FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Logical Argumentation

Reading a denial of a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS from the Office of Personnel Management is often a fascinating exercise in attempting to imply […]

OPM Disability Retirement Law: Argumentation

What makes for a “good” argument?  Is it when voices are raised, or can a quietude of mere whispers that nevertheless persuades become the greater efficacy for effectiveness?  Does it matter “who” the person arguing is, as opposed the position taken, the logical connections made and the avoidance of fallacies left unstated?  Take the following hypothetical: A debate challenge is set between a champion debater, known throughout the country […]

Levels of Argumentation in OPM Disability Retirement

In a perfect universe, logic should prevail and the superior argument would be identified, recognized and accepted. In a less-than-perfect universe (the state in which we unfortunately find ourselves), pragmatic factors involving power, authority, competency and non-substantive, peripheral issues must always be considered, and incorporated accordingly. In the “unofficial rules” of argumentative methodology, three elements must be present: (A) The ability and capacity to recognize a superior argument, (B) the willingness to concede one’s own inferiority of the proffer, […]

OPM Disability Law: Arguing by Logical Extension

Often, in legal argumentation, one must simply use the available evidence garnered, and make the best of it. In many areas of law, especially in administrative legal venues involving Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the law favors agencies which hide behind the shield of “efficiency of the Federal Service”, in implementing sanctions, adverse actions, restrictions of leave usage, proposing and deciding upon removals (whether based upon reasons of medical conditions or other basis), etc. […]

Federal Disability Retirement: Ontological Priority

In philosophy, Ontology is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the reality of our world, of unraveling Being in its true form and nature, and the interaction of subject-to-object relationships and the order of priorities as described in the inter and intra connections between the “I” and “you” of this world. As such, it must take into account the peculiar biological make-up of human beings, their perceptual world from a subjective viewpoint, as well as the Kantian paradigm of the “noumenal” world which is “out there”. […]

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The Art of Argumentation

The Art of Argumentation is a dying form. Watching any “debate” forum on television or the radio; viewing the Presidential debates; it has become, instead, a time of pontification, […]

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Making the Legal Argument

Legal arguments are merely a subset of ordinary ones; as variations of the facetious quip goes, if the facts are not on the lawyer’s side, then he will argue the law; if the law is not, he will argue the facts; if neither, then he will attempt to confound and obfuscate both. By sequence of logical argumentation, it is self-evident that “facts” must be the first order of presentation; then, persuasive discussions concerning those facts, forming and molding a given perspective (for there is surely a distinction to be made between that which “is” and that which “is seen” by a particular individual, bringing in the subjective component of interpretation and conveyance of information); […]

 

CSRS & FERS Disability: The Disabled Federal and Postal Worker

As with most attorneys, I try to maintain an appearance of detached professionalism. It is my job to provide sound legal advice; to guide the client/disability retirement applicant with logical argumentation, rational perspective, and legal foundations […]

OPM Disability Retirement Denials: Selective reasoning

Of course, we all engage in it; some, merely by withholding certain known facts; others, by emphasizing and asserting portions of the logic employed while ignoring or deliberately averting the focus of other aspects.  Selective reasoning through deliberate omission is the height of pragmatic oppression; for, when it is accomplished with knowledge and self-admission of premeditation, it involves a mind that knows the difference between proper application of logical reasoning and the intentional misrepresentation of facts. […]

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Moral Code lost in pragmatism

Kant is the best example, and is used often. Of that arrogance defined by universalization of a query; and if we are willing to apply it in all circumstances, regardless of individual differences that may matter in the context of exceptions recognized, we are to adhere to that which may harm our own interests. Why is transcendence important? Why do philosophers insist that any “valid” moral basis possess a metaphysical foundation, transpired in order to justify a cornerstone unsullied by the meanness of common life? Is the fact of relative significance unacceptable merely because it is subject to change? […]