Arguing with Leftists

CrackerJax said:

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.

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its called: "read the rest of the post"

I did. Unimpressed with it I was.

I'm waiting for the left wing policy positional onslaught LEO.... bring on all those great successful policies!!!!

CrackerJax said:

I did. Unimpressed with it I was.

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yes i'm well aware by now that facts don't impress you. its just that you prompted me to "proceed" when i had already concluded. so i guess we're done here or do you wish to continue making an ass of yourself?

oh... no facts then. You never seem to have any PVS you have half subtle non pithy comments but not much else....

you're right. facts are for chumps.

CrackerJax said:

I did. Unimpressed with it I was.

I'm waiting for the left wing policy positional onslaught LEO.... bring on all those great successful policies!!!!

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The thing is, I'm not a dedicated liberal. I'm liberal (or, libertarian) on a lot of social things. I don't want gov. dictating morality.

How about giving women and non-whites the right to vote to start with. Who pushed harder for that, liberals or conservatives?

Anyway, I'm not here to defend one side over the other. My whole point is... neither side is perfect, both are full of flaws. If you think conservatives can do no wrong, and liberals are never right (or vice versa) you might want to pull your head out of your ass bit.

ive never lost an argument with a liberal. ill debate circles around ANY leftist anywhere anytime.

Leothwyn said:

The thing is, I'm not a dedicated liberal. I'm liberal (or, libertarian) on a lot of social things. I don't want gov. dictating morality.

How about giving women and non-whites the right to vote to start with. Who pushed harder for that, liberals or conservatives?

Anyway, I'm not here to defend one side over the other. My whole point is... neither side is perfect, both are full of flaws. If you think conservatives can do no wrong, and liberals are never right (or vice versa) you might want to pull your head out of your ass bit.

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Well, I don't know what school you graduated from, but it was the democrats who blocked racial integration and equality in the south for decades. It was the southern democrats who continually blocked civil rights legislation in Congress, not the Republicans.

fonzirellie said:

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.

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Actually, I did study both formal and informal logic. A straw man argument is an example of informal logic. The mistake you are making is that you are conflating this with formal logic in which one would use syllogisms or truth tables.

But again, what you are doing here is a perfect example of a straw man. You are attempting to refocus the argument on my understanding of logic rather than on the key issues being discussed.

Here is a description of this fallacy from Nizkor if it makes you feel better.

Description of Straw Man



The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

I'm also going to include the red herring since the two are so closely related.

Description of Red Herring


A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Topic A is under discussion.
2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
3. Topic A is abandoned.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.

RickWhite said:

Actually, I did study both formal and informal logic. A straw man argument is an example of informal logic. The mistake you are making is that you are conflating this with formal logic in which one would use syllogisms or truth tables.

But again, what you are doing here is a perfect example of a straw man. You are attempting to refocus the argument on my understanding of logic rather than on the key issues being discussed.

Here is a description of this fallacy from Nizkor if it makes you feel better.

Description of Straw Man


The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

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sorry friend but factual evidence is not welcome here.

Leothwyn said:

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.

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I'm going to ignore the personal attacks and respond to the first part of your post. Although such attacks are yet another example of my OP.

The fact that ancap seemed to raise valid points demonstrates why these techniques are so insidious. First, if you were to go back to that thread you would see that I was unwilling to respond to many of his statements because I didn't want to spend the time to sort through all of his multi-quotes and respond in kind. To do so would have simply been too time consuming.

Ancap also posted a number of OPINIONS that he found on the internet and claimed them to be facts. Since I was not about to reference the source material and dispute the findings I didn't bother. But see this is where we get into false demands for "proof." It will be decades before we have any proof of the effects of gay homes on the development of children, and the benefits of having both Male and Female roll models is simply not something that can necessarily be measured or proved. As soon as we go down the road of demanding proof of such things the conversation is lost.

As far as the issue of rights, I explained several times that the issue is not about rights and I was very specific in doing so. I can't help it if he wasn't able to understand what I was saying and I can see how many people have similar difficulty.

But anyway, thank you for the excellent examples.

PVS said:

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?

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You don't know what you are talking about. I just love it when someone talks like a smart ass and then makes a fool of himself. What you are describing is below:

Description of Composition


The fallacy of Composition is committed when a conclusion is drawn about a whole based on the features of its constituents when, in fact, no justification provided for the inference. There are actually two types of this fallacy, both of which are known by the same name (because of the high degree of similarity).
The first type of fallacy of Composition arises when a person reasons from the characteristics of individual members of a class or group to a conclusion regarding the characteristics of the entire class or group (taken as a whole). More formally, the "reasoning" would look something like this.

1. Individual F things have characteristics A, B, C, etc.
2. Therefore, the (whole) class of F things has characteristics A, B, C, etc.

This line of reasoning is fallacious because the mere fact that individuals have certain characteristics does not, in itself, guarantee that the class (taken as a whole) has those characteristics.

You are however correct that I am generalizing. Just because someone like yourself is a dumb ass and a Liberal does not necessarily make all Liberals as dumb as you. But it is a common trait.

RickWhite said:

I'm going to ignore the personal attacks and respond to the first part of your post.

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pot calling the kettle black

Weren't we talking about liberals and conservatives? I don't think of southern democrats opposed to integration as liberals.

CrackerJax said:

Well, I don't know what school you graduated from, but it was the democrats who blocked racial integration and equality in the south for decades. It was the southern democrats who continually blocked civil rights legislation in Congress, not the Republicans.

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RickWhite said:

I'm going to ignore the personal attacks and respond to the first part of your post. Although such attacks are yet another example of my OP.

The fact that ancap seemed to raise valid points demonstrates why these techniques are so insidious. First, if you were to go back to that thread you would see that I was unwilling to respond to many of his statements because I didn't want to spend the time to sort through all of his multi-quotes and respond in kind. To do so would have simply been too time consuming.

Ancap also posted a number of OPINIONS that he found on the internet and claimed them to be facts. Since I was not about to reference the source material and dispute the findings I didn't bother. But see this is where we get into false demands for "proof." It will be decades before we have any proof of the effects of gay homes on the development of children, and the benefits of having both Male and Female roll models is simply not something that can necessarily be measured or proved. As soon as we go down the road of demanding proof of such things the conversation is lost.

As far as the issue of rights, I explained several times that the issue is not about rights and I was very specific in doing so. I can't help it if he wasn't able to understand what I was saying and I can see how many people have similar difficulty.

But anyway, thank you for the excellent examples.

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ditto and amen.
nice to see another right thinking American such as yourself Rick. us good christian conservative men are a rare breed nowadays. we are like the last of the mohicians but i do not fear as god shall bless whatever little shreds may be left of America after king obama and the commies are gone.

Leothwyn said:

Weren't we talking about liberals and conservatives? I don't think of southern democrats opposed to integration as liberals.

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Voting is a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Marriage on the other hand is not a right but an institution created by man to protect children, not for the narcissistic desires of the parents. In fact, combating the narcissistic desires of the parents is the primary reason for marriage.

Marriage has always been far more than just something two people do because they want to. First, we all need permission to get married. Marriage is also controlled by law. Siblings can not marry and people can not marry more than one person. If we re-define marriage to include same sex marriage, we MUST also allow those that wish to to marry their siblings or to marry more than one person because the same logic applies.

But the main reasons I defend traditional marriage are not tangible ones. I defend traditional marriage because I feel that men and women both contribute different things to the dynamic and that these things are meant to compliment each other and form a synergy that would be absent otherwise. It's kind of like the Yin and the Yang, or like peanut butter and jelly, they simply go together. It is as silly to me to ask for proof of this as to ask for proof that peanut butter and jelly belong together.

I also think that children have rights and that one of these rights ought to be to have a stable home with a Mother and father. In fact, I believe that children of divorce should automatically be assigned a lawyer by the state and that a lawsuit regarding their interests should be filed on their behalf. I believe that children should automatically be entitled to damages in the event that their parents divorce and I think the parents should be prohibited from any further cohabitation until the children are 21 years of age. Another thing I think is called for is for children of divorced parents to be placed in their own home and the parents should stay at that home during their visitation time so that the lives of the children shall remain normal and uncomplicated. It is wrong and unfair to schlep the kids from one world to another. The kids didn't fuck up the home with their selfish ways so why should they be punished.

But see, all this demonstrates that issues of marriage are not as simple as letting people smoke pot if they wish. Marriage is a complex issue that involves more than what two adults feel like doing. Marriage has been one of the great bedrock institutions of all successful societies. It is not something that we can just change Willy nilly.

libs r scared! said:

ditto and amen.
nice to see another right thinking American such as yourself Rick. us good christian conservative men are a rare breed nowadays. we are like the last of the mohicians but i do not fear as god shall bless whatever little shreds may be left of America after king obama and the commies are gone.

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I appreciate that but in my case I am a good Jewish Conservative.

RickWhite said:

I appreciate that but in my case I am a good Jewish Conservative.

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Every Jew I know is conservative!
But not every Jew Is conservative Republican, I know and I'm not even Jewish

PeachOibleBoiblePeach#1 said:

Every Jew I know is conservative!
But not every Jew Is conservative Republican, I know and I'm not even Jewish

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Most non-religious Jews are Liberals. Most religious ones are Conservative. I am a rarity.

RickWhite said:

I appreciate that but in my case I am a good Jewish Conservative.

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thats ok son. and its never to late to change your life for God. Jesus loves you.