Here’s the setup for a meta-tu quoque. Stage 1: A makes crazy claim. Stage 2: B criticizes A for crazy claim. Stage 3: A defends A’s claim by noting B’s criticism is based on a double-standard. Stage 4: B notes that A, in charging a double-standard, employs a double standard. I’ve noted elsewhere here at … Continue reading Tu quo… um, what?
Here’s a way you can straw man someone. Pick out a bad decision she made, then say she chose that bad part of the decision. For example, say my wife and I are trying to decide where to vacation. She wants to go to a cabin in the woods – something rustic and woodsy. But … Continue reading Under a description
The other day George Will countered the claim that high voter turnout is a sign of civic health by reminding everyone that Nazis came to power as a result of high voter turnout. An observant commenter at Media Matters noted correctly that Hitler’s party lost the 1932 Presidential election 53-36. More telling, however, is how … Continue reading At least it’s an ethos
Here is George Will on why the Obama administration’s attempt to make voting easier (i.e., to remove various local impediments to voting)Â is not desirable: In 1960, 62.8 percent of age-eligible citizens voted. In the 13 subsequent presidential elections, lower turnouts than this have coincided with the removal of impediments to voting (poll taxes, literacy tests, … Continue reading You know who also voted in high numbers? Nazis, that’s who.
Sometimes I think the real reason Hume aimed his skeptical arguments at the notion of causation is because he perceived the manifold ways dubious argumentative strategies can give causal arguments tremendous rhetorical force. George Will was kind enough to provide us with just such a perverse causal claim this week. Recent events at Penn State, University of … Continue reading Progressivism Isn’t Everything, It’s The Only Thing
I admit that for me, it's galling to see Christians playing the game of claiming discrimination when challenged on their own discriminatory policies. It's usually about sex, whether about insurance covering contraception or gays in the military, but its always a confusion about whether they have a right for their bigotry to ground policy. When … Continue reading Good Lord
It's final exam day here in my world–Critical Thinking is the course. A friend on Face Book posted this article about being a Republican who believed climate change to be a real thing. Actually, the article is about understanding what the claim about climate change entails, in particular the difference between climate and weather. This difference … Continue reading Final Exam
The Pontifical North American College, or whoever is responsible for instructing America's Catholic Priestly class, must offer a course in Godwinism: everyone with whom you have even a minor disagreement is a Nazi. This is a move repugnant even to the most stoned college freshman who's just been busted for pot smoking. For him, at least, the … Continue reading Bishop Godwin
Some classic iron manning from the Washington Post's Ombudsman (via Media Matters and Atrios): When President Obama has a bad day, or more specifically, on days when the economic news has been bad, I get a slew of feedback from conservative readers that go like this: “See, you liberal media nincompoops, this is all your fault, you … Continue reading Iron men at the Washington Post
Colin, Scott and I are working on a paper for the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation conference on the problem of subjunctive inconsistency, or, as we term it, subjunctive tu quoque arguments. The idea was originally Colin's (see here). In a very basic sense, the argument scheme goes like this: you hold belief x … Continue reading The shoe is on the other foot