Topic: Strawman arguments
started by: veistran
Posted by veistran on May 23 2002,07:54
So, I've been re-reading all these debate threads and what do I see but everyone's favourite argument the strawman used time and again. Here we have CK using the strawman pretty effectively, and then we have DSL using the strawman like a fucking spinmaster. Want to get a word in edgewise? Want to have an intelligent conversation? Too damn bad, one or the other will invade with the strawman argument and then your thread will degenerate from there. Three exceptional examples of the strawman come to us c/o DSL.strawmen quoted.. comments below.
| Quote |
| Unfortunately Veistran et. al have decided to shut down the debate because... well, because they don't LIKE debate, and they're not interested in discovering the truth. They want everyone to think just like them, and they think they have every right to jump and scream stupid shit until the real participants get tired of their antics and leave. |
This type of strawman is really common(I wonder why?), accuse them of not wanting to know the "truth" or the "facts" or not wanting the people to know the "truth" or the "facts." Especially good when someone tells you to stop using strawmen.
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| 6. They can never admit thier mistakes, even when they have been bitchslapped so hard they see stars (think "the personal income tax is unconstitutional!" - huh?) |
Here we have the first rule of good strawman arguments brilliantly illustrated. When out of on-topic strawmen, bring in a really easily refuted one to get attention. No topic is too inane, this strawman is a great multipurpose one, but must be followed with another.
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| 8. The people who claim they are the ONLY ones who stand for freedom and democracy are the same people who gave us Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy. |
Knowing that he must follow up with another strawman DSL picks a real winner. Managing to try and imply that anyone that disagrees with him should be associated with Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy.
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| 10. Conservative Muslims blow up our favorite buildings, Conservative Jews think it's cool to shoot unarmed civilians if they're not Jewish, Conservative Christians want to make sure that the only thing we can see on TV is the 700 Club... do you really think that Conservative Americans == the people who want to defend your freedom? Just because someone claims something doesn't mean they are telling the truth... |
Everyone's farvourite, an oldie but a goodie the: Accuse them of being religious fanatics and/or not wanting the "truth" to get out --especially useful whenever it looks like your cover is blown-- strawman. This one is used all over the internet, print media, and even on TV.
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Another pair of awesome strawman tactics are illustrated to us by CK
| Quote |
| why does no one answer my questions? |
Don't like what you're hearing? Deny that they actually said anything in response to you. Accuse them of skirting the issue no matter how direct the reply.
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| not all societies are morally correct. the nazi's tried to exterminate all non-aryans. aztec's slaughterd thousands for religious (possibly economical) reasons. |
Bring up Hitler, the Nazis or the Aztecs whenever your discussion is on morality. They'll be good for proving whatever point you want.
These five strawman arguments only scratch the surface of the use of the strawman here and everywhere. Now that I've taken the time to point out why the strawman is bad, I do hope everyone(yes, this includes me) will be less indulgant in using it. Further I hope this has been fun an educational for everyone.
Disclaimer: Yes I know I've indulged in the strawman here (for greater satirical effect, I hope) and in general(I'm bad, I shouldn't do it, but it's easy to be an asshole).
P.S. DSL, why are you suddenly so indulgant in the strawman? You've been by far the worst abuser in the past week and a half, and that's saying something. I mean we all take CK's use of it for granted, but you've been besting him at his own game. (yes, that was also a strawman)
P.P.S. This is a work of satire.
Posted by Vigilante on May 23 2002,09:49
It would be better if you didn't say "strawman" so many times. 
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on May 23 2002,10:52
it might be more interesting if I actually made straw man attacks, which are attacks on an intentionally distorted (and therefore weakened) version of the opposition's argument.CK does this, to be sure, and so do you.
let's note for the record that all of your examples are drawn from a post in which I said :
"I'd like to debate with Kuru more, of course, because she's actually doing something interesting and discussing the law and the balance of powers rather than jumping up and down and calling me a stupid hippy."
I then proceeded to attack you directly, because you were fucking up the debate.
however, I'll address your points briefly :
The first quote was a genuine complaint about your tactics, which are not conducive to debate. That's not a straw man argument - it's telling you to shut up because you're being inflammatory and irrelevant.
The remainder of your quotes came from a list of my own observations and questions regarding Conservative tactics, and more specifically the tactics they use to stifle debate - observations which I felt were entirely relevant at that point, given that you were using them pretty blatantly.
You don't even bother to attack my quotes directly. You just cry "straw man!" over and over and then proceed to demolish my arguments on those grounds.
Can anybody tell me what sort of argument that is?
Posted by Wolfguard on May 23 2002,15:37
| Quote (damien_s_lucifer @ 23 May 2002,05:52) |
| Can anybody tell me what sort of argument that is? |
Childish?
Posted by Necromancer on May 23 2002,16:51
claiming your "strawman" arguements are for satirical purposes to deflect their meaning. 
Posted by veistran on May 23 2002,17:07
| Quote (damien_s_lucifer @ 23 May 2002,04:52) |
| it might be more interesting if I actually made straw man attacks, which are attacks on an intentionally distorted (and therefore weakened) version of the opposition's argument. CK does this, to be sure, and so do you. let's note for the record that all of your examples are drawn from a post in which I said : "I'd like to debate with Kuru more, of course, because she's actually doing something interesting and discussing the law and the balance of powers rather than jumping up and down and calling me a stupid hippy." I then proceeded to attack you directly, because you were fucking up the debate. however, I'll address your points briefly : The first quote was a genuine complaint about your tactics, which are not conducive to debate. That's not a straw man argument - it's telling you to shut up because you're being inflammatory and irrelevant. The remainder of your quotes came from a list of my own observations and questions regarding Conservative tactics, and more specifically the tactics they use to stifle debate - observations which I felt were entirely relevant at that point, given that you were using them pretty blatantly. You don't even bother to attack my quotes directly. You just cry "straw man!" over and over and then proceed to demolish my arguments on those grounds. Can anybody tell me what sort of argument that is? |
A strawman is an argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated. This does NOT have anything to do with whether or not it's actually your opponents stance that you're refuting, any old argument'll do if you can make it sound like it's theirs. Again, I offer you accolades for your mastery of this tactic.
As far as not bothering to attack what you said directly. You need to get something I like to call reading comprehension. It allows you to actually understand what you're reading instead of what you're currently doing, which is as far as I can tell taking shots in the dark as to it's meaning. I attacked the whole basis of your arguments as having been irrelavent, weak arguments brought up by you solely because they were easily refuted. I attacked that your arguments have nothing to do with what was at hand nor what was said either by me or others on the thread. You seem to have a hard time grasping that this is more than just a direct attack on one or more posts, it's a direct attack on the fact that you have no real arguments to raise, they're all just little tiny strawmen for you to beat down.
To sum it all up from both my posts, since you seemed to miss it: 1) stop using the strawman, 2) no really, stop, 3) strawman arguments are crap, 4) I know you have reading comprehension, and you're just pretending to be thick, 5) you need to try and actually stop using the strawman.
necro, I used my strawmen, I hoped, to prove my point about how easy they are to use to prove any point if you're willing to irrelavent enough. I also admitted that I've done it in the past and that it's bad. At least I was honest, eh?
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on May 23 2002,19:54
| Quote (Wolfguard @ 23 May 2002,07:37) | ||
Childish? |
you made Sprite foam out of my nose
This is hilarious... I can't believe someone is actually trying to lecture me on reading comprehension and basic critical thinking.
Hey, are you going to teach math to CatKnight too?
Posted by veistran on May 24 2002,01:53
| Quote (damien_s_lucifer @ 23 May 2002,13:54) | ||
Childish?[/quote] you made Sprite foam out of my nose This is hilarious... I can't believe someone is actually trying to lecture me on reading comprehension and basic critical thinking. Hey, are you going to teach math to CatKnight too? |
So, are you going to actually going to stop using strawmen?
Afterall, that was the point of this thread... and the reading comprehension was more me making fun of your ignoring the point. But you knew that since you have excellent reading comprehension that I dare not question.
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on May 24 2002,03:30
As I've already pointed out, I don't think I'm using the straw man attack, so it's pretty hard to say "yeah, I'll stop."As for questioning my reading comprehension - of course you have the right to question it. It's amusing because you sound like you're either taking or just completed Critical Thinking 101. I, too, fancied myself the Slayer of Foul Arguments for awhile after that class.
I'm glad you're interested in it, since many people are clueless when it comes to logic.
However, I think if you go back and reread my arguments, you'll find that I'm much more interested in discourse than winning some point I made at the outset. I often revise my arguments and switch my direction of attack several times in any given thread.
Interesting thing about me is that I don't believe myself to be objective, nor to I claim to be. This means I don't have to be right or even rational all the time. It also allows me to rabidly pursue the truth, rather than wasting my time defending some argument I made that turned out to be little more than a nice try
addendum : < A good site about fallacies. >
Posted by veistran on May 24 2002,08:05
| Quote (damien_s_lucifer @ 23 May 2002,21:30) |
| It's amusing because you sound like you're either taking or just completed Critical Thinking 101. I, too, fancied myself the Slayer of Foul Arguments for awhile after that class. |
nope, haven't gotten around to that bit of curricula.
Posted by Bozeman on May 24 2002,15:30
Strawman arguements are presenting two sides of an arguement, but presentingthe one you don't like weakly, si it can be attacked. Based on this, I believe DSL was not using the strawman. His posts do not convey both sides of anything, they are statements. Catknight is innocent of this crime as well; his "strawman" quotes are 1-2 sentences long. Theyr'e statements, not strawman arguements. Perhaps Veistran meant that these were strawman arguements in context to the thread. In this case, I'd need to go back and read the threads, which I won't do because I don't give a rat's ass.
Posted by CatKnight on May 24 2002,18:53
Viestran, you did a good job but aren't quite right. First of all, neither of us made a straw-man fallacy. A straw-man fallacy is when you misrepresent the opponent's position so that you can knock it down more easily, and then say you won the argument. Here is an example of a real straw-man fallacy:"To be an atheist, you have to believe with absolute certainty that there is no God. In order to convince yourself with absolute certainty, you must examine all the Universe and all the places where God could possibly be. Since you obviously haven't, your position is indefensible."
What DSL did was Argumentum ad hominem, slandering the arguer instead of making points and counter-points. When DSL can't argue that liberals are indeed idiots, he slanders us by saying things like conservatives are evil, etc.
Those quotes of mine you took were not fallacies at all, you took them out of context. The first one, I did ask people a bunch of questions, to which they replied with flames instead of answers. The second one was also in context, as I was directly arguing for moral absolutism and saying how other cultures WERE evil, from an absolute point of view.
Posted by CatKnight on May 24 2002,19:20
I like the description of the ad hominem from your site better then on the one I used.< http://www.nizkor.org/feature....em.html >
If I could get all liberals to read this and understand it, the country would be a better place.
Posted by demonk on May 24 2002,19:39
Definition1. What is a liberal?
The word has a number of meanings, all of which reflect aspects of liberal thought. These include "favorable to progress and reform, as in religious or political affairs"; "favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties"; "open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc."; and "characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts". [Random House Dictionary of the English Language]. Liberals want to change things to increase personal freedom and tolerance, and are willing to empower government to the extent necessary to achieve those ends.
This was taken from the following website:
< http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people....on.html >
Just want to make sure we all agree on what we are befor we proceed to slander each other again.
Posted by CatKnight on May 24 2002,19:52
we already discussed this before. I could care less about the definition of the word liberal. I am more concerned with their grave actions then their so-called ideaology of intellectualism.If they wanted to increase personal freedom, why would they be trying to ban guns, pass more and more laws (such as the anti-midget-tossing law in florida), etc
If they wanted to increase tolerance, why would they create such ideas such as homophobe and hate speech, which don't exist? why would they convict whites who commit crimes against blacks of a hate crime, but not blacks for doing the same? why would jesse jackson be extorting buisness out of millions?
"Empower the government to the extent nescessary" should be read as "empower the government to the extent possible"
"characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts". yeah, give generous amounts of money to dependant citizens, at the expense of the middle-class and upper-class taxpayers!
lastly, I ask you, what is wrong with traditional and conventional ideas? if it ain't broke, don't fix it. especially, if it ain't broke, don't break it and claim you are fixing it, but need even more money to do so! (philly public schools)
Posted by demonk on May 24 2002,20:07
Well CK, you just summed up what is wrong with conservatives.Our country is not alright. If you think so, then you are not taking a real look at the world, or your view has been severally clouded by your parties propaganda. There are some seriously wrong things in our country. I'm not going to pretend to know the answers, but I know that what we have done in the past is not working. If you do go to that website I linked to, you will find many things explaining what liberals think and what they think the government's role in this world is. They do say that there is no one way that liberals stand on all the issues, so I do not doubt that you will run into the kind of people that you characterize all liberals as being.
Also, you just used a Strawman attack CK. You mentioned several "cases" of liberal activities that you do not agree with (hell, most PEOPLE, including most liberals, don't agree with their actions). These cases were easy for you to defeat, and thus claim victory that your views on liberals were right and that conversitive thought is the "right way". So, since you used the strawman attack, your argument is invalid. Please stick to the points, and not pull up "examples" of liberal actions that everyone can agree are bad. I can always pull out "examples" of people who identify themselves as conservatives doing things that would make most people's blood boil with rage and then claim that all conversative are like this and therefore conservatism is wrong. But I don't, because that would be a strawman attack. I prefer to look at the whole picture of the conservative parties and to look at how they are moving as a group. That way, individual actions get canceled out and you see the real intent and purpose behind them.
Posted by CatKnight on May 24 2002,20:20
stop saying strawman. i didn't use any straw man fallacies at all. here is your problem. you are going to some liberal website which is promoting the virtues of liberalism in an abstract context. I could care less about what liberals WANT to do or how they WANT to make the world a better place. I am most concerned with WHAT they do and HOW they do it. Those examples I poined out are not a couple of extreme cases, they are the norm of the democratic party's practices and strategies. Another problem with what you said is that you mentioned "there are lots of things wrong with this country", without saying any explicit examples, and implying that conservatives 'were behind it'. Furthermore, you critisize me using examples isntead of sticking to the abstract ideaologies! Do you not see what is wrong with your reasoning? I challenge you now, to give me several examples of what is wrong with this country today, name some possible solution, and name which party is doing what about it. Use this format to make it explicitly clear what you mean.1-Problem
2-possible solution
3-what republicans are doing
4-what democrats are doing
Posted by demonk on May 24 2002,20:28
I'm done talking to CK. I cannot have an intelligent discussion with him. I tried very hard to be rational, calm, and to address the points in his argument. And then he comes back with anger and generalities. Here is a tip CK: learn to turn off your emotions. When you come at people with that much emotion, no matter how well you make your argument, all the people hear is your emotion. When I read your post, all I could hear was your anger. All that leads to is undermining your argument and position, and makes people not want to argue with you.
Posted by CatKnight on May 24 2002,20:45
I love how when it really gets down to the real issues, the liberals run and hide. if you thought my post was emotional and yours not so, you must have serious personal issues. the only anger you heard was your own, borne out of frustration with being wrong but not being able to come to terms with the truth. yeah, the only anger you heard was your own reflecting right back at you.just in case some over-zealous moderater decides this is a flame, let me clarify one thing. I tried to have a rational argument. the best demonk could come up with was a flame about how irrational I was. Pretty sad, I think.
Posted by editor on May 24 2002,20:52
Actually I'm just sitting here enjoying the show.CK, Dys was all over that spurious CK-thing.
He got me on ICQ right away.
Guess he doesn't like the idea of two of you!
Posted by demonk on May 24 2002,20:56
CK, if I thought I could hold a real discussion with you, I would post and answer you. But you won't, and I don't have the time/energy to talk to a brick wall. And again, you used a strawman attack. You said that since I am a liberal and that I didn't want to argue with you that all liberals run away, therefore liberals are weak. You accuse DSL of using it all the time, but you are the real master CK.
Posted by CatKnight on May 24 2002,21:11
demonk: "ooh look, I learned a new word! Now I can turn off my brain!"I wasn't even making an argument in that last post, how could I have possibly been making a logic fallacy? the straw-man and other fallacies occur when you try to prove a point based on something other then the facts, or using incorrect logic. You can't say I am using the straw-man fallacy every time I critisize something, that's not what logic is about. I don't say you are using a fallacy every time you make a post that I disagree with, that is just childish namecalling.
I realize that I am talking to a bunch of brick walls over here, but I still try. Can't you give me the same courtesy and TRY to make a counter argument? Or is that beyond your capabilities?
It seems, thanks to demonk, that this discussion has effectively ended. I say thanks to demonk, because right at the point when he could have pinned me down with a good counter-argument, he gave up and chose to flame me instead. Oh well, his loss I suppose.
Posted by Jynx on May 24 2002,21:22
demonk, i'm gonna have to side with ck's "problem/possible solution" post on this one:- you've said that there's a lot wrong with this country, but you haven't listed what. At least ck listed some issues, and those issues are becoming commonplace. Please give some examples of what you think is wrong with this country.
- ck is NOT using straw man -- if you believe otherwise, please, enlighten me. Please read the most excellent "Fallacies" site above (thanks!).
- despite the fact that few people agree with ck, he is intelligent. It is very possible to have an intelligent conversation with him--just because YOU can't, doesn't mean it can't be done.
There's more, I'm sure, but work calls.
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on May 24 2002,21:27
::sigh::CK's partially right; I did engage in an ad hominem attack when I went after Conservative tactics. But that's different than an ad hominem argument.
An ad hominem argument would be this - "Conservatives are hypocrites and assholes, therefore all of their arguments are false."
I didn't make that argument. What I did was set aside the debate and go directly after Veistran's tactics because he was trying to shut down the debate. The ad hominem argument does not prove or disprove anything, but it is most definately a valid attack when establishing authority:
"Joe, you've made your point. Sit down."
"You're censoring the debate! How dare you do such a thing!"
"Joe, with all due respect, you attempt to censor more ideas in any given week than I've done in my entire lifetime. That's why I'm in charge and you're not. [b]Sit down.[/i]"
I should have used the term "radical right," since the majority of conservatives play fair. CK, for instance, stays inside the bounds of good debate. He may complain a lot but he doesn't try and shut you down.
My bad on that one.
Bring up PETA and Greenpeace again in this thread, and someone's gonna die. I have nothing to do with those organizations, nor would I; they are just as bad as the radical right.
<admin>
argue debate style all you wish, but let's try and keep the political arguments in the politics forum, m'kay?
</admin>
Posted by veistran on May 24 2002,23:28
| Quote (damien_s_lucifer @ 24 May 2002,15:27) |
| <snip> What I did was set aside the debate and go directly after Veistran's tactics because he was trying to shut down the debate. <snip> |
Ummm... if I were trying to shut down the debate don't you think I would've done just that? I mean all it would've taken was what two, three more posts? I stopped because if one of us didn't the thread would've been deader than the horse we're beating.