Arguing with Leftists

[RickWhite]

I gave up mid way through. As far as logic goes, you may be the one shoveling the most crap. I dont want to put you on the spot, but can you analyze and diagram one of these bogus arguments you speak of and prove that it utilizes the strawman fallacy to be more persuasive?

Yes, a straw man is used when one attempts to supplant the key point with one of their own creation which is easier to refute.

Bringing up my use of "proved" as the past participle of "Prove" is a straw man because it is a feeble attempt to skirt the key issues.

You should also know that either proven or proved is correct - my spell check doesn't like proven so I use proved. Before you try to be a smart ass, make sure you aren't going to wind up looking like a dumb ass. Just a suggestion.

 

[Keenly]

yay even more left right bullshit



the left and the right are 2 sides of the same coin

 

[ilkhan]

Government has NO role in Marrage.
The only reason we started requiring marrage licences
was to prevent freed blacks from marrying white women.
Before that government had no role.
Again the work of Moral busybodies.

 

[NoDrama]

I've also noticed another tendency of the left. This is the tendency to chop up an argument into bite sized pieces and respond with mindless one line challenges to each statement made by the other person. The technique is to shatter the context of the person's argument and set up an pawn line of straw men based on numerous fragments of the other persons argument. Once this pawn line of straw men is created, they try to knock them down so it appears that they are proving their case when the reality is that they have failed to address a single key issue. This is what we see when we see heavy use of multi-quoting. Note that responses in multi-quotes are always responses to specific verbiage and never to the larger issues. This also makes it less likely the other person will respond in turn since once a post has been multi-quoted it is pretty much vandalized and very hard to respond to. This is a form of argument by verbosity in which an attempt is made to just over burden you opponent with meaningless straw men and make him quit due to time constraints.

Anyway, that is what it is like to argue with the Left. The one thing you will not see is a well conceived, well articulated argument. You will however hear charges that you are ignorant, hateful, racist, sexist, a bigot, a homophobe, etc.

Your right about how its done, but its not necessarily a feature of the Left, some people are ardent defenders of the faith, no matter their political leanings and each sentence of an opposing view point is taken as an attack by an enemy.

More objective minds will tend to view those with opposing view points as adversaries and NOT enemies. Kind of like Chess, you don't hate that person you are playing against, but each of you is trying to Win.

I can agree that some of the tactics frequented by the liberal left are barbarous at best.

 

[RickWhite]

Government has NO role in Marrage.
The only reason we started requiring marrage licences
was to prevent freed blacks from marrying white women.
Before that government had no role.
Again the work of Moral busybodies.

I think you are over simplifying things. Not only is marriage a legal issue but divorce is as well. It used to be people needed to show cause in court to get a divorce. Divorce on demand has been a disaster for society. It has harmed millions of children, caused a great deal of poverty and suffering and it has created negative attitudes toward marriage. These issues are in no way as simple as you are making them out to be.

 

[RickWhite]

Your right about how its done, but its not necessarily a feature of the Left, some people are ardent defenders of the faith, no matter their political leanings and each sentence of an opposing view point is taken as an attack by an enemy.

More objective minds will tend to view those with opposing view points as adversaries and NOT enemies. Kind of like Chess, you don't hate that person you are playing against, but each of you is trying to Win.

I can agree that some of the tactics frequented by the liberal left are barbarous at best.

Sure, people on both sides are guilty, but from what I see it is the Left far more than the Right.

Intelligent people look at debate as a way of eventually arriving at the truth. Only the ignorant argue just to win. But I do believe the Left does just that nearly always.

 

[fonzirellie]

Yes, a straw man is used when one attempts to supplant the key point with one of their own creation which is easier to refute. We are in agreement on this.

Bringing up my use of "proved" as the past participle of "Prove" is a straw man because it is a feeble attempt to skirt the key issues.

You should also know that either proven or proved is correct - my spell check doesn't like proven so I use proved. Before you try to be a smart ass, make sure you aren't going to wind up looking like a dumb ass. Just a suggestion. You are wrong. The error you have committed is an extremely common grammatical error. As to looking like a dumb ass, I am not the one making general statements about a whole entire political party or stating that an argument does not need to be supported to be valid. There are also a ton of other grammatical errors in your previous post. ad hominem?

Now do some truth diagrams for us and prove your point. I want to see you diagram an argument and prove the use of a straw man fallacy. If you do not know how to type the logic symbols you should do it on paper and then take a picture or scan it.

whats fonzi?

 

[CrackerJax]

uhhh.... checkmate there.

 

[fonzirellie]

well damn......

You know the terms, but you are no logician.

Rick, you will consistently be on the losing side of the argument if you fail to support your argument with valid evidence.

Now go burn a fatty and relax.

 

[ilkhan]

That is exactly my point it shouldn't be a legal issue its none of the governments buisness.
The Children are the Parents consern not the states.
You go down that road we end up with Government as a third party to marrage.

See what you have here is a right statist.
Who believes Government has the right to police your moral values.
But not your economic values.
You attempt to place Government force in the place of real morals and a right relationship with God.

 

[Leothwyn]

Maybe not to you. That thread was however an excellent example. I am glad you brought that up. If you followed it you probably noticed the reoccurring position of those opposing my point was appeal to ignorance (ad ignorantiam).

What I noticed was that ancap took your posts apart point by point, and you were unable to do the same with his posts. You completely ignored many valid points made in that thread.

I mentioned people getting way too caught up in their right/left ideology. Thank you for the example in your reply. If you believe that you came out looking like the superior debater in that thread; you believe the over-simplified generalizations of your OP here; and you make arrogant statements like "what I was trying to convey were very abstract and complex ideas that I didn't expect many to understand" when people think that your points don't make complete sense - you really do strike me as someone who is way too stuck in simplified partisan ideology.

Again, I'd like to suggest that you take up a hobby. I may be wrong, but I get the impression that you spend a fair amount of time watching and listening to political zealot entertainers like Beck, Limbaugh, & Hannity... and I know that you spend a lot of time looking for reasons to whine about liberals here. There's bullshit all over the political spectrum. You don't seem to see it, and I can't help wondering how your perspective is so skewed.

 

[PVS]

Notice the straw man arguments above. Two great examples.

thats awesome how you posted a thread based entirely on a fallacious strawman argument, and then go on to use the term 'strawman' incorrectly to discredit anyone who disagrees. i love that you went there. its like a sweet irony layer cake

 

[CrackerJax]

His premise isn't wrong at all. Anytime a liberal policy is examined....the flaws are of biblical proportions. Lib's have learned to cloak their true intentions as the rest of the country is not so inclined to commit economic suicide.

Ancap did no picking apart what so evah.... put down the pipe.

 

[PVS]

His premise isn't wrong at all. Anytime a liberal policy is examined....the flaws are of biblical proportions. Lib's have learned to cloak their true intentions as the rest of the country is not so inclined to commit economic suicide.

Ancap did no picking apart what so evah.... put down the pipe.

strawman is the generalising of an entire group in order to discredit anyone who disagrees with you, which is exactly what he did in his orginal argument and even the thread title. he then went on to accuse others of employing strawman tactics, AND used the term incorrectly.

wow its less funny when i have to explain it.

oh wait...you were just parodying again, right?

 

[NoDrama]

Strawman to me means something like this:
Oh so you want government healthcare eh? Well did you know that the government also runs the Medicare plan? Did you know that Medicare was flat broke and in the near future they will have to deny service to many people in order to even have the program?

See what I did there? I substituted their argument FOR healthcare with my "Strawman" of Medicare. then I cut down the Medicare plan( Cuz straw is pretty easy to cut down) in hopes of convincing the less objective thinkers out there that the two are the same and that Govt Healthcare will just lead to the same thing that Medicare has become.

Its very easy to do, in fact its almost completely Natural to do it without even thinking of the Logical fallacy it is.

You can still use a strawman argument, but its better to let folks know that you are aware of that fact beforehand.

 

[CrackerJax]

Yes, PVS thinks a generalization is a straw man argument.

Mao murdered millions. PVS - straw man argument
Nazis were a scourge on the earth in the 1930-40's. PVS - straw man argument.

Lib's can't defend their policies in a well defined and frontal manner......

 

[Leothwyn]

Anytime a liberal policy is examined....the flaws are of biblical proportions.

A perfect example of an over simplified generalization from someone too far gone in right/left ideology. Both sides have good and bad points. I can understand agreeing with one side more, but your simple black/white perspective is narrow minded IMO.

Ancap did no picking apart what so evah.... put down the pipe.

Maybe you ought to put your pipe down and read the posts between me and Rick. We were referring to another thread.

 

[CrackerJax]

Please name the vast majority of radical left wing policies... i will gladly debate you on any of them.

C'mon...name the vast majority of well functioning lib policies....

welfare?
ss?
medi care
madicaid
teachers unions?
UAW?
Acorn?


I'll let you cherry pick the majority of the fantastic lib policies and then you can defend them with actual data.... not opinion.

Go....... I'm waiting.

 

[PVS]

Yes, PVS thinks a generalization is a straw man argument.

it is. once again you are completely incorrect with a vengeance.

Strawman to me means something like this:
Oh so you want government healthcare eh? Well did you know that the government also runs the Medicare plan? Did you know that Medicare was flat broke and in the near future they will have to deny service to many people in order to even have the program?

no.

strawman is an effigy one creates to represent their opposition as a means of seeming correct by default. they then proceed to verbally/literally burn the strawman for the win. its pretty cut and dry.

i don't agree with the OP which makes me a liberal pinko who strokes off to obama photos while praying to my pagan gods for a police-state coup...etc.

 

[CrackerJax]

Good come back as usual...

ur wrong ... and ??//?/? finish up or is that the best you can do?

My post was accurate. You think a generalization is a straw man argument.

proceed.