The Answer Is.... by KimB

When people look at The One Question as posed by Michael Hayden, they are often not quite sure how to answer it. It's seems to most, that there is some inherent flaw in the question and that the answer should be No, You Cannot Do That. They sense that there is something odd about the question and the way it is structured but they cannot always put their finger on exactly what is wrong and even when they know the answer is No, You Cannot Do That, they hesitate.

Some very prominent people have hesitated over this question, so it's not surprising that even if you have a “gut feeling” (the now preferred method of evidence as advocated by some members of the US Supreme Court), that there is something wrong, it's hard to identify exactly what it is.

There are quite a few issues with the question and it needs some unraveling to pinpoint the flaws. It's a very old technique to get people to answer only one way called a Loaded Question.

Loaded Question
A loaded question or complex question fallacy is a question which contains a controversial or unjustified assumption.

It uses several assumptions that are based on claims that have no proof.

Assumption
2.The act of taking for granted, or supposing a thing without proof; a supposition; an unwarrantable claim.

It uses presuppositions, items taken at face value, as a means of reducing options and uses implications of undefined events as a background to the question.

The structure of the question is set up so that it appears that both parties understand the references made but this is not necessarily true and both parties do not necessarily have the same understanding. In this case, The One Question by Michael Hayden, tricks the answerer into accepting the premise proposed but which are actually based only on the answerer's imagination.

Presupposition
A presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions include:

• Jane no longer writes fiction. Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.
• Have you stopped eating meat? Presupposition: you had once eaten meat.

It uses rhetoric, the art of discourse, as a key for persuasion and even the ancient Greeks recognized its use as a tool to convince others to follow a particular line of reasoning.

Plato defines rhetoric as the persuasion of ignorant masses within the courts and assemblies. Rhetoric, in Plato's opinion, is merely a form of flattery and functions similarly to cookery, which masks the undesirability of unhealthy food by making it taste good.

It is a form of “trick question” designed with multiple presuppositions and once one of the presuppositions is accepted as valid, the answerer allows all the others. If you accept one, you accept them all. The fallacy isn't in the question but in the perception of the question.

It also encompasses multiple issues for which there are multiple answers but the structure of the question is such that only one answer is allowed.

Trick Question
A complex question, trick question, multiple question or plurium interrogationum (Latin, "of many questions") is a question that has a presupposition that is complex. The presupposition is a proposition that is presumed to be acceptable to the respondent when the question is asked. The respondent becomes committed to this proposition when he gives any direct answer.

It's in the same category of “when did you stop beating your wife/dog/kids?” No matter how you answer it you will have a problem.


Autopsy of The One Question

If we halt what we are doing and there is another disaster like 9/11 (or even bigger than 9/11) and that disaster could have been stopped had we kept those programs, are you willing take responsibility for all the deaths and all the destruction.

 

Are you willing to put your name on the order that said “stop”?

The first clue is: There is only one answer.

It's the same answer many people have been giving since the time Michael Hayden came up with it. The only answer is (backwards):

The NSA can do anything they like, even if it's counter to the Constitution, Human Rights, and hosts of other legal protections in the USA and they can do anything they like to anyone on the planet regardless of where they live.

Next clues: Follow the Money

Now you can follow the money or logic backwards and begin to see how the question was formatted to get this answer. Filling in the blanks with each technique used in the structure.

• Are you willing to put your name on the order that said “stop”?
• Are you willing to stop beating your dog?

This line falls right into the classic Loaded Question. If you say No, then you admit you are still beating your dog and if you say Yes, then you admit you did beat your dog at one time.

If you say "Yes" to The One Question, you admit that you at one time agreed to with the program and if you say "No" then you agree to continue the program. Either way you admit to agreeing to the program.

• Are you willing take responsibility for all the deaths and all the destruction.
• Are you willing to take responsibility for all the drunk drivers and all the deaths and destruction caused by drunk driving?

It's not hard to see these statements as over reach but they are based on presuppositions: facts/events that are unproven but implied and that the background events are taken for granted. The trick inclusion and accusation included with the word “all” forces the answer into one format. A topic of complexity having many answers is reduced to one. If you allow one point, you allow all of them.

• Are you personally responsible for all drunk drivers?
• Are you personally responsible for all the destruction they cause?
• Are you personally going to be responsible for the drunk drivers everywhere?

If you answer "No", then you absolve yourself of direct involvement but you are still responsible and if you say "Yes", you are still responsible.

The format of the question allows the answerer to believe they have no more involvement based on a belief that there is a mutual understanding but this mutual understanding is only in the imagination of the answerer. Nothing is committed to or acknowledged by the questioner.

• Is the Questioner personally responsible for all drivers?
• Is the Questioner personally responsible for all the destruction they cause?
• Is the Questioner personally going to be responsible for drivers everywhere?

The questioner gives up nothing at all in return for the desired answer and makes no commitments at all, leaving this all to the imagination of the answerer.

• Had we kept those programs
• If X then Y else Z

This part carries backward implications based on false assumption from a conditional statement. Assumptions that the answerer is allowed to believe is true but that have no basis in reality.

• If we keep the program then Y will happen
• If we stop the program then Z will happen

The key words here are "keep" and "stop". The format implies that something would happen to The Program, that it would stop, but there is no indication that anything would happen at all. The Program continues regardless of the conditional option because stopping the program is not at all the answer wanted. The option of stopping the program is dangled like a carrot but quickly pulled away and replaced with desired outcome.

• [If] there is another disaster
• If there is another earthquake
• If there is another plane crash
• If there is another war

The disaster in various formats presumes the ability to stop all disasters. It misleads the answerer into thinking that there is an absolute way to stop “another disaster”.

The question is based not on the fallacy that a disaster will happen, but that the answerer can stop such a disaster by agreeing. The fallacy is the assumption on the part of the answerer, that all disasters will be avoided forever and ever and ever if they agree. The questioner tricks the answerer into accepting The One View that will lead to The One Answer.

• If we halt what we are doing
• If X then A and B

Here the questioner dangles the prospect or offer of change: A for B

• I will pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today
• I will take your freedom as payment for protection
• Your money or your life

It cleverly allows the answerer to insert his own interpretations of A and B and permits the answerer to accept a relationship between A and B that does not necessarily exist.

Does A actually involve B? Is A part of B?

• Does giving Wimpy a hamburger actually determine that he will pay you on Tuesday?
• Does giving your freedom up actually provide protection?
• Does giving a robber your wallet protect you from being shot?

It depends on how you think of the linkage: (A AND B) versus (A OR B)

There are 2 simple truth tables for each of these.

In this version (A OR B) there are 3 options all leading to the same outcome of TRUE.



A OR B

In this version (A AND B) there are three options all leading to the same outcome of FALSE.



A AND B

Of course this question is structured so you will always give The One Answer desired. So the inferences are set up so that you will always agree. The setup focuses on one set of outcomes and equates The Programs (A) as having an direct impact on Disaster (B).

But here's the clever part, they get the answerer to alter the truth table outcome for them. So they focus on only one outcome from the table (line 3). Not only do they want to focus on line 3 which is ((Programs==No) and (Disaster==Yes)), they get the answerer to alter the table options in line 3 for them.



Line 3

So the Table now reads this way:



Line 3 Altered

So, once you see how it's all setup, you can easily dissect the argument.

But you don't need to know all the fancy details because right off the bat, you can tell there is something wrong. It's like knowing when you feel ill, you may not know it was the chicken that was undercooked or that the restaurant used ingredients that you are allergic to, you just know.

There have been many many people taken in by The One Question from Michael Hayden and he gloats often when he asks it because he knows, like other loaded questions, if you answer any other way he will claim that you are “unpatriotic”. People like FISC judges, government officials, lawyers and presidents "got taken for a ride" too.


Here's the latest example:


As part of a book deal/tour former CIA lawyer John Rizzo discussed his involvement in the decision that "torture" was OK in an interview with Spiegel OnLine. Mr. Rizzo had the Thumbs Up/Down on waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogations" which he decided were OK. He agonized briefly over the decision but then agreed with the CIA position.

As he's written a book about his experience and decision and is quite proud of how he came to agree to allow these techniques, we can see how he was manipulated into making the decision he did. He really had no choice at all.

Sadly, it's a classic example of how the Deceived don't recognize when they've been “taken for a ride” or in the view of the Questioner "taken for a fool".

Here are the 3 areas to notice in the interview:

1. The initial “gut feeling” that something is wrong.
2. The worry that he will be labeled “unpatriotic” or “lose his reputation” if he disagrees.
3. The format of the question as he relates it without realizing how his consent was manufactured.

I've highlighted the first 2 points. See if you can help Mr. Rizzo figure out where he went wrong on the last one.

[excerpts from the John Rizzo interview with Spiegel Online.]

Rizzo: Our people from the Counter Terrorism Center. One day they came to my office and listed all the enhanced interrogation techniques for me. I had never heard of waterboarding. Some techniques, such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation …

Rizzo: … seemed harsh, even brutal to me. On the original list of proposed techniques was one which was even more chilling than waterboarding. It was never used.

Rizzo: It wasn't easy. I was the chief lawyer at the CIA. I had built up my reputation and a certain amount of credibility there.

Rizzo: I left my office that day and walked around the CIA headquarters building, smoking a cigar by myself and basically pondered what to do next. I distinctly remember sort of playing out the scenario in my head that I would stop these proposals because they were too brutal. And let's just say there had been a second terrorist attack in the ensuing days and, in the aftermath, Abu Zubaydah were to gleefully tell our interrogators, "Yes, I knew all about them, and you didn't get me to talk." There would be hundreds, perhaps thousands of Americans dead on the streets again. And in the post mortem investigations, it would all come out that the CIA considered these techniques but was too risk averse to carry them out and that I was the guy who stopped them. I couldn't live with the possibility of that someday happening. So that's when I decided to seek definitive legal advice from the US Department of Justice about whether the planned interrogation techniques violated the anti-torture statute. If the Justice Department had come back with the conclusion that these did constitute torture, then we would not have carried them out.