Dr David Wright Neville, Monash University academic, occasional commentator for Neil Mitchell's talkback program (3AW), and staunch member of the PC class, gets an 'F' for logic

David Wright Neville's regular appearances on Neil Mitchell's program reinforces, I suspect, the opinion of many ordinary people way down below the level of such academic heights that some academics earn their letters for their degree of ideological fidelity. For me it has been a reassuring and healthy sign that listeners dare to ring 3AW during Wright Neville's performances to tackle him.

It's not his specialty that is the problem. We should take seriously the claim that he has specialist knowledge of his particular area, which seems to be international relations and the threat of terrorism. No, it's his shameless campaigning on behalf of his political class. And when it comes to politicking he is for the ordinary punter as transparent as a freshly cleaned pane of glass.

Very often we will be treated to his analysis of a particular issue of terrorism, for example, and then amidst the reeling off of information only he as an academic has access to we will be suddenly confronted with an unwarranted leap in logic which brings us unerringly to the proposition that John Howard is a liar, is power-drunk, will do anything to shore up his position, and will cynically manipulate the worst social conditions or international circumstances to ingratiate himself with the electorate - in order to maintain government. The paradigm case is the Tampa Affair, which has been the basis of the massive myth-making of the PC class. ABC online summarised the affair thus:

The Norwegian vessel [MV Tampa] picked up 433 asylum-seekers from a boat sinking in international waters between Australia and Indonesia. The Government ordered Tampa not to enter Australian waters but the captain defied the order and moved towards Christmas Island. The SAS was ordered to board the vessel, and naval and air force patrols of international waters between Australian and Indonesia were stepped up and the Government rushed in legislation to give its move certain legal backing.
ABC Tampa Affair

I applauded John Howard's strength of purpose in taking what was in the circumstances necessary and unavoidable measures - in the face of his domestic enemies. As it turned out, the vast majority of Australians agreed with the Government's action. And they said so in the ballot box. Our system of democratic government thereby confirmed itself and the decision made by the government. These were the basic reasons the people had in supporting the government:

The flow of refugees through illegitimate means and avenues had to be stopped. If some were too blind to reach that conclusion through reflection on the actual circumstances, the experience of European countries showed the way. David Wright Neville would be aware of the social, political and economic problems the UK, Germany and Holland were experiencing. The fact that Holland, most liberal of countries, is taking strict popular action to manage the flow of refugees and deal with illegal migrants is surely vindication of the Howard government's action.
The actions of criminal people-smugglers taking advantage of the miserable circumstances of refugees had to be stopped. It would simply be wrong to let criminals prevail and earn fortunes through sending people out in vessels that were not seaworthy.
The growing problem of terrorism. Strict border control is absolutely necessary in managing the terrorist threat, among other problems. There is not a country now in the Western world that has not dramatically raised the security of its borders. It would have been an appalling failure of political responsibility to allow a avenue to exist along which terrorists could make their way into Australia. Terrorist experts warn now of the sleeper cells that have situated themselves between ordinary men, women and children whom they will have no compunction in killing.

If the Howard government and the majority of Australian people were wrong in their reasons for taking and supporting these actions, then so are most governments around the world. Indeed, I do not remember one commentary in the busy media at the time that adequately challenged these reasons. One of the two reasons they were not challenged was that the media was too busy creating the myth that was to prove so powerful in the course of time and provided the foundation for further myth building. The other was that there was little basis for challenging the reasons. The mad Left (the Greens) again started denouncing Australians as mean and racist, but I won't concern myself with their delusions in this piece.

The precipitation of the foundation myth came with the first voting tendency survey after the Howard government's resolute action. It showed a turnaround in support for the Howard government. Before the Tampa action the government was behind in the surveys; after, it was ahead. It held the lead and went on to win government for another term.

The ABC 7.30 Report was among the first (perhaps the first) to connect event A with event B, suggesting that the connection was necessary: event B happened solely because of event A. This looks like it could be the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which is the fallacy of saying event A caused event B because B followed A. Was it solely the government's Tampa action that won government for itself? I think it's implausible and highly unlikely. Some people may determine their vote on the basis on one particular political event to the exclusion of all others, but not the majority. Most people would have a set of reasons that cohere ultimately into a framework. The Tampa affair was more likely the event which brought coherence to a set of observations many people were making. The best that can be said is that the Tampa affair was partly responsible for some voters changing their vote.

Even if my argument here provides room for challenge, the next leap in reasoning was simply unwarranted logically. Within no time, the claim was circulating at high speed through the media and the echelons of the PC class that John Howard had cynically manipulated the refugee problem via the Tampa to win government for the Coalition. What evidence was there for the claim?

There were no premises that Wright Neville and his PC mates can isolate in the description of the circumstances, the announced measures and the reasons for those measures that will give the necessary conclusion that John Howard's sole motivation was the manipulation of the electorate to win government. These are matters of fact and Wright Neville, if he knows his David Hume, would know that matters of fact are contingent truths.

Neither could Wright Neville observe (empirically) the workings of mental processes - to state the obvious. What rests then to prove that the most obvious conclusion from John Howard's reasons and actions (i.e. that he acted in accordance with what he reasoned was right in the circumstances) was wrong? If Wright Neville goes to the usual easy answer and claims that John Howard has a proven record of lying (i.e. he is a liar) then what we have is the fallacy of begging the question (assuming what's at issue) - besides that being a regressive argument. No, Wright Neville and others have nominated the Tampa affair as the paradigm case of John Howard's (alleged) cynical political manipulation. He has to make his case on that affair. He hasn't yet bothered to try to do that and, in my view, he can't - for the reasons I have outlined.

In truth, all he is left to do is review John Howard's past actions and the reasoning processes behind those actions to make a general case. Even if he made a general case, that still does not necessarily prove his assertion about the Tampa case. But to address a possible general case, if John Howard's principal motivation in all policy making is manipulation of the electorate, then it's not likely that his goals will be consistent in terms of fixed policy and a set of principles. If they were, obviously Wright Neville would have no case.

I would argue that John Howard in terms of policy and political principle is one of the most consistent politicians of the last fifty years - the extent of my political memory - even more so than Sir Robert Menzies. That's likely to bring scornful laughter from Wright Neville and his PC mates, but that's only because they fondly imagine that their particular framework of thinking is the only legitimate framework. Here we get to the nitty gritty of the PC mind. The philosophical framework of Wright Neville (I can smell it two blocks away) is a materialist metaphysics and an empiricist epistemology which serves as the the intellectual foundation of all PC dogma. John Howard's philosophical framework is very different and in some respects the opposite.

John Howard is the most Burkean politician I have witnessed in my life time. Indeed, nobody comes close to him, apart from Menzies. The metaphysics and epistemology implicit in his political discourse is clearly realist (in philosophy), but the classical realism that dominated from Plato through to Descartes and still has an influence today. For the classical realist there is real existence outside the mind and that existence has a moral and physical structure governed by laws that the mind can apprehend. But within that metaphysical and epistemological framework can be found the classical conservative ideas about the deficiency of rationalist thinking in generating law and political policy, and the necessity of applying practical moral judgement to particular circumstances - all so eloquently explained by Edmund Burke in his writings and speeches. The application of practical moral judgement for Burke was none other than the exercise of the virtue of prudence.

The politically correct mind does not recognise this framework and arrogantly dismisses the exercise of prudence as compromise and a failure of principle. In other words, if you don't share my philosophical presuppositions you are corrupt. Count the number of times the PC class will denounce those who deviate from their ideas as corrupt - the fundamental fallacy of saying you're wrong because I am right.

There were several specific arguments that were run by the PC class at the time of the Tampa affair to demonstrate John Howard's alleged cynical manipulation of the Australian electorate - and are now repeated ad nauseam in the campaign of smear and slander. They are the argument from fear (the appeal to the irrational fears of the people), the argument from ignorance (the people did not know the real detail of refugee problem) and the argument from racism (the Australian people's 'well-known' dislike of foreigners, particularly from Muslim background). The last is a favourite of the Greens groups.

Leaving aside the woeful arrogance of those accusing the Australian people of not being up to scratch without any attempt to make the case (again, it is so because I said so), even if they made their case, then that has no logical bearing on John Howard's motivation. I simply repeat the arguments above. The electorate's supposed misapprehension of the issues is logically unconnected to the issue of John Howard's motivations.

Dr David Wright Neville may not have used these arguments - I have not heard him repeat them on the Neil Mitchell show - but the failure in reasoning is the same. He gets an 'F' for logic.