billyjoeallen
01-10-2008, 01:08 AM
This primary season is a chock full of examples of every logical fallacy known to man. To show just a few:
REDUCING THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT WILL LEAD TO ANARCHY-slippery slope
THEY HATE US BECAUSE WE ARE FREE- non sequitur
Paul's policy platform is kooky because somebody who once worked for him called a short lesbian a "short lesbian."- red herring
Paul's policy platform must be racist because one of his 80,000 campaign contributors is a racist- ad hominum
Paul is a gold bug -straw man
Paul is weak on national defense because he opposes undeclared, preemptive wars.- false premise (premptive undeclared wars improve national security).
Paul is unelectable- bandwagon
A vote for Paul is a wasted vote- this one is the dumbest of all. If votes only determined a winner without communicating degrees of support, then every vote ever cast was wasted except for half the votes plus one in the almost impossibly rare instances where an election was won by one vote.
I'm sure there are millions more fallacies, but this short list should give you an idea what they look like when you encounter them.
REDUCING THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT WILL LEAD TO ANARCHY-slippery slope
THEY HATE US BECAUSE WE ARE FREE- non sequitur
Paul's policy platform is kooky because somebody who once worked for him called a short lesbian a "short lesbian."- red herring
Paul's policy platform must be racist because one of his 80,000 campaign contributors is a racist- ad hominum
Paul is a gold bug -straw man
Paul is weak on national defense because he opposes undeclared, preemptive wars.- false premise (premptive undeclared wars improve national security).
Paul is unelectable- bandwagon
A vote for Paul is a wasted vote- this one is the dumbest of all. If votes only determined a winner without communicating degrees of support, then every vote ever cast was wasted except for half the votes plus one in the almost impossibly rare instances where an election was won by one vote.
I'm sure there are millions more fallacies, but this short list should give you an idea what they look like when you encounter them.