Welcome to ASFN Fan Forums! We're glad to have you here. Please feel free to browse the forum. We'd like to invite you to join our community; doing so will enable you to view additional forums and post with our other members.
Registered Members don't see these ads. Register now it's free!
So if a Cuban (not Mark of course) broke into your house, you would add him to your family because he is merely attempting to escape from his fascist household?
You set it up as a rational basis for discussion so you can then knock it down to make your point.
Quote:
A straw man, or straw person, argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.
Its name is derived from the practice of using straw men in combat training. In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it. [1] It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy [2] or a scarecrow argument.
Quote:
Setup of a straw man
One can set up a straw man in the following ways:
Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.
Quote an opponent's words "out of context" -- i.e., choose quotations that are not representative of the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy)
Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute that person's arguments, and pretend that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.
Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
Some logic textbooks define the straw man fallacy only as a misrepresented argument. It is now common, however, to use the term to refer to all of these tactics. The straw-man technique is also used as a form of media manipulation.
However, carefully presenting and refuting a weakened form of an opponent's argument is not always itself a fallacy. Instead, it restricts the scope of the opponent's argument, either to where the argument is no longer relevant or as a step of a proof by exhaustion.
Nope..I'm not that complicated. I simply thought the parallels were interesting.
Thanks for the info though, I wasn't aware of a strawman in that context.
However one doesn't need to know the definition to use the technique. Most of us [myself included] use it all the time without thinking.
I actually think it's a pretty fair comparison though.
I often wonder if anybody has bothered to do a study on how much money illegals add to the economy (either production at work or their own spending, taxes etc). Then do a study on how much money is spent trying to STOP illegal immigration, and subtract the first result from the second? Really interesting to see which amount is higher, and by how much?
It postulates a hyperthetical situation of a breakin to your house. This situation simple situation is then compared to the more toublesome one of illegal immegration into the US and compoarisons drawn between them.
It is used to define the discussion in a way favorable to the point being made by the author. It makes the assumetion that the two situations are similar which they are not.
Sounds like a classic strawman to me, even if the author hadn't heard of the concept.
I actually think it's a pretty fair comparison though.
I often wonder if anybody has bothered to do a study on how much money illegals add to the economy (either production at work or their own spending, taxes etc). Then do a study on how much money is spent trying to STOP illegal immigration, and subtract the first result from the second? Really interesting to see which amount is higher, and by how much?
what's very interesting (at least to me), is that a lot of people against illegal immigration use social security as one of their objections ("I don't want illegals taking my SS money"). What I've experienced is opposite, however. Most illegals get a fake SS card, or use another person's SS card. They ARE paying into SS, but they'll never see a dime of it. The gov't lets the business know that whatever SS card was a fake or whatever, but the money put in by the business is not refunded. The gov't keeps that money. If the illegal immigrant is using someone else's SS#, then whoever legally has that number is getting more put into their "account" than they would have otherwise. In that regard, illegals are putting more money into SS, thereby helping that particular system, not hindering it.
That's pretty interesting, but could you connect the dots for me? How is this argument a strawman?
I think the reason he feels it's a strawman is because someone breaking into your home is a) your PERSONAL property--you already live there. b) illegals entering into our country don't generally occupy someone else's living quarters. They get their own residences, etc.
Someone occupying personal property is a lot different than occupying general space.
It postulates a hyperthetical situation of a breakin to your house. This situation simple situation is then compared to the more toublesome one of illegal immegration into the US and compoarisons drawn between them.
It is used to define the discussion in a way favorable to the point being made by the author. It makes the assumetion that the two situations are similar which they are not.
Sounds like a classic strawman to me, even if the author hadn't heard of the concept.
I can't really follow you because your grammar and spelling are horrible, but the original post is not a strawman, rather a direct analogy. I won't be a jackass and post the definition
__________________
RIP Tim
Last edited by Ryanwb; November 17th, 2006 at 07:35 PM.
If I only have to do the housework, I plan on moving to someone's house in Desert Mountain this weekend. Chances are, they speak my language, and that would be one less requirement they would have to fill. Truthfully, breaking into someone's home is not advisable if one is on a lead-free diet and not very comparable, in my opinion, to illegal immigration.
I think it's funny you can't sue the government unless of course they give you permission.
I will put it like this, if a corporation conducted such massive negligence it would be sued out of existence in a heartbeat.
We have laws, these people are breaking them, so the solution is to just change the laws?
This country is like some giant version of a network, I like a show say smoking weed and they cancel it without question, I dislike a show and it runs for 20 years, ala illegal immigration.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
__________________
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
dreamcastrocks--My Hero!!
Linear Mode
