Liberal Fallacies

[Ausmerican]

Africa is not a country. There are Italian Americans, Greek Americans, German Americans. Noone defines themselves from an entire continent.

Asian-Americans.

BTW Australia is a continent as well as a country so everyone from my country can; "define themselves from an entire continent".
Wronger than usual, Bill.

 

[Giordano]

Africa is not a country. There are Italian Americans, Greek Americans, German Americans. Noone defines themselves from an entire continent.

I have often heard of a large subset of our population referred to as Asian-Americans. Entire continent, yes?

But I suspect that's not your point at all. Typically your OPs lead with a provocative post, then wait for the replies to accumulate until you can find a few that allow you to claim you are being unfairly attacked. I guess everyone needs a hobby.

 

[Giordano]

Asian-Americans.

BTW Australia is a continent as well as a country so everyone from my country can; "define themselves from an entire continent".
Wronger than usual, Bill.

Sorry for the duplication: you posted as I was writing my own post.

 

[yodaluver28]

Just to be clear:




RandFan was responding to you, Bill.

When the slaves were freed, Republicans were the liberals and Democrats were the conservatives. In the mid-twentieth century, the Republicans exploited southern conservative racism to pull in traditionally Democratic states to their side, essentially reversing the political polarity of the two parties. The GOP may be "The Party of Lincoln" but today, it's pretty much in name only.

Precisely. Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans who ended slavery were liberals, not conservatives. Back then, the Republican party was the party of liberals and social progressives while the Democrats, who were fighting to keep slavery and other barbaric laws and practices, were the conservatives and social regressives, mostly the infamous Dixiecrats. That starting changing slowly after the end of Reconstruction and underwent it's most dramatic shift in the 1960's when the Republicans employed the "Southern Strategy" to stay electorally relevant which necessitated them to appealling to the racists and sexists in the south who would never vote Democrat again after Kennedy and Johnson supported civil rights. Ever since then, the Democrats have been the party of liberals and Republicans the party of conservatives.

Conservatives have been on the wrong side of history for over a century, regardless of whether they labeled themselves Democrats or Republicans. Conservatives ultimately lost when they fought against the liberals to keep slavery, they lost when they fought to deny blacks the right to vote and own property, they lost when they fought to deny women the right to vote, they lost when they tried to fight racial integration, they lost when they tried to fight women demanding the ability to make their own medical decisions, and they lost when they fought the Civil Rights Act and all the attendant laws.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

Africa is not a country. There are Italian Americans, Greek Americans, German Americans. Noone defines themselves from an entire continent. Would you call Charlese Theron an African American? She is from Africa, she calls America her home. I guess she is African American. Hell, she is even MORE African American than Obama. I noticed you do not read much before responding. If you had, you would see that I explain my point further in the the text. But don't let logic stop you from living in your own world.

I remember quite some time ago seeing Charlton Heston in a television interview. This was during his later years when he was primarily a voice of the political right rather than an actor. There was a moment while he was under full steam, railing against political-correctness, when he stated, “It’s out of control! Really. I mean, ‘Native Americans’? For god’s sake, I was born here; I’m native American!” Can’t argue with that.

What Mr. Heston, an educated student of the arts, surely knew is that language, much less English, is malleable, often imprecise. No one would dispute that anyone born in the U.S. is a native American. However, they may not necessarily be a “Native American.” That’s because the two descriptors, while using the same words, are not the same thing. (Most Native Americans today are, after all, native American, but not vice versa.) The general understanding, which the man with the damn-dirty-ape growl forgot (or perhaps just chose to ignore), is that a term can have its own definition, separate of its components. We are given to understand that Native American describes a people indigenous to North America, before the influx of settlers from Europe, Asia, and other points. So while Mr. Heston’s statement was cute, it was hardly accurate.

Same thing with “African-American.” Yes, Africa is a continent, not a country. But “African” is a generalizer, like Asian, South American, and European. The term African-American is not inaccurate because there is no such thing as an “African.” Actually, it can’t be inaccurate at all. Why? Again, a term can mean anything it is generally considered to mean. It’s immaterial if an African-American has never set foot on the dark continent. If a person possesses whatever features, characteristics, or bloodline qualifies under the commonly understood definition of the heading, nothing more can be said.

Barack Obama is an African-American (along with the beautiful anti-birther irony that he’s also a native American). Can’t argue with that.

 

[lomiller]

Are you sure about this? I was in college when the whole Iraq War thing went down and I remember a lot on the Left who seemed to think even stopping active genocide was not a reason to invade another country. The subgroup I'm talking about believed you waged war to defend against invasion and for nothing else.

Pretty sure. The politics and international law surrounding Rwanda was a pretty big deal here. Romeo Dallaire's decision to disobey orders to bring his small peacekeeping contingent home when the mission was canceled brought up a lot of the legal issues.

 

[Dorian Gray]

If a woman was in charge, we'd still have wars. We'd just have absolutely no idea why.

 

[CORed]

1. 
   ...
2. If we have a woman president, no special magic will happen. I have worked with many women at Microsoft who strongly believe that amaizing things will happen just by having a women leader that will not happen by having a male leader. They are not joking. They say these things with a straight face.
   ...

1. 
   
   Paraphrase: I know some women (unclear whether they are actually liberals , but perhaps that's the case) who believe something pretty silly, therefore all liberals believe that silly thing.
   
   There's certainly a fallacy here, but it's only "liberal fallacy" in the sense that it's about liberals.

 

[Dymanic]

If a woman was in charge, we'd still have wars. We'd just have absolutely no idea why.

You'd be expected to figure that out without being told.

 

[Biscuit]

The die-hard extreme liberal will talk about equality but I never see them dating someone who is a different colour or background. I think they are full of it, as the saying goes.
]

Your dull idiotic posts are earning you a prized place on my ignore list. I suggest we all do the same before he kicks the ant hill straight through to china.

 

[varwoche]

We were not really "at peace" with Iraq after the first gulf war. We were basically containing Saddam's Iraq with the now-fly zones.

I'd be willing to bet there is no adult posting here with an IQ greater than a geranium who is not aware of these painfully obvious facts.

Obama is not "African American". The term was invented to descirbe the Americans who had decended from slaves in the USA and it was unknown what country they had come from.

Semantic inanity (of a high order) on your part.

If we have a woman president, no special magic will happen. I have worked with many women at Microsoft who strongly believe that amaizing things will happen just by having a women leader that will not happen by having a male leader. They are not joking. They say these things with a straight face.

On a scale of 0-10, how convincing are your private anecdotes? Answer: 0

The invasion of Iraq was NOT done to find Weapons of Mass Destruction. If you disagree. Show me the facts.

LO f'in L. See following post, not to mention Colin Powell's presentation to the UN.

 

[varwoche]

The invasion of Iraq was NOT done to find Weapons of Mass Destruction. If you disagree. Show me the facts.

Enjoy:

Saddam is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends…and against us.

We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

We do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.

We're getting additional information that, in fact, Hussein is reconstituting his biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs.

Saddam has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, and mustard gas.

High-ranking detainees have said that Iraq provided some training to Al Qaeda in chemical weapons development.

The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.

The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more, and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.

Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Iraq has at least seven mobile factories.

We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.

In an alternate universe, I suppose these statements, and Powell's presentation to the UN, were just casual asides?

 

[sackett]

How come izzit?

Your dull idiotic posts are earning you a prized place on my ignore list. I suggest we all do the same before he kicks the ant hill straight through to china.

How come my perfectly friendly, supportive post* taking Bill's side got moved,** but this ole meanie gets to use such abusive language AND reveal the use of the Iggy button?



* In which I did not make any reference whatsoever to a horse's ass.
** To AAH? Dunno. I have AAH on Ignore.

 

[RandFan]

Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq | Mother Jones

Remember yellow cake? Remember Collin Powell Making the case for WMD in order to invade?

FOX news is still pushing the thoroughly debunked theory.

Fox News Continues Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Iraq Hid WMD In Other Countries

Most Republicans polled believed that Iraq had WMD until at least 2012.

Yes, Iraq Definitely Had WMD, Vast Majority Of Polled Republicans

It's a fact that the CIA admits that it gave a misleading report about WMD to the Whitehouse.

The CIA's Mea Culpa on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction

The person who was relied on for information of WMD now admits he lied.

Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

Iraq and weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia

I could go on.

 

[Halfcentaur]

This thread is a premium example of the Bill Thompson Fallacy, now that you mention it.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Sorry to be late in responding. I realize the thread has moved on. . . .

The closest I've heard to that claim was that we "gave" him the weapons that he used against the Kurds, Kuwaitis and Shi'ite uprising. The claim falls apart, of course, when it's pointed out that nerve gas is relatively easy to make, and the US wasn't making a whole lot of MiGs and Hind helicopters in the 1980s.

And even that claim is somewhat justifiable. The U.S. certainly gave billions of dollars worth of aid to Iraq during that time. While we didn't actually "give" them these weapons (afaik, we provided no U.S. made weapons), we certainly helped them. Whatever aid we gave them arguably made it possible for them to do whatever they did if only by freeing up resources that they would otherwise have had to spend on the things our aid was used for.

So again, Bill is just arguing against a straw version of a legitimate observation. While one could argue against a particularly strong formulation of the observation (the wording I used in post number 12, for example), or even an in-between but relatively weak one, such as the one you're suggesting, Bill went after the most easily defeated version which few if any liberals actual would accept.

If he's going to quibble over wording, using wording of his own invention isn't the right way to do it. It's a straw debate wherein he is acting out the role of his opponent. (The image of Clint Eastwood debating an empty chair comes to mind.) Your opponent will always set you up for easy slam dunk refutations if you're the one acting out the role of your opponent.

 

[rustypouch]

Bill, you get a 8/10 for this thread. Very good, but still room for improvement.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

This thread is a premium example of the Bill Thompson Fallacy, now that you mention it.

I object to that term. Arguing against a straw man is nothing new, and Bill Thompson certainly didn't invent it.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I could go on.

One of my favorites:



I think one of the biggest things that happened was that the Bush administration cast their speculations of the threat posed by Iraq as certain. This is a plain example. The claim goes from knowing certainly that there were large stockpiles of WMDs near Tikrit and Baghdad to the claim that they were only suspected sites.

 

[jimbob]

I object to that term. Arguing against a straw man is nothing new, and Bill Thompson certainly didn't invent it.

But this was a particularly inane version. One that might deserve some recognition for its inanity.