• Natanael
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    11 months ago

    But that’s a strawman because that’s your argument and not theirs. As much as you think you attacked their real argument you simply did not.

    Since you specifically chose to only attack the choice of words but not actually address the argument by not trying to present another “realistic option” or alternatively ask what they mean by it, you have no grounds for claiming that your attack is valid.

    • archomrade [he/him]
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      11 months ago

      you specifically chose to only attack the choice of words

      you think you attacked their real argument you simply did not

      Lol, lmao even. In your own words, “go take a logics[sic] class you irate troll”.

      Silly me for addressing the argument as they presented it and not as they were thinking it. But just to humor you:

      1 - pugjesus (PJ): ‘these dumbasses aren’t interested in a realistic examination of Biden’s policies. They’re just salivating at the thought of another Trump presidency’ -> implying criticisms of his handling of Israel aren’t ‘realistic’, presumably because we need to support his decisions since he is the incumbent running against a fascist

      2 - me: ‘you will have biden and you will like it’ -> obvious facetious joke about PJ dismissing critique of Biden as pointless because we must vote for him or else, ignoring all other reasons it would be beneficial to be critical of Biden’s policies despite him being the presumptive nominee

      3 - PJ: “Would any other US presidential candidate react substantially differently to this crisis? No.” -> A second attempt to reduce policy debate to electoral calculus, in addition to defending Biden from criticism by implying his response to the conflict is the only reasonable one since there are (allegedly) no challengers who would respond differently. (here is where PJ’s argument starts taking on fallacious reasoning. They are arguing from Ignorance: since an alternative response hasn’t been taken by a challenger candidate, then it must not be ‘reasonable’. He isn’t defending the policy directly, but rather defending it on the basis that an alternative hasn’t been provided that meets some abstract criteria of ‘reasonable’)

      4 - commie: ‘cornel west has been outspoken about having a different political stance on this.’ -> a valid response to PJ’s assertion that ‘there are no other candidates that would react differently’, since West is a presidential candidate that has said they would act differently from Biden.

      5 - PJ: “Would any other realistic US presidential candidate react substantially differently to this crisis?” -> adding the undefined and abstract qualifier ‘realistic’ to the challenge and assuming the conclusion from the third argument (no alternatives have been proven, therefore Biden’s response must be the only reasonable one). He is assuming the conclusion ‘Biden’s is the only reasonable approach’, so someone (like West) who has a different one would not be reasonable (that is not me miss-interpreting their argument, they say exactly as much in their next comment “a contrary position would be disqualifying to one’s chances, realistically speaking”

      The underlying thrust of PJ’s argument is that Biden must be defended, because criticizing him publicly hurts his chances against Trump. I don’t think I need argue the case for targeted critique, even self-critique from within progressive political groups. People like PugJesus (and yourself, I assume) who insist on unity at the expense of targeted critique of policy are the reason we continue to support US imperialistic activities despite a growing progressive base, and the reason why fascist movements have been given room to flourish because we’re incapable of enacting progressive policies that improve the material conditions of the working class because we drop them at the slightest threat of loosing moderate ‘support’. We cry about how the two-party system acts to serve capital, but then suppress critical discussion when it inevitably produces another false-choice as if that’s not exactly how two-party systems function.

      If you’d like to argue the case on pugjesus’s behalf, be my guest, but don’t accuse me of strawmaning their position when they are incapable of articulating it without fallacious reasoning themselves.