Conservatives more likely to read opposing viewpoints than liberals?!
- Thread starter shagdrum
- Start date
Marcus
Dedicated LVC Member
My response was commensurate with the maturity level of the person I was responding to.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
Did I ever say that the claims were factually backed up in the article? The fact of the matter is that the article is an op-ed piece. To expect it to be backed up with facts in the article is inappropriate given the format, especially with an op-ed covering such a broad range of issues. More moving the goalposts it seems.
Your actions are abundantly clear here. You are not interested in any honest discussion or in understanding the points in the article; you are only interested in rationalizing your political prejudice and out-of-hand dismissal of points that counter your prejudice. When I actually defend those points you turn to harassing me and attempt to turn my own tactics against me by any means necessary. This leads to your dishonest distortions of the arguments in question and/or a distortion of the fallacies you are accusing me of.
Of course you will, as you have done before, claim that I am doing the same thing when the fact is that I am very careful not to that. While others have thrown that claim at me, they can never logically back it up. They either simply make a broad accusation with no specifics, or they do what you do; distort the argument to make it fit the fallacy and/or distort the fallacy to make it fit the argument. That is what all the examples you cite are doing, as I have pointed out. I am not going to keep going through and correcting your distortions. They are clear for all to see.
The fact that you are not interesting in understanding the points in the article is made all the more obvious on the human nature/philosophy things. If you were really interested in understanding and considering the point, I would take the time to explain it to you. but in every comment you have made on it you have provided a rational to dismiss it. A rational that, as I have pointed out, is based in utter ignorance. Even when that is pointed out, you still are more concerned with justifying your dismissal of the point then in stepping back and trying to first accurately understand the point and give it consideration.
In short, you are acting like a belligerent little teenager. You are attempting to rationalize your prejudices and disregard for opposing views and attempting to harass and attack anyone who tries to reasonably counter you. All distortions of me as being in "denial" or "bullying" or any other attempt to dishonestly marginalize me only further demonstrate my point, as does the fact that you are so single-mindedly set on turning my own tactics against me that you will use distortion and dishonesty to do so.
Yes, so it was, by your own admission a substanceless critique; a fallacious style over substance argument.
The most foolish thing I did was actually respond to such a childish outburst.
FYI: fossten nailed it when he characterized it as "an immature, idiotic, pejorative blatt from an angry knee-jerk."
Well, since you seem to think simply because a post is long it qualifies as this type of fallacy I am trying to keep it shorter.
But, simply because a post is long doesn't mean that it is this type of fallacy. In fact, the standard as laid out in that wikipedia link is so vague and general as to allow both arugments that are simply long by nature but not illogical and arguments that are aimed at avoiding refutation through verbosity to be classified as fallacies. Obviously, we need a more specific standard with which to judge and this is the best I could find:
The practice of burying you with so much information and misinformation that you cannot possibly respond to it all is called proof by verbosity, or argumentum verbosium.
In fact, most of my long posts are actually countering these type of Argumentum verbosium posts. So, of course they are going to be long. However, I take tremendous care to not make fallacious arguments to back up my claims factually when needed, to keep the "BS"/ unneccessary points to a minimum and to not provide "disinformation". So, while my posts may be long, they are not fallacious. But at least I now know precisely what to call hrmwrm's "wall 'o' text" posts.Frankly, I am disappointed in you. For a while you were doing well here and making very relevant, well thought out posts. Now you have reverted to basically the irrational, angry, childish outbursts that used to be your norm and the norm of far to many liberals on this forum.
It is clear that you are aiming to do what aztecknight is doing here and simply trying to dishonestly turn my own tactics against me like a petulant teenager.
The post of yours that started all this out was a substanceless childish outburst and when called on it, you couldn't provide any specifics. If you had done what you said and simply taken every assertion in the article and added the phrase "and neither are liberals" it would have been an argumentum verbosium argument as it would have been aimed at providing too much info to be countered so your point would stand unchallenged. The fact is that you couldn't provide any specifics. For your criticism to have been valid a simply accusation of the claims as strawmen, even if you specify which claims those were, wouldn't have been enough. You would need to show specifically how each claim was a strawman (and adding, "and neither are liberals" is not specific; it would have just been childish).
Frankly, I think you, like aztecknight, are too ignorant to even understand a good number of the claims. So your claims that the points were strawmen would have been disengenuous as well as being childish.
Unfortunately, you and aztecknight demonstrate why it has been so hard to have any honest conversation with libs on this forum; they don't want to consider opposing points of view, and when called on their dishonest/disengenuous techniques to rationalize their political prejudices' and out-of-hand dismissals they act like petulant children. If you can't move beyond schoolyard logic then you are incapable of honest conversation.
aztecknight
Active LVC Member
Backpedal, backpedal, backpedal.
Defend? When? Where? You tried to dispel my critiques of the article, never defend its claims. I gave you the definition of burden of proof go read it. It's not up to us to prove the claims.
More personal attacks keep it up Mr. "I take care not to make any fallacies in my arguments."
Correct, the lack of substance and logic in your posts do, i.e. 'Liberals believe something they know is absolutely wrong'. Makes a lot of sense.
More personal attacks, more poisoning the well. You do such a great job of not committing fallacies, how could I have been so wrong.
More fallacies. I have to say you may not have a good grasp on their application, but you sure know how to put them into practice.
Shag let it go. It's over. Your attempt to defend this article is all we need to know you have absolutely no integrity.
aztecknight
Active LVC Member
At least Shag knows how to identify the fallacies properly.
Oh, I see, using the argumentum capitalizatium fallacy.
Hey, let me try:
LIBERALS ARE ALL STUPID.
Wow, that's really effective, aztec. I never realized it was so easy to win a debate. Thanks for teaching me that.
You haven't been paying attention. Shag does not know how to identify the fallacies properly. I tried to present enough details so that even you could understand. Alas, I have failed. Well, I refuse to dumb it down more. Go my child, go be blissful in your ignorance.
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
You spent your time arguing whether or not a lawyer was qualified to muster a 4th grade diatribe. And you call me ignorant? :bowrofl:
what book - I bet it was Moral politics : What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don't
You brought him up why?
And shag - ever get to looking at that paper I reference regarding findings that show that if either side is going to read opposing viewpoint it would be liberal? And I have been searching for the Ohio State research paper - but still haven't come up with it?
I wonder if it is mainly conservative college students who breach the 'line' and read opposing viewpoint because they are so attuned to it anyway. As you mentioned, you are required to read quite a lot of left leaning material in college. When do the 'blinders' appear?
Was that directed at me?
I mention that because George Lakoff is essentially a professor of language and propoganda, he founded a "progressive think tank," and he's one of the gurus of the academic left in this country.
Teaching out of his books is a perfect example of precisely what Shag was talking about.
How clever, a "When did you stop beating your wife?" type question.
Concentrate and ask again.
What book did you read by Lakoff? Was it in a political science class?
And, if you want to reframe my question - please do...
fossten
Dedicated LVC Member
I just laugh when I think of what his name rhymes with.