Contingent != the Same

Mandos writes

Note that Mustafa hasn't really responded to what I wrote: he just switched codes. So "accountability" discourse gets replaced by "supporting corruption." Discussion of Jack Layton's actions are once again voided of political content by Mustafa's "accountability/corruption" discourse. Further discussion of motivations, policy considerations, and so on: short-circuited, illegitimate. So it's the same thing as before.

Correct, and you are missing the whole point of my argument. I'm not debating a wide set of policy issues. I am making a very simple argument:

1. Jack Layton was willing to support a corrupt government for a change in the budget
2. Jack Layton previously promised that he would support a government only in exchange for a referendum on proportional representation.
3. Jack Layton is therefore a liar.

I also make the following assertion:

• Jack Layton has, in my opinion, a too low a threshold at which a corrupt government can buy his support.

If Mandos wants a deeper policy debate on the merits of the N.D.P. amendments to the Liberal budget, we can have that debate as well. But that's not what I'm currently trying to argue. (I have argued this in part, here, here, and here.)

Mandos continues

Worse, though, is that even if he didn't simply repeat what I criticized, his response makes no sense. "It is possible for me to be both angry that the Liberal government survived and to be disgusted at Jack Layton willingness to support corruption," quoth he. Dude, they're contingent. It stretches credibility, not to mention reality and logic, that you would be the latter without being the former. They and my criticism of them are all of a piece.

They may be contingent, but they are not the same. And so my motivations for the two do differ. I am angry that the Liberal government survived because it subjected Canada to an extra 8 months of Liberal rule. I am disgusted at Jack Layton since he can be brought off at what I consider to be a cheap price.

If I were to say that I like to eat, and that my favourite passtime is eating chocolate cake (neither of these is true, BTW), you would be correct to point out that these are contingent: my favourite passtime cannot be eating a certain kind of food if I dislike eating. However, the two statements are not the same and neither are the motivations. In particular, chocolate cake has lots of sugar that stimulate taste buds to send positive neural responses that are separate from the neural responses created by having a full belly.

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