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Tosh, you need to get your sloppy definitions straight: I insulted Sharky, but that's not an ad hominem fallacy. You won't hear me decrying the coarseness of calling an idiot out as such as I point out how he made a glaring logical error.
Since you seem to be having trouble, perhaps related to your grasp of english: as I use the term, to be guilty of ad hominem requires that you link your insult and your argument together -- Sharky must be wrong because everyone knows he's a foamy-mouthed moonbat.
That's not what I did: I pointed out that he was wrong because he claimed, without any specific support, the source was so generally biased that anything I cited it for must necessarily be wrong. Rather than denying the truth of the facts, he wanted me to find a source more pleasing to his eye for the same information. For making such an error, I called him a number of names, all aptly applied. But the insults weren't the support for the argument.
You can take issue with "attacks" all you like -- I expect it from the sort of effeminate prigs that populate much of Europe -- but don't make the mistake of trying to confuse your reader into thinking I was making the same logical blunder Sharky did.
Since you seem to be having trouble, perhaps related to your grasp of english: as I use the term, to be guilty of ad hominem requires that you link your insult and your argument together -- Sharky must be wrong because everyone knows he's a foamy-mouthed moonbat.
That's not what I did: I pointed out that he was wrong because he claimed, without any specific support, the source was so generally biased that anything I cited it for must necessarily be wrong. Rather than denying the truth of the facts, he wanted me to find a source more pleasing to his eye for the same information. For making such an error, I called him a number of names, all aptly applied. But the insults weren't the support for the argument.
You can take issue with "attacks" all you like -- I expect it from the sort of effeminate prigs that populate much of Europe -- but don't make the mistake of trying to confuse your reader into thinking I was making the same logical blunder Sharky did.
/me applauds Lecter for ending a rant on ad hominem attacks with an ad hominem attack :P
I try :D
My problem with Fox News is that they're purely entertainment, they hand pick stories out of context, twist them, sometimes even make their own or base entire segments off their pent-up rage when there's a lack of other fuel, and then just display them in a manner that pisses off their audience as much as possible and artificially enrages them in a way that activates a reptilian stem part of their brain that they feel is important; I relate it to watching a bad car accident, you just have to. And the way this thread is reasonably calm when debating topics that Fox News might find too boring to cover and then ignites in a "Barrack Hussein Obama is a Solcialist!"-fest and starts claiming that breathing has a liberal bias every time it gets onto the topic of Obama tells me that some people have the stupidity to use Fox News as an information source without considering their business method and then become submissive enough to let Fox do all the thinking for them.
And no, I'm not a "die hard liberal" of some sort and I don't read opinion articles with the motive of looking for cookie cutter packaged viewpoints on everything in life. I just stick with the dull stuff: history books, C-SPAN, KPBS, and Frontline. If I'm forced to use some other source of either side, then I try to identify and ignore the entertainment strategies or decide whether or not I agree with the bias, but don't take it directly to heart.
And no, I'm not a "die hard liberal" of some sort and I don't read opinion articles with the motive of looking for cookie cutter packaged viewpoints on everything in life. I just stick with the dull stuff: history books, C-SPAN, KPBS, and Frontline. If I'm forced to use some other source of either side, then I try to identify and ignore the entertainment strategies or decide whether or not I agree with the bias, but don't take it directly to heart.
That's quite the unsupported, generalized rant about Fox you just typed out. Like Gav, I love the imalmostentirelyoutofbreathsohereisyetanothersemicolon-ness of it. But it's not related to the narrow issue at hand in any way, shape, or form.
Like I said before, feel free to point out how my citation exhibits any of the faults you just identified. I could care less to read your monologue about how Fox News, as a general matter, makes you feel in your gut.
Like I said before, feel free to point out how my citation exhibits any of the faults you just identified. I could care less to read your monologue about how Fox News, as a general matter, makes you feel in your gut.
Point taken.
My objection to using insults (and ad hominem arguments) in discussions is that it distracts from the actual topic, and I consider it poor style. If you think I am an effeminate prig because of that... well, I couldn't care less.
My objection to using insults (and ad hominem arguments) in discussions is that it distracts from the actual topic, and I consider it poor style. If you think I am an effeminate prig because of that... well, I couldn't care less.
Toshiro, the Good Dr. uses his insults so that people will be too distracted to argue with him. Its sort of a macho territorial display which says I'm the big dog, you don't want to mess with me.
The problem people have is that they are too busy listening to the bark and staring at the teeth to notice that his tail is waggling like crazy showing that he's really thrilled to see them and they about to get the friendliest licking of their lives!
/me is helpful.
The problem people have is that they are too busy listening to the bark and staring at the teeth to notice that his tail is waggling like crazy showing that he's really thrilled to see them and they about to get the friendliest licking of their lives!
/me is helpful.
about to get the friendliest licking
Oh Fluffer, your mother surely did! :D
Oh Fluffer, your mother surely did! :D
Yep. She's a Timex all right.
Aye, she kept a'ticking all night long.
As a side point I think it has to be said; not knowing the usage of "Ad Hominem" has nothing to do with a grasp of the English language, as it's a Latin phrase.
Wow. Just wow. Where to begin?
Of course every single phrase used in the English language was, is, and will always be only from English originally. The hoi polloi such as yourself would never adopt a foreign language phrase and Anglicize it... oops. Personally, I still think anyone who says the hoi polloi is a fucking moron, but apparently that's now proper English because the formerly foreign phrase has been adopted and thus the redundancy of "the hoi" is negated. Other examples of foreign language phrases that are now part of the English language are, of course, so numerous as to defy enumeration, but I liked that one for its insult potential.
That aside, Ender, you're missing the point: I wasn't calling Tosh out over his misunderstanding of ad hominem the Latin phrase that has been adopted for use in English, I was calling him out for conflating ad hominem attacks and ad hominem fallacies. Which is most assuredly indicative of a poor grasp of the English language -- or an attempt to use deceit in a debate.
Care to try again, or is your foot already far enough in your mouth for your taste?
Of course every single phrase used in the English language was, is, and will always be only from English originally. The hoi polloi such as yourself would never adopt a foreign language phrase and Anglicize it... oops. Personally, I still think anyone who says the hoi polloi is a fucking moron, but apparently that's now proper English because the formerly foreign phrase has been adopted and thus the redundancy of "the hoi" is negated. Other examples of foreign language phrases that are now part of the English language are, of course, so numerous as to defy enumeration, but I liked that one for its insult potential.
That aside, Ender, you're missing the point: I wasn't calling Tosh out over his misunderstanding of ad hominem the Latin phrase that has been adopted for use in English, I was calling him out for conflating ad hominem attacks and ad hominem fallacies. Which is most assuredly indicative of a poor grasp of the English language -- or an attempt to use deceit in a debate.
Care to try again, or is your foot already far enough in your mouth for your taste?
I'll take 'poor grasp of the English language' for 500, please. I'm the first to admit that my language skills are nowhere near up to par, but in this case, it was less of a lack of skill in the English language but a faulty definition, which is largely independent of the language it is in.
first of all, ad hominem has not been "adopted for use in English" not only is it not a commonly used English phrase, but it retains its Latin usage entirely.
As to your other point about missing YOUR point, I'll concede it's quite possible, as admittedly after the first three pages of flames I stopped reading your posts for actual content, as they seemed to have little to no actual pertinent information. Thats not meant as a flame in and of itself, but I'm sure you can see that they had degraded to the level of banality quite quickly. That being said, this does not only apply to your particular posts, as many other posts were also no longer on the topic of why Obama won the nobel prize, but instead on how moronic whatever person had disagreed with someone elses post must obviously be to not share someone else's opinion
As to your other point about missing YOUR point, I'll concede it's quite possible, as admittedly after the first three pages of flames I stopped reading your posts for actual content, as they seemed to have little to no actual pertinent information. Thats not meant as a flame in and of itself, but I'm sure you can see that they had degraded to the level of banality quite quickly. That being said, this does not only apply to your particular posts, as many other posts were also no longer on the topic of why Obama won the nobel prize, but instead on how moronic whatever person had disagreed with someone elses post must obviously be to not share someone else's opinion
I'm sorry your vocabulary is small and that you understand nothing of etymology. Maybe next life you'll come back as someone blessed with a decent education. As to your ipse dixit regarding ad hominem, please consult the OED.
shouldnt you chasing ambulances? Im not sure what horrible deficient State school you graduated from, but Im sure they told you it was the very best...
lol While what I do is by no means particularly exciting, being an associate at a Vault 5 firm in NYC (since at least some people here know where I went to law school and the year I graduated, I'd prefer not to name the firm) does mean that I don't have to chase ambulances. It also means I've been able to pay down my law school debt from my decidely not deficient or cheap school :)