Letters to the Editor
Paul Daniel Ash
Published Letters: 686 Editor's Choice: 2
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Goddess bless Old Bill Timberman
[Read the article: The Islamic enemy within]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...and Hume's Ghost, and LWM, and Iokannan and Holly and bebop-o and all the rest. Somehow, this comments section still has the best signal-to-noise ratio out there.
Trolls will come and go, but thoughtful commenters are a balm to the spirit.
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tu quoque
[Read the article: Large number of Americans favor violent attacks against civilians]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Golden Boy, through either honest misunderstanding or willful ignorance, insists that the comparison of Muslim and non-Muslim responses to similar questions is an example of a tu quoque fallacy.
It is not.
The tu quoque ("you, too") fallacy, as I understand it, takes the form:
A makes criticism P.
A is also guilty of P.
Therefore, P is dismissed.
The point that Glenn is trying to make, as I understand it, is:
A poll states that Muslims believe P.
Polls have shown that all people regardless of creed believe P.
Therefore, the poll says nothing specific about Muslims.
Thus, the argument is not fallacious.
QED.
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Hmm
[Read the article: Large number of Americans favor violent attacks against civilians]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]the poll result that shows that 25% of Muslims in America support (or refuse to condemn, take your pick) al Qaeda
I am assuming you are referring to this part of the poll:
Overall, 68% of Muslim Americans view al Qaeda either very unfavorably (58%) or somewhat unfavorably (10%). Of the rest, a large proportion (27%) declined to express an opinion on the terrorist group
The response was not "decline to condemn" but rather "declined to express an opinion."
You are, of course, free to mind-read why they declined, but you are on shakier ground to condemn others for refusing to similarly exert such extra-sensory powers...
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@Golden Boy
[Read the article: Large number of Americans favor violent attacks against civilians]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I drew no conclusion from it at all
And the last tattered shred of your credibility just fell to the ground.
Kindly forgo lecturing others on the use of fallacious arguments in the future. A bald-faced lie is perhaps the oldest of rhetorical cheap-shots.
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Finally
[Read the article: Large number of Americans favor violent attacks against civilians]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ah, now that Nasruddin has made his appearance, all will be well. We haven't heard much from bebop-o, but Nasruddin will do nicely in his place.
"Nasruddin was dreaming that someone had counted nine gold pieces into his hand, but he insisted that he would not accept less than ten pieces. While he was arguing with the man over one gold piece, he was awakened by a sudden noise in the street. Seeing that his hand was empty, Mullah Nasruddin quickly closed his eyes, extended his hand as if he was ready to receive, and said,
- Very well, my friend, have it your way. Give me nine."
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Cool, Joe responded
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...by saying
http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/05/a_note_on_sources.htmlhttp://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/05/a_note_on_sources.html
...nothing. sigh.
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@Arne
[Read the article: Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]perhaps I didn't detect your irony
No, you didn't.
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@WTand Fraud Boy
[Read the article: Attacks on civilians, torture and lawless detentions]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My Calabrian great aunt pronounced it more sort of "ga-BEESH" or "ga-BEEZH." She also used to say Sicilians were actually Greeks, for what it's worth.
The later generations of my Italian-American family pronounced it "WA-da-yoo-STOO-pid?"
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@John Anderson
[Read the article: The complete myth driving our Iraq "debate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]when I see people write stuff like "70% of Americans are stoopid means my theory is correct...", I stop listening
Well, clearly, you stopped "listening" (reading?) pretty early on, as Glenn never said anything could be remotely interpreted that way.
The point was not that Americans are "stoopid," but rather that the media does such a terrible job untangling fact from spin that the public has been thoroughly misinformed by the institution that they feel - and should feel - they can trust to accurately explain current events. Can you see the difference?
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@PoliticalRealityOnline
[Read the article: The complete myth driving our Iraq "debate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I followed your link and got a glimpse of the very scary place you inhabit. I don't want to start challenging you point by point on your "Sizzler" scenario, because I fear that way madness lies. Rather, I'd just like to question you on how you link that to the current situation in Iran.
Do you feel that part of the reason we have troops in Iraq is as a bulwark against Iran?
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hear fracking hear
[Read the article: Right-wing blogger geniuses expose another journalistic fraud!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]obdurate smug assholes in the "centre"? Certainly.
Dear Scientician, and I say this with all due consideration: true that.
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"abject leftish mirth"
[Read the article: Fred Thompson, "tough guy" and "folksy cultural conservative"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not sure how I can be "abject" and mirthful at the same time, but never mind that for now...
Do you have any substantive objections to the piece? I mean, are any of the myths about Thompson actually, you know, valid?
Put differently, do you have a point?
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nobody bakes a kake as tasty as...
[Read the article: Fred Thompson, "tough guy" and "folksy cultural conservative"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]tastycakes, I respectfully disagree. I don't find the signal-to-noise ratio to be so low that I would back your opinion, though I request it.
The trolls are just intelligent enough to be a convenient scratching post for sharpening one's intellectiual claws, but inconsequential enough to be ignored without missing anything significant in the polylogue.
(In my humble opinion.)
Now then, about those Krimpets...
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@Robert, in re: straw man
[Read the article: Al-Qaida does it, too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think you nailed it.
The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:
1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
No Kings, presidents, or "commander guys,"
Paul
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@LWM
[Read the article: Al-Qaida does it, too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You called Svensker "naughty boy" a few dozen posts back.
Those of us with gender-ambiguous aliases have only ourselves to blame, that and the English-language's absence of a sex-neutral pronoun.
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Everybody's favourite dubious reference
[Read the article: Al-Qaida does it, too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism
Far from authoritative, of course, but generally interesting reading...
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"Does Clinton bear any responsibility for that?"
[Read the article: Al-Qaida does it, too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Indubitably. And so, in a real sense, do we all, just as we are all responsible for what the USA has done in our name in Iraq... which does not detract from Bush's - and Clinton's - very real wrongdoing.
Now, what was your point?
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@John
[Read the article: Al-Qaida does it, too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, yes they did. Plessy v. Ferguson was one, as was Executive Order 9066, Hiroshima/Nagasaki was certainly one.
I would assert, however, the revocation of habeas and the public embrace of torture as official policy have been a more fundamental change in the nature of our Government, and those both happened very, very recently.
The fact that other bad things happened in other places and times has absolutely no bearing on that.