Friday, 18 November 2005 - 7:14 AM CST

You continue to confuse logical argumentation with what Aristotle called ethical argumentation. When people like me point out your cavalier attitude toward sending people to fight a phony war despite the fact that you have seen fit to avoid military service yourself, we are talking about the utter failure of your ethical argument. You don't have credibility. Neither does Bush or Cheney, as Murtha pointed out. You can go to the microphone armed only with a logical argument and no ethical argument, but you always run the risk that someone who can make the ethical appeal, like Murtha, will step to the microphone after you and lay you cold. So, quit patting yourself on the back because you discovered that his points have nothing to do with logic. They have to do with credibility, as Aristotle discovered 2,500 years before you. And if you think ethical appeal is something to sneeze at, think again. It can cut logic to shreds.

Saturday, 19 November 2005 - 10:09 AM CST

Rider:

You continue to confuse logical argumentation with what Aristotle called ethical argumentation.

I hadn't even considered that such a dichotomy exists.

When people like me point out your cavalier attitude toward sending people to fight a phony war despite the fact that you have seen fit to avoid military service yourself, we are talking about the utter failure of your ethical argument.

I am not in the least bit cavalier. I show great respect to the military and am fully aware of the sacrifices that they make that I probably never will.

You don't have credibility.

Of course I do. I am an honest man.

Neither does Bush or Cheney, as Murtha pointed out.

They have certainly blundered through some major events, but I don't think they are liars.

You can go to the microphone armed only with a logical argument and no ethical argument, but you always run the risk that someone who can make the ethical appeal, like Murtha, will step to the microphone after you and lay you cold.

Are you sure that your "ethical" argument isn't just a tarted-up emotional argument?

So, quit patting yourself on the back because you discovered that his points have nothing to do with logic.

That's rich.

They have to do with credibility, as Aristotle discovered 2,500 years before you.

Only a liberal would suppose that credibility and logic are mutually exclusive. That's because his domain is that of the emotional appeal.

And if you think ethical appeal is something to sneeze at, think again. It can cut logic to shreds.

Demagoguery.

Saturday, 19 November 2005 - 1:46 PM CST

Go look it up

Aristotle:
1)Logical appeal
2)Emotional appeal
3)Ethical appeal

Your assumption was that if the chickenhawk point is not an appeal to logic, it's nothing. But it's an appeal to ethics, i.e., to the speaker's credibility. When it comes to war and telling other people they ought to send their kids off to fight it, you have no credibility because you have chosen against that yourself. Your argument may have logical appeal and emotional appeal, but the ethical situation undercuts your credibility. You are like a doctor who smokes but tells his patients they should quit smoking. Yeah, he may be honest and knowledgeable and logical and sincere, but the patients are not likely to take his advice seriously, regardless how logical or emotionally compelling his argument.

Bush and Cheney are arch-liars. Clinton deceived his wife. Bush and Cheney deceived an entire nation. They deliberately suppressed and withheld the truth in order to create a false impression. They did this knowing that they were preventing the Congress and the people from learning anything that would counter the impression that the intelligence community was unanimous in believing that Saddam had weaponized chemical and bio-weapons and that he was in process of reconstituting a nuclear program, that Saddam was involved in 9-11, that Saddam was conspiring to arm al Qaeda with WMD to use against the United States, and that the threat against the United States was imminent and required immediate pre-emptive attack. They presented us with known fogeries and the intelligence reports of known liars in order to bamboozle the American people. They suppressed all counter-evidence and cut off at the knees anyone who dared to speak out, as they continue to do to this hour. They have no credibility in the eyes of about 60% of the American people, because they are liars but also because they are chickenhawks, though that pales by comparison to their other credibility problem.

Of course, if anyone points out that they are liars and incompetents this sends the wrong signal to the enemy.