Liberal Fallacies

[lomiller]

True, but "A implies X" also doesn't follow for all A and X.a) Which group do you infer I dislike? On what do you base this inference?
b) From what evidence do you infer that I'm eligible for spousal benefits?
here "implication" means Lomiller's delusional inference.

Your insistence homosexuals shouldn't have the same rights as everyone is sufficient to show you dislike or disapprove of them.

b) From what evidence do you infer that I'm eligible for spousal benefits?
here "implication" means Lomiller's delusional inference.

The alternative is that are gay yourself, something I find unlikely based on your stance. Again I maintain my conclusion follows logically from your posts. If you do come out and tell us you are gay I may be willing to retract this part.

 

[RandFan]

The valid reasons to preclude gays and lesbians from marrying same sex partners.

I was a long time opponent of gay marriage. I once argued against the rights of gays and lesbians to marry the person they loved on this very forum.

I changed because I couldn't find logically valid reasons for my position. My best arguments (which sucked anyway) were ad hoc rationalizations of my position.

Here is the entire prop 8 trial re-enactment (link for transcripts in PDF form is at the top.

The intervenors, those defending prop 8, never provided a compelling justification to deny marriage to gays and lesbians even though the judge kept asking them for evidence and they claimed at the beginning to have all kinds of evidence and expert witnesses. None provided anything compelling. Even their only expert stated plainly that the family lives of gays and lesbians would be better if gays and lesbians were allowed to marry. IIRC the judge ruled that the testimony of the defendant's witness was not an expert and little he said was of any relevance to the case.

Could someone provide a compelling argument that does not rely on fallacious appeals to tradition, slippery slope arguments and fear? If you watch the trial reenactment or read the transcripts you will know just how vacuous the defendants case was. Perhaps you know something about gays and lesbians that the atty's and witnesses on behalf of those defending prop 8 didn't know.

You might also learn a little something about humanity.

 

[RandFan]

I infer that you wanted to say that it was an issue that could be addressed with empirical data. I suspect that you wanted to bypass the whole empirical data step of constructing that argument because there really isn't empirical data to support your position.

Had there been any such empirical data it would have likely been presented at the Prop 8 trial. The judge kept asking the defendants if they had evidence and if they would present it. At the end of the day no such evidence was forth coming. David Bowies has a simple answer for why the defendants would not provide evidence in support of their case. They never had it in the first place.

 

[Travis]

If reenacting slavery lowered taxes would that be something we should pursue?

Or at some point do we go "I don't care about the cost it is the right thing to do?"

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Your insistence homosexuals shouldn't have the same rights as everyone is sufficient to show you dislike or disapprove of them.

Sure, and since your handle begins with the letter L I infer that you dislike people whose Social Security numbers end in 6. That makes as much sense.

We differ about the meaning of "rights". As I use the word, the special treatment that governments apply to marriage qualifies as a "right" only in a very loose sense. It's more compensation for the committment that breeding pairs of humans make to surround whatever children they create with a supportive environment. By analogy, some jurisdictions will give you a property tax break if you leave land as undeveloped wildlife habitate. No one whose property is paved over has a "right" to that tax break. "Equality" or no.

From what evidence do you infer that I'm eligible for spousal benefits? Here "implication" means Lomiller's delusional inference.

The alternative is that are gay yourself, something I find unlikely based on your stance. Again I maintain my conclusion follows logically from your posts. If you do come out and tell us you are gay I may be willing to retract this part.

Bizarre "logic". Did you consider the possibility that single people don't qualify?

 

[bruto]

Sure, and since your handle begins with the letter L I infer that you dislike people whose Social Security numbers end in 6. That makes as much sense.

We differ about the meaning of "rights". As I use the word, the special treatment that governments apply to marriage qualifies as a "right" only in a very loose sense. It's more compensation for the committment that breeding pairs of humans make to surround whatever children they create with a supportive environment. By analogy, some jurisdictions will give you a property tax break if you leave land as undeveloped wildlife habitate. No one whose property is paved over has a "right" to that tax break. "Equality" or no.
Bizarre "logic". Did you consider the possibility that single people don't qualify?

So presumably since homosexual couples are, and were before even the first civil union law, legally entitled to adopt, and since the world is full of mixed familes taking the children of previous marriages into new relationships, and since heterosexual exes cannot any more wrest custody of children from homosexual exes simply owing to orienttion....then presumably the right given to breeders should go to breeding homosexuals before it goes to non-breeding heterosexuals, right?

Why should I, marrying heterosexually for the second time and having no more kids, have more rights than my homosexual ex-spouse who retained joint overall and non-joint physical custody of our three kids?

Even if the breeding argument did not have huge holes in it, it should be as clear to anyone as it was to the Vermont Supreme Court in 1998 that it no longer cleaves cleanly along lines of orientation. Marriage is not just for couples, but for families.

 

[jj]

Sure, and since your handle begins with the letter L I infer that you dislike people whose Social Security numbers end in 6.

When you deny a group equal rights, that fully speaks for itself, and until you change your position, there is no other logical inference.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

When you deny a group equal rights, that fully speaks for itself, and until you change your position, there is no other logical inference.

You call some State-mandated benefit a right and then assert that the principle of equal rights requires that everyone receive that benefit. Consider my example of property tax breaks for people who set land aside for wilderness. Does your equality principle require that owners of shopping malls receive the tax break? Ambulance drivers get to run red lights. Does the equality principle require that everyone get to run red lights?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...Why should I, marrying heterosexually for the second time and having no more kids, have more rights than my homosexual ex-spouse who retained joint overall and non-joint physical custody of our three kids? ... Marriage is not just for couples, but for families.

The custom evolved long before reliable contraception. Before reliable contraception when a heterosexual couple maintained a steady relation children predictably ensued. Fathers who skip impose costs on single mothers, on their parents, and, through poorly-socialized offspring, on society at large. Laws don't have to accommodate every imaginable situation to reduce social costs. They just have to work well enough.

 

[ehcks]

You call some State-mandated benefit a right and then assert that the principle of equal rights requires that everyone receive that benefit. Consider my example of property tax breaks for people who set land aside for wilderness. Does your equality principle require that owners of shopping malls receive the tax break? Ambulance drivers get to run red lights. Does the equality principle require that everyone get to run red lights?

I don't. The US Supreme Court does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

Chief Justice Earl Warren's opinion for the unanimous court held that:

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

Replace "race" with "sexual orientation" and you get where we are today.

 

[bruto]

The custom evolved long before reliable contraception. Before reliable contraception when a heterosexual couple maintained a steady relation children predictably ensued. Fathers who skip impose costs on single mothers, on their parents, and, through poorly-socialized offspring, on society at large. Laws don't have to accommodate every imaginable situation to reduce social costs. They just have to work well enough.

Quite. And they don't. The days when there was no contraception, no legal homosexual couples, and no legal divorce and recoupling are long gone. Customs change as society does, and laws should too.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I don't.

Then we have nothing to discuss here.

The US Supreme Court does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

Chief Justice Earl Warren's opinion for the unanimous court held that:
...
Replace "race" with "sexual orientation" and you get where we are today.

That only works if a gay man marries a lesbian.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

The days when there was no contraception, no legal homosexual couples, and no legal divorce and recoupling are long gone. Customs change as society does, and laws should too.

That's an argument for a contraction of the class which receives spousal benefits, not the expansion.

 

[Frank Newgent]

That only works if a gay man marries a lesbian.

Warren Beatty is gay?

 

[Bill Thompson]

Liberal Fallacies is not a "USA Politics" issue.

The biggest liberals I have met are from Northern Europe.

And two books written by MD's present a good case that it is a mental disorder and is not even political.

What is more, I have conducted informal surveys. Not all paranoid schizophrenics are conspiracy theorists. Not all conspiracy theorists paranoid schizophrenics. But most paranoid schizophrenics are conspiracy theorists. That is step one. Here is step two. Not all Liberal Democrats are conspiracy theorists. Not all conspiracy theorists are Liberal Democrats. But most conspiracy theorists are Liberal Democrats. This alone does not mean the Liberalism is a mental disorder. It is just one piece of the pie, so to speak.

There is the matter of fuzzy logic and jumping the gun and a rush to judgement -- As Rachael Maddow would call "connecting the dots". One indication of this was when Gabby Giffords was shot. Instantly, this was a phenomenon of the Tea Party movement or gun rights or, yes, believe it or not, it is true, Maddow really said this, racism and the bombs planed at a MLK march in Spokane. Maddow was "connecting the dots"

There is also the symptom of an abundance of Post Hoc logical fallacies and Non Sequitur logical fallacies. For example there is this. The Embassy in Lybia was stormed on 9-11. An Anti-Islamic movie was just released. Thus, the Embassy attack was caused by the movie. That is a Post Hoc logical fallacies. This is one example of many that Liberals make.

A Liberal neighbor of mine in Texas made this Non Sequitur logical fallacy and I have heard it repeated by Liberals often. Saddam was being invaded by Iran. He asked Rumsfield for help. The Kurds and the Iranians were gassed. Thus, according the Liberals, the USA gassed the Iranians. This is Non Sequitur.

Then there is this. The difference betwen the Liberals and the Neocons go way beyond just an idea of how government should work. Whenever a Conservative gets something wrong, gay marriage, for example, it has been my experience that I can outline and explain to them why they are off the mark, and I can get them to change their mind. This has happened at least a half dozen times. On the other hand, a Liberal will never -- I mean NEVER -- admit they are wrong. They only clam up or change the subject or walk away or even say "I would rather not discuss politics". It is phenomenal. And, no, it is not like what you might expect. I do not pressure them or badger them at all. I plead with them to tell me where I am wrong. They do not say anything. They will never admit when they are wrong. This, I think, above all, supports the idea the Liberalsim is a mental disorder.

There is also this. It has been my experience that Liberals take arguments agains their sacred ideas personally. If you are cirital of a policy of their leaders, they are personally offended. Coulter is right. Liberalism is like a religion. That is just wrong.

It has also been my experience that they take things out of context and they also like to disect the things I and Rush say into parts of sentences. This tells me two things. This tells me that they only think in sound bites and long worded sentences or even paragraphs are too big for them to digest. And it also tells me that they place winning over being correct and they have to resort to underhanded tactics.

 

[bruto]

That's an argument for a contraction of the class which receives spousal benefits, not the expansion.

It's an argument for contraction if you believe marriage must produce progeny to be valid. But it is, unless I worded it very badly, an argument that marriage is more about what we decide a family is than about who does or does not reproduce when, and that whatever group results cannot be drawn on lines of orientation without leaving a significant number of families out.

 

[Upchurch]

Liberal Fallacies is not a "USA Politics" issue.

The biggest liberals I have met are from Northern Europe.

And, yet, your list in the OP was entirely US politics based.

And two books written by MD's present a good case that it is a mental disorder and is not even political.

Okay

1. Medical Doctors rarely conduct research unless they are also PhDs.
2. There has been research that shows that there are physical differences in the brains of liberals and conservatives. If that is what you are talking about, "differences" are not the same as "mental disorders".
3. I would love to see who these authors are. Dr. Coulter and Dr. Savage, maybe?

What is more, I have conducted informal surveys. Not all paranoid schizophrenics are conspiracy theorists. Not all conspiracy theorists paranoid schizophrenics. But most paranoid schizophrenics are conspiracy theorists. That is step one. Here is step two. Not all Liberal Democrats are conspiracy theorists. Not all conspiracy theorists are Liberal Democrats. But most conspiracy theorists are Liberal Democrats. This alone does not mean the Liberalism is a mental disorder. It is just one piece of the pie, so to speak.

Shall we name the logical fallacies in this paragraph? Anecdotal evidence, confirmation bias, cherry-picking, non-sequitors, false equivocation...

And, just to complete the fail going on here, the phrase is "a piece of the puzzle", not pie. The phrase "a slice of the pie" is a metaphor for getting a share of a quantity of money. "A piece of the puzzle" is a metaphor for putting together different facts that paint an overall picture, which is what you were trying to convey here.

On the other hand, a Liberal will never -- I mean NEVER -- admit they are wrong.

Too easy. You mentioned Rachel Maddow earlier, right?
Rachel Maddow: 'I Was Wrong' About Rush Limbaugh Clip

 

[varwoche]

What is more, I have conducted informal surveys.

Hilarious!

 

[Upchurch]

Hilarious!

Right?

 

[ehcks]

Then we have nothing to discuss here. That only works if a gay man marries a lesbian.

What you've just said is effectively "That only works if a black man marries a black woman."

Which is pretty much what I preemptively said in the post you replied to.

http://youngandcatholic.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/40-years.jpg