Pelosi Logic

A summalogica follower recently sent in the following Nancy Pelosi quote to Dr. Logic.  Dr. Logic will review every submission and decide whether or not to do the analysis.  If analysis is done, Dr. Logic will publish the analysis on this site.  Please send all submissions to Drlogic@summalogica.com.  Here is the quote:

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

When this was submitted, the Doctor thought that it must have been quoted out-of-context.  The quote comes from,
“Pelosi Remarks at the 2010 Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties.” You can read the entire speech here. The paragraph preceding the quote reads,

“You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other.  But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket.  Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.”

Because I’m sure this was said off-the-cuff, after all, no speech writer would be this careless, I will ignore its issues.  Now that you have context, here is the quote, again:

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Logic is but a small part of why this is disturbing.  The “fog of the controversy” is hardly the reason that “we need to pass it [healthcare legislation] to find out what’s in it.”  She is hoping that it is a box of chocolates and you never know what you are going to get…but it is chocolates and not guano, she will assure us.

Speaker Pelosi’s logical error is the Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc fallacy. Her assumption that the “fog of controversy” is the cause of the people’s inability to know what’s in the legislation shows her arrogant detachment from true causes.  The arrogance comes from the previous paragraph where, in condescending clairvoyance, she venerates the virtues of the measure that she can see clearly, even “very very” clearly, but that we, the fogged, the governed, will be unable to see.  Such is the condition of the governed.

Speaker Pelosi is correct in saying that, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” The true reasons are that 1) it is a convoluted quagmire, a complex colossus of cryptic conundrums.

“Senate bill weighs in at 2,074 pages

In the Battle of the Health Bills, the Senate wins out, bulk-wise – weighing in at 2,074 pages.  The House health reform bill was a mere 1,990 pages when introduced.  That means the Senate bill — like the one in the House – runs more pages than War and Peace, and has nearly five times as many words as the Torah.  The table of contents alone is 14 pages.”

The second reason is that, no matter what, there will be vast, unintended consequences.

What if it were precisely the controversy that is lifting the fog of over 2000 pages and unknown consequences?

Dr. Logic does not care for politics.  He wishes to expose and educate all who suffer from logical angst without regard for party, preference, or persuasion.  Please submit the statements you wish to analyze to drlogic@summalogica.com