{"id":736,"date":"2008-07-28T09:34:34","date_gmt":"2008-07-28T13:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=736"},"modified":"2008-07-28T12:44:36","modified_gmt":"2008-07-28T16:44:36","slug":"argumentum-ad-dictum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=736","title":{"rendered":"Argumentum ad dictum"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can think of the Latin for "bumper sticker" (argumentum ad scriptum bigae in posteriore<\/em>?).  But Bill Kristol<\/a> gives us another example in today's Times (see here <\/a>for another): <\/p>\n

\n

But the next morning, as I drove around the Washington suburbs, I saw not one but two cars — rather nice cars, as it happens — festooned with the Obama campaign bumper sticker “got hope?” And I relapsed into moroseness<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Got hope? Are my own neighbors’ lives so bleak that they place their hopes in Barack Obama? Are they impressed by the cleverness of a political slogan that plays off a rather cheesy (sorry!) campaign to get people to drink milk? <\/p>\n

And what is it the bumper-sticker affixers<\/strong> are trying to say? Do they really believe their fellow citizens who happen to prefer McCain are hopeless? After all, just because you haven’t swooned like Herr Spörl doesn’t mean you don’t hope for a better world. Don’t McCain backers also have hope — for an America that wins its wars, protects its unborn children and allows its citizens to keep more of their hard-earned income?<\/p>\n

But what if all those “got hope?” bumper stickers spur a backlash? It might occur to undecided or swing voters that talk of hope is not a substantive plan. They might be further put off by the haughtiness of Obama’s claim to the mantle of hope. This hope restored my spirits.<\/p>\n

Before they fell again. Later that day, I read a report of a fund-raising letter from Obama on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, arguing that “We must have a deadlock-proof Democratic majority.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Someone once claimed that all arguments are "ad hominem."  By this he obviously didn't mean that all arguments commit the fallacy of the same name, but he meant rather that all arguments are directed at some particular person's beliefs.  Regardless, the same principles of charity would apply.<\/p>\n

Now this isn't the worst of Kristol's argument, as it is merely a set-up for an even sillier claim [continuing directly]:<\/p>\n

\n

Yikes.<\/p>\n

But then it occurred to me that one man’s “deadlock-proof” Democratic majority is another’s unchecked Democratic majority. Given the unpopularity of the current Democratic Congress<\/strong>, given Americans’ tendency to prefer divided government, given the voters’ repudiations of the Republicans in 2006 and of the Democrats in 1994<\/strong> — isn’t the prospect of across-the-board, one-party Democratic governance more likely to move votes to McCain than to Obama?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

These are all certainly reasons related in the right kind of way to the conclusion (they won't elect Obama), but Kristol is guilty of two big mistakes.  The first is a priorism<\/em>–while the evidence he mentions relates to the conclusion (even though the claim about the dissatisfaction with the "democratic" congress is misleading), the availability of empirical data makes such recourse to a priori notions unnecessary.  One can, in other words, track poll data now–poll data which paints a rather different picture (so he at least ought to argue against that).  Second, the repudiation of majorities 12 years a part does not demonstrate much (it's only two instances) about American distrust of one-party rule–besides, in neither of those years were their Presidential elections. <\/p>\n

**update: here's someone<\/a>'s suggestion for bumper sticker: adfixum in obice<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can think of the Latin for "bumper sticker" (argumentum ad scriptum bigae in posteriore?).  But Bill Kristol gives us another example in today's Times (see here for another): But the next morning, as I drove around the Washington suburbs, I saw not one but two cars — rather nice cars, as it happens — … Continue reading Argumentum ad dictum<\/span> →<\/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":[40,42,20,58,12,56],"tags":[1978,244,243,245,242,1964],"class_list":["post-736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ad-hominem","category-ad-hominem-abusive","category-hasty-generalization","category-lack-of-evidence","category-straw-man","category-william-kristol","tag-ad-hominem","tag-argumentum-ad-adfixum-in-obice","tag-argumentum-ad-dictum","tag-argumentum-ad-scriptum-bigae-in-posteriore","tag-bill-kristol","tag-straw-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736","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=736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}