Arguments without evidence meet critical eyes

I completely agree with the overall sentiment of Noor
Hashem’s latest column (“Public deserving of flat-out
truth,” May 16), which is why I can confidently dismiss most
of her political and social sentiments within that article.

Sadly, sentiments are all they qualify as when she so
contradictorily does not apply her own advice. Hashem begs us to
not listen to media reports and opinions that cannot be backed up
with evidence.

She doesn’t want us to be naive. How ironic that she
treats us as such by offering her apparently self-evident opinions
on Abu Ghraib and the Minuteman Project.

Does she even attempt to back up her implication of the
complicity of the Bush administration in the prison abuse scandal?
No. She is either trying to take advantage of our complete naivety
(an action she vehemently attacks), or she assumes that this
“fact” is somehow a matter of obvious universal
truth.

I don’t know whether Bush and his pals had a hand in the
abuse or not. Anything is possible, but I like to follow the old
judicial notion of innocent until proven guilty, and as of yet, I
have not heard any convincing arguments condemning the Bush
administration in this case.

The only reasoning I have encountered on campus in support of
this opinion suggests that Bush and Rumsfeld are somehow inherently
evil, and consequently revel in human torture. Hashem offers even
less evidence than this.

She also goes on to offer no proof whatsoever as to why the
Minutemen’s project has something to do with race. This is a
pretty serious implication, and one that is similarly far from
being self-evident.

Are you ready for a personal confession? A little while ago I
mentioned to my husband that if I had a spare week, I
wouldn’t mind going down to the Arizona border to help out
the infamous vigilantes. (I will be available for shin-kicking on
Bruin Walk later this week.)

Did I express this desire because of my fear and loathing for
people of certain skin colors, languages or cultural backgrounds? I
can confidently answer in the negative.

I just happen to have a great respect for the rule of law, and I
feel that casting a lazy eye at illegal immigration is a threat to
the effectiveness of our government.

But in the words of our favorite “Reading Rainbow”
host, you don’t have to take my word for it. Read the
literature of the Minutemen, and you’ll see that they are
concerned about their local economies and the rule of law.

Hashem’s original pleas for public skepticism and media
responsibility are admirable. Unfortunately, her subsequent
observations are at the least debatable, if not flat-out wrong.

She files herself into the ranks of the disingenuous media that
she so vehemently opposes by throwing her supposedly self-evident
opinions at us and expecting us to eat them up like free
In-N-Out.

We may be poor college students, but we know there is no such a
thing as a free lunch.

Romney is a fourth-year political science student.