Liberal Fallacies

[RandFan]

If I got something wrong, by the way, which one did I get wrong?

I know you don't care Bill but you made the claims. Where is your evidence?

Oh, BTW, you got everything wrong. Very, very wrong. Here's my proof that you got them wrong.

You can't support your claims.

And I'm not angry.

 

[lomiller]

As I remember, after 9-11, the mindset of the Americans changed. But the mindset of Saddam and his supporters did not. But that is not immediately why we invaded. There were countless UN violations that were passed that were designed to inspect and verify Saddams Iraq. Saddam played cat-and-mouse with the inspectors. Letting them in and then shortly kicking him out.

Irrelevant. Individual nations don't get to decide when UN violations have been committed nor do they get to decide when violations justify military action.

In any case I'm really not interested in your broken record on the issue which is why I addressed my response to upchurch, with whome I see the possibility of potential for an interesting duologue

 

[Bill Thompson]

1. 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.
2. 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. Africa has many countries and the people there are many different colors. Calling Obama "African American" is like calling Charleze Theron "African American"
3. 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.
4. If we are kind or tolerant to our enemies, they will be not be kind and tolerant to us. Bill Clinton would launch a few rockets to take out Osama bin Laden's training camps after the bombing of the USS Cole. Too bad no one was there. Clinton would only do a proverbial slap on the wrist in a retaliation to serious acts of war. He would also pull out of armed conflect like he did in Mogodishu. People have interviewed Osama bin Laden and he credited the passive behavior of the Clinton administration as a sign of weakness.
5. 9-11 happened on "Bush's Watch" and that somehow means something. I have heard this from Liberals a lot. Clinton was president during the first bombing of the World Trade Center but no one blames Clinton. But I have heard Bush suggestively get blamed.
6. Obama told the truth in Cairo about the Golden Age of Islam and that helped the USA somehow. Yeah, the Golden Age of Islam is a myth. "Myths are the enimies of the truth, not lies" as Kennedy once said. Telling the Muslim world that the US president wants and welcomes their embrace of Islam cannot be wise for other reasons.
7. MSNBC does not report the truth. That is just academic. You can google charts showing what news outlets present opinions and which ones report facts
8. The invasion of Iraq was NOT done to find Weapons of Mass Destruction. If you disagree. Show me the facts.
9. The USA gassed the Kurds and the Irainians. I have heard this from Liberals a lot. It is a misunderstanding of the events. Saddam asked us to show him where they were via satelite and we did, not knowing he would gas them.
10. Liberals think less people died because of Bill Clinton's war decisions and actions or inactions than George W. Bush's. One word, Rwanda. Ok, how about five words, one million dead in Rwanda. Need more?
11. Liberals thik that since Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11, the invasion of Iraq was wrong. The invasion did not really have much directly to do with 9-11.

I know you don't care Bill but you made the claims. Where is your evidence?

I just clarified for you and others. Which one do you disagree with?

If I knew this discussion thread was going to be moved, this list would have been made directly under the orginal in the OP.

 

[RandFan]

{straw men snipped}

And no evidence. Just create straw men.

Hey Bill, can you quote a liberal making any of these claims and then can you show that the claim is typical among liberals?

 

[Bill Thompson]

And no evidence. Just create straw men.

What are you talking about? Be specific.

they are typical among liberals to me. You demand I take a survey? Pay me for my time.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Irrelevant. Individual nations don't get to decide when UN violations have been committed nor do they get to decide when violations justify military action.

Then the UN means nothing more than any other people gathered in a big room. Don't you agree?

 

[RandFan]

What are you talking about? Be specific.

Dude, you don't have any evidence for any of your claims. That's pretty damn specific. Quote a liberal who has made any of your claims? Why can't you do that?

Simple, you live in an echo chamber and you think these things are true. You don't care about evidence you only care about slandering people.

 

[RandFan]

If I knew this discussion thread was going to be moved, this list would have been made directly under the orginal in the OP.

I didn't ask for clarification. I asked for evidence that these are not simply straw men. This is a skeptics site. Claims are expected to include citations, links, sources.

If you claim that liberals have a position then demonstrate it.

Take some personal responsibility for once. Show your work.

 

[Quinn]

At the DNC, they were selling buttons that said "once you vote black, you never go back" and they seemed to think it was cute, and no one objected to it.

I know a half dozen couples who are very conservative and would be thought of as "interracial".

My liberal cousins, once they have a glass of wine and have let their guard down will say a joke that might be thought of as racially incensitive.

At my aunt's 80th birthdday party, distant liberal cousins seemed proud of the fact that they voted for Obama just because he has black skin and did not think for a moment that that was racist. But it is.

Just for kicks, let's pretend that all those anecdotes are verifiably true. Even if so, some of them could be said to support the statement that "there are liberals who classify people based on the color of their skin." They do nothing whatsoever to support the statement that...

I only heard Liberals classify people based on the color of their skin.

 

[332nd]

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. Africa has many countries and the people there are many different colors. Calling Obama "African American" is like calling Charleze Theron "African American"

Funny you should mention that. When I was a grad student at UCONN, two officers of the African-American cultural club were whites with ties to South Africa. One was born there, the other, after her mother had become a US citizen. The AACC had no problem calling them African-American. Also I didn't have a problem calling my Army buddy Gbehan, who immigrated from Ghana, African-American. He calls himself African-American.

Your argument is dismissed.

 

[qayak]

I followed the events leading up to the invasion very closely. After the invasion, it became obvious, that no one I knew followed the events at all.

I'm not surprised you got these two statements exactly backward.

As I remember, after 9-11, the mindset of the Americans changed. But the mindset of Saddam and his supporters did not. But that is not immediately why we invaded. There were countless UN violations that were passed that were designed to inspect and verify Saddams Iraq. Saddam played cat-and-mouse with the inspectors. Letting them in and then shortly kicking him out.

Read what Hans Blix, the UN inspector in charge wrote BEFORE the invasion. He stated that the US was invading based on an accounting dispute. At the end of the Iran-Iraq war the UN asked Hussein how many chemical weapons he had left, they were told "approximately 14,000." The UN then supervised, or verified, the destruction of 13,550.

Iraq said they had no more, the US insisted there were 450 unaccounted for. But as Blix pointed out, 13,550 is "approximately 14,000." And as he stated, the Iraqis were playing cat and mouse but there were few other places to hide their weapons and the UN was slowly investigating all of them.

Powel had a point when he said that if some sort of action was not done, the UN would be a pointless body. Their resolutions would not mean anything if Saddam constantly violated them and nothing was done.

Then why didn't the US invade Israel? They had more outstanding UN resolutions than Iraq did. It isn't even close!

And there was a long list of violations.

All based on an accounting disagreement as Blix showed.

You can say that it was illegal because the UN did not approve of the invasion in the end. But prior to that, they did pass virtually countless resolutions that Saddam violated. So one can also look at it another way and say that it was good for the UN that Bush gathered "countries of the willing" who joined the US in the invasion.

You mean "countries of the willingly stupid" don't you. Can you explain how your Secretary of State can stand up in front of the UN and spout refuted lie, after refuted lie as "new intelligence" and not have a single person from any US intelligence agency lose their job? Are you saying "U.S. Intelligence" is an oxymoron?

Here's what Powell had to say about it:

(April 2004) "I looked at the four [sources] that [the CIA] gave me for [the mobile bio-labs], and they stood behind them, ... Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid. At the time I was preparing the presentation, it was presented to me as being solid."


(2005) "I feel terrible ... [giving the speech] ... It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now."

Let me ask you this. There were many resolutions that demanded that Saddam allow for inspectors that Saddam violated. Now, after the US invaded, did the UN pass any resolutions saying that the US and other countries were wrong to do the invasion?

The US withdrew resolution 18 because they knew it wouldn't pass. Here's what Kofi Annan said about the invasion in regard to the UN charter: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

 

[RandFan]

I only heard Liberals classify people based on the color of their skin.

Bill is an expert on what is and what isn't an African American.

 

[RandFan]

Funny you should mention that. When I was a grad student at UCONN, two officers of the African-American cultural club were whites with ties to South Africa. One was born there, the other, after her mother had become a US citizen. The AACC had no problem calling them African-American. Also I didn't have a problem calling my Army buddy Gbehan, who immigrated from Ghana, African-American. He calls himself African-American.

Your argument is dismissed.

If you can call it an argument. More like fevered conjecture.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Just for kicks, let's pretend that all those anecdotes are verifiably true. ..

I think you are lost. It was the Republicans that freed the slaves. It was the Democrats who fought it. Little has changed. Go to the deep south and find out what political leanings the good ol' boys have today.

I think you believe what you are told.

This is a whole huge topic. Start another thread.

If one has to make an effort to prove that you are not a racist, often that person is hiding something. This has been my experience. 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.

There is something else. The so-called civil rights activists often enable sterotypes about their own race. Like I said, this is a long topic to discuss. I will get into this in a few hours from now. But for starters, I think this is where a black conservative woman made short work of Al Sharpton

 

[Bill Thompson]

If you can call it an argument. More like fevered conjecture.

We all speak from personal expeience. And yet, I notice, you seem to think I owe you detailed survey and my time conducting research. If I found charts and graphs from other people's studies, what would you say?

The commentary and ideas of Liberal pundits who basically pull their ideas out of thin air have weight to you. Why is that? Is it because they are on TV and I am not?

 

[RandFan]

This has been my experience. The die-hard extreme liberal will talk about equality but I never seem them dating someone who is a different colour or background.

This has been my experience. All Republicans lie about just about everything. They make things up faster than they can type them. It doesn't matter that it's chock full of BS. If a Republican believes it why he will post it.

Evidence? "***** that" says our Republican. "If I say it's true.". I can just libel liberals all day long without any evidence because I'm a Republican.

Bless baby jesus.

 

[RandFan]

We all speak from personal expeience. And yet, I notice, you seem to think I owe you detailed survey and my time conducting research. If I found charts and graphs from other people's studies, what would you say?

The commentary and ideas of Liberal pundits who basically pull their ideas out of thin are have weight to you. Why is that? Is it because they are on TV and I am not?

You seem to think that a skeptics site doesn't require the same evidence of everyone. I have to prove my claims. Darat has to prove his claims.

There is nothing special about you. Put up or shut up.

 

[332nd]

I think you are lost. It was the Republicans that freed the slaves. It was the Democrats who fought it. Little has changed. Go to the deep south and find out what political leanings the good ol' boys have today.

I grew up in the south, most of the "good ol' boys" were republicans, they still are from what I've seen having moved back to the south for the second time.

If one has to make an effort to prove that you are not a racist, often that person is hiding something. This has been my experience. The die-hard extreme liberal will talk about equality but I never seem them dating someone who is a different colour or background. I think they are full of it, as the saying goes.

My wife is a white, private schooled liberal from Vermont, I'm a black, public schooled centrist from North Carolina.

 

[RandFan]

I wonder if Bill has ever heard of The Southern Strategy.

 

[332nd]

We all speak from personal expeience. And yet, I notice, you seem to think I owe you detailed survey and my time conducting research. If I found charts and graphs from other people's studies, what would you say?

The commentary and ideas of Liberal pundits who basically pull their ideas out of thin air have weight to you. Why is that? Is it because they are on TV and I am not?

Actually, he was responding to what I posted, which you are desperately trying to ignore. Is it because I provided just as much evidence as you did?