{"id":4512,"date":"2013-10-22T19:50:13","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T00:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4512"},"modified":"2013-10-22T19:50:13","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T00:50:13","slug":"risky-strategies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4512","title":{"rendered":"Risky strategies"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 446px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" \" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nowtheendbegins.com\/images\/hitlerOBAMA_2.jpg\" width=\"446\" height=\"319\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">ad Hitlerem and straw man<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Like the ad Hitlerem, there is a paradoxical admission involved in straw manning, viz., you don&#8217;t actually have an argument against your opponent&#8217;s\u00c2\u00a0view.\u00c2\u00a0 You have an argument against Hitler, in the case of the ad Hitlerem, which your\u00c2\u00a0opponent is very likely not; in the case of the straw man, you have an argument against a\u00c2\u00a0distorted, selected, or made up\u00c2\u00a0position or opponent, when your real opponent&#8217;s real view is still hanging around.\u00c2\u00a0 If you get caught, you first of all look like a liar; but more seriously, you&#8217;ll look like you&#8217;ve\u00c2\u00a0just made the case for your opponent.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Crucially, however, you&#8217;ve wasted precious time and attention\u00c2\u00a0attacking a\u00c2\u00a0pseudo-position.<\/p>\n<p>This struck me when I read the following snippet from a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/comment\/2013\/10\/the-john-birchers-tea-party.html?intcid=obnetwork\">New Yorker<\/a> piece about the Tea Party:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The really weird thing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe American exception in it all\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthen as much as now, is how\u00c2\u00a0<i>tiny<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0all the offenses are. French right-wingers really did have a powerful, Soviet-affiliated Communist Party to deal with, as their British counterparts really had honest-to-god Socialists around, socializing stuff. <strong>But the Bircher-centered loonies and the Tea Partiers created a world of fantasy, willing mild-mannered, conflict-adverse centrists like J.F.K. and Obama into socialist Supermen.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As many supporters have pointed out, all of the attention given to death panels and Hitler socialism has left the law, with all of its actual flaws,\u00c2\u00a0standing.\u00c2\u00a0 One would think that concerns over practicality and efficiency would be sufficient to\u00c2\u00a0eliminate the straw\u00c2\u00a0Hitler arguments.\u00c2\u00a0 One would think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like the ad Hitlerem, there is a paradoxical admission involved in straw manning, viz., you don&#8217;t actually have an argument against your opponent&#8217;s\u00c2\u00a0view.\u00c2\u00a0 You have an argument against Hitler, in the case of the ad Hitlerem, which your\u00c2\u00a0opponent is very likely not; in the case of the straw man, you have an argument against a\u00c2\u00a0distorted, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4512\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Risky strategies<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1783,1964,719],"class_list":["post-4512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-ad-hitlerem","tag-straw-man","tag-tea-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4516,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions\/4516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}