Conservatives and Logical Fallacies

This is nothing new, but it amazes how the entire repertoire of right-wing debate tactics is based on logical fallacies. ad populum arguments (appeal to the people), red herrings, circular arguments, ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, slippery slope arguments, etc. Everyone makes this mistakes once and awhile, but it seems that most conservative pundits today (Hannity, Coulter, etc) use these religiously.

For instance:

When Hannity keeps reiterating that Kerry only has about ten vets aupporting his claim, while the other side has 64 in the ads, and 250 in the book:

The truth of an argument is not dependent on how popular it is. Truth is determined by facts and evidence.

When Hannity repeats incessantly about how the SBVFT have a right to be heard, and then he scoffs at the idea of them being liars, because they're vets:

Saying the same thing over and over doesn't make it true. Goebbels taught us that. Saying it louder doesn't make it any more true.

John Kerry and his BOB are vets. Is rassman a liar?

You get the idea. The 9-11 comission report, Kerry being a flip-flopper, his defense record. All based on flimsy logic. My question is,

WHY DON'T MORE PEOPLE SEE THIS?

1. "culture of life" -- can some lives be ended to save others? Not in stem cells, not in abortion; but, yes in wars of liberation. Why the difference? Disease kills many more people than Saddam ever could. But we can't kill cells to save people from disease, and may kill Iraqi humans to save people from Saddam??

2. "does government teach by its example?" -- Permitting gay marriage encourages being gay; permitting abortion encourages abortion; permitting needle exchange promotes drugs. But: permitting assault weapons doesn't encourage crime; permitting huge deficits doesn't encourage personal financial irresponsibility; permitting pre-emptive strikes doesn't encourage lawless vigilantism. Huh?

I assumed that if people only knew what was really going on, they'd see the light and what the Bush Admin is really all about, but ...

Get this. I was in class tonight and my PH'D Prof was pontificating that 1) most of the 1000 soldiers killed in Iraq were killed during the first 2 months they were there and that 2) the government is getting our troops out of harm's way because they are no longer in the areas where there is the greatest fighting. The first statement is just beyond insane. Even my mondo conservative home town paper had a headline that 800 have died since Bush's Mission Accomplished fiasco. The second ... Er, the only thing I can think of is the stuff in the news yesterday admitting that Iraqi 'rebels' hold portions of the city.

So, Republicans and logic ... not such good friends.

This really did scare me. If an educated person can think this way and ignore plain facts ... Ugh. It's just scary.

It really is astonishing how many people listen to Rush, Hannity, and even Boortz and will call in and say, "Them Liberals just don't understand how the world works! I'm tellun' ya they'll try and convince you two plus two isn't four!" It's really a shame how they've taken a world full of colors and complexities, and reduced it to a black and white fraud.

-Will

The right wing religious line that America is going down the drain because of secularism. They claim we need to return religion, specifically Christianity, to our institutions. They were especially fervent about it in the wake of 9-11, strangely so. Like the comments from Falwell and Pat Robertson about how we brought it on ourselves. OK, lemme get this straight: 16 nuts fly planes into buildings having been promised the ultimate reward in the afterlife by their religious nutcase leaders, all of whom were raised and indoctrinated in repressive theocracies. Personally, I cannot think of a better argument for keeping religion and state separate than what is currently going on in the Middle East. And yet we are told that is exactly what we need here, mandatory religion to turn everyone here into religious zealots, in order to better defend ourselves from religious zealots. I don't get it.

flying planes into buildings only happens when you follow the WRONG religion. Christianity is the only TRUE religion. So that's the problem. The idea of theocracy isn't wrong; Bin Laden just pushes a FALSE religion.

Er, in case anyone were to misread me, I'm totally being sarcastic. Like really sarcastic. So sarcastic my computer is melting.

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