Jun. 27th, 2013

chris_gerrib: (Me)
I mentioned that I was going to talk more about this link - arguments from my opponents believe something. Well, here goes.

The tl;dr version of the above is "my opponent believes X, therefore he's wrong." I find it an extremely irritating argument, for two reasons:

1) I frequently don't believe whatever I'm accused of. I don't, for example, think that government is the answer to all problems, or in a "vast sea of federal power limited by islands of protections for various rights." No, government is and should be limited. However, "limited" is a relative term, and limits that were appropriate when we were 2 million people on horseback huddled along the east coast probably won't work when we're 300 million people jetting around the world.

2) The argument is inherently lazy, and rarely addresses the topic at hand. Okay, suppose for argument's sake that I did believe government is the answer to all problems. That tells you nothing about the validity of a government solution to a particular problem. After all, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

I see these arguments used a lot, and find that they are sound and fury signifying nothing.

Profile

chris_gerrib: (Default)
chris_gerrib

August 2025

S M T W T F S
      12
3456789
10 11 121314 1516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Aug. 18th, 2025 03:22 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios