and insist on fresh, you are discriminating.  When you forbid your children from associating with crackheads, you are discriminating.  When you sort arguments into the valid and the invalid, you are discriminating.  When you accept the true and reject the false, you are discriminating.  Such discriminations are obviously justifiable.  But that is to understate the point.  Anyone who fails to discriminate between people with whom it would be dangerous for his children to associate and those with whom it would not be dangerous is  guilty of dereliction of parental duty. Discrimination is not only in a vast range of cases permissible; it is obligatory.

2.  The same goes for laws.  Every law discriminates against those who either do or fail to do the actions either proscribed or prescribed by the law.  A law that proscribes the operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated discriminates against drunk drivers. Is that a problem?  Of course not.  Discrimination in cases like these is obviously justifiable. 

3.  So there is a clear sense in which SB 1070 is discriminatory:  it discriminates against those who are in the country illegally.  Now I hope our liberal pals are not opposed to 1070 for its being discriminatory in this sense.  Presumably, what they will say is that it 'targets' Hispanics and discriminates against them unjustifiably.  But this is a false and scurrilous allegation.  It does not 'target' Hispanics, it targets illegal aliens.  Of course, the vast majority of illegal aliens in the Southwest are Hispanics.  But that is irrelevant.  The objection to them is not that they are Hispanic, but that they are illegal.

It takes a little subtlety of mind to understand this, but not that much.  Suppose someone said that drunk driving  laws are unjust because they disproportionately affect those of Irish extraction.  You would of course respond that if they are the ones who are doing most of the drunk driving, then it only right that they should be the ones who disproportionately suffer the penalty.  You would point out that, even if it is true that most drunk drivers are Irish, the objection to them is not that they are Irish, but that they are drunk drivers.

4.  1070 does not unfairly 'target' Hispanics despite the barrage of lies emanating from the Left.  So what are liberals/leftists really opposed to? They are opposed to the very notion of national sovereignty and national borders.  They simply do not want border control.  But being  mendacious, they will not come out and clearly state that.  So they use weasel phrases like 'comprehensive immigration reform' which either mean nothing or are code for amnesty and open borders. 

Seize and Squeeze

Seize the day and squeeze it for all the juice it's worth. Repeat tomorrow. And no day without a little Emerson:

 . . . we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with, accepting our   actual companions and circumstances, however humble or odious, as  the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole pleasure for us. (From "Experience")

Generalizations are the Offspring of Wisdom

People foolishly oppose generalization. One often hears, 'Never generalize!' But of course that itself is a generalization in the imperative mood. The partisan of brute particularity who so opines is hoist by his own petard.

So it was with pleasure that I heard Dennis Prager one day  remark   that "Generalizations are the mother of wisdom." But being a quibbler and a pedant, I cannot forebear to suggest an improvement:

   Generalizations are the offspring of wisdom

 or

   Generalization is wisdom's distillate.

 For wisdom does not spring from generalization; it is rather that generalizations spring from wisdom as its expression and codification.