Chilcot said (paraphrase) ‘I think a leader should be straight with the country AND should take the country with them; Blair didn’t do this’. The negation of a conjunction doesn’t imply the negation of both conjuncts. Therefore, Chilcot didn’t say Blair wasn’t straight with the country.
(N.B. I think the bastard lied. I’m just making a logical point.)
Took Chilcot years to tell us, what enough people knew from the start, was guff. It’s as if he purposefully took his time so it would be remote enough in the public’s mind to be a history, so people could only shrug & say “what ya gonna do?”
“Chilcot said (paraphrase) ‘I think a leader should be straight with the country AND should take the country with them; Blair didn’t do this’.”
This’s true about every politician who’s ever existed. Being part of a party – or a party machine – means that lies are involved. For example, Jeremy Corbyn has just being accused (many times) of lying about his relation to the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s. Sure, this may be disputed. Though the same can be said about Tony Blair. Every accusation against Blair can be disputed. We surely can’t be selective when it comes to who or what we do – or don’t – apply our philosophical skills to. That would be an affront to philosophy… wouldn’t it?
“I think a leader should be straight with the country AND should take the country with them; Blair didn’t do this’.
You say:
“The negation of a conjunction doesn’t imply the negation of both conjuncts. Therefore, Chilcot didn’t say Blair wasn’t straight with the country.”
No it doesn’t.
It’s true that leaders *should* be “straight with their country”. It has to be established that Blair wasn’t straight. In many respects I don’t think he was. In other respects, I don’t think any leader is entirely straight. We choose to accuse those of not being straight according to our politics.
“N.B. I think the bastard lied. I’m just making a logical point.”
You shouldn’t use your professional position as a position against Blair or against anyone else. That is a kind of *ad hominem*, isn’t it?.
This was written very quickly. i may need to qualify certain phrases.
As you know, Catholic and Protestant philosophers in the Anglo-American analytic tradition had different standards towards their religious views than towards than their strictly philosophical views. Perhaps this is also true of analytic philosophers and their views of politics….
Tony Blair is a proven liar. Jeremy Corbyn is a proven liar. Pick any politician – and he or she will probably be a liar. That’s because the majority of people are liars. The big difference is that politicians have political power. Therefore their lies matter more. Their lies can cause much more damage; and, yes, even death.
Politicians, then, aren’t any worse, on average, than anyone else. I have met liars, criminals, greedy and narcissistic people in universities, on the streets of Keighley, and even in churches. All people are fallen in that our biology and biochemicals work against altruism and goodness. Some people rise above all that – including some politicians.
By the way, I read your Chilcot post in the wrong way. It’s correct that an acceptance of a conjunction isn’t also an acceptance of both conjuncts. But that doesn’t really matter in this context.
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Conscience and Consciousness 
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