Tuesday, June 10, 2008

I Don't Care Who You Are, That's Funny Right There

I know I will regret this at some point, but I am reversing my previous decision and linking to Marshall Art. The reason is simple. In an exchange with reader Dan Trabue on this post, Marshall says something so uproariously funny that I am still chuckling over it. In order to put everything in its proper context, I will put up, first, Dan's comment rebutting Marshall's dismissal of his, Dan's, comments:
Make the same mistakes of which you accuse the author. If you think his points are wrong or false or even lies, you offered not one proof in support.

1. I accused the author of ridiculously over the top hyperbole.

2. I offered the evidence (ie, he said "ALL liberals...")

3. That would be the "proof" which you request

And should you present the one person that is outside his "all" statement, you'd still not have succeeded in rebutting his general point.

1. ?

2. His specific point was that ALL liberals are appeasers. I am not an appeaser nor are any of my liberal friends.

3. Nor have I ever read any liberals who advocate appeasing our enemies.

4. Therefore his specific point is clearly wrong.

5. His general point - that liberals tend to be appeasers (I guess that is what you're suggesting his general point is - he didn't say that anywhere so I was going by what he said, not what I assumed he said) - how would I disprove that? Offer more than half of liberal opinion that says specifically that they are opposed to appeasing the enemy?

You're asking me to disprove a negative and it is not possible. If he wants to allege that liberals are appeasers, the onus is on him to support the argument. He did not offer one serious argument to show that Carter, Clinton or Obama want/wanted to appease the enemy.

The closest he came to this was his offering the case of the Shah (suggesting that he was appeasing the Ayatollah, I guess?), but his argument did not support his claim.

You can't just say, "Remember when Reagan was president? And how he supported the president of Guatemala? And remember how many Guatemalans were killed by their gov't? Yeah, that shows that Reagan was an appeaser, because, you know, he cooperated with a bad gov't to help them stay in power..."

THAT is not a good argument that Reagan was an appeaser. And it is no different than your author's "evidence."

6. And, even if he did "prove" that Carter and Clinton were appeasers (which he did not come even close to doing), that is not the same as proving that "liberals tend to be appeasers."

It's a lame article. Except, as noted, that one could make the case that it's a good rallying cry for people who already agree with him.(italics at top in original, quoting Marshall's previous response in part)

Marshall deals with this lengthy argument, with the following RFLMAO line:
I see. So you are attacking the letter of what he said, rather than the spirit.

Such hilarity is not to be ignored.

Virtual Tin Cup

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