Re: No more

[Joe Erkes <erkesjoe@nycap.rr.com>]

Hear, hear, Richard....  well said, and long overdue!

While in Jesuit undergraduate school many many years ago, I was taught
Aristotelian logic and all of the techniques for its misuse in debate.  I also
was taught that the intellectually honest never used ad hominem arguments, or
reductio ad absurdum arguments, or any of those debating devices typically used
by demagogues to cloud the minds of others.   While very little of what they
tried to teach me stuck, (more's the pity!) I have tried to follow at least
that bit of advice, although it gets very difficult sometimes when others
wallow in cheap debating tricks.

Ad hominem character digs are invariably used by debaters as a substitute for a
substantive response to an argument that they can't defeat.   When you hear
such things, know that the speaker has lost the intellectual debate.

Good for you!

Joe

Richard Huseth wrote:

>  Rather than expressing "humour" and "open-mindedness," you
> denigrate anyone who disagrees with your opinions by labeling them as
> unthinking, unreasoning sheep blindly following their knee-jerking leader,
> "right or wrong."  Furthermore, you suggest that they are racists,
> religious bigots and nationalists.  Who taught you this debate technique?
>
> It must be wonderful to be designated as the sole bearer of the
> "truth."  Have you told Tony Blair about your gift?
>
> Richard Huseth
>

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