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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (4032)	2/14/2003 4:57:48 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Respond to of 15987

Calling someone a liar who has lied is an ad hominem attack???? I am one clueless dude on the logic that supports that. Calling a person who expressed a stupid idea stupid is an ad hominem attack???? I am one clueless dude on the logic that supports that. Hell, I'm double stupid... duhhhhh...... :-) But if my last sentence is a lie... OH MY I just double ad hominemed myself. I am mortified. LOL.... But if I told the truth did I just ad hominem another? ? ? Well maybe only in the twilight zone.

To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (4032)	2/17/2003 8:40:03 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15987

Alastair - My point was that the validity, or lack thereof, of a personal attack has no bearing whatsoever on it being an ad hominem, and hence a logical fallacy. Personal attacks, insults in particular, are distasteful and plain simple unacceptable. I agree with you on that. However, ad hominem refers to dismissing an argument because of some perceived fault within the person who puts it forth. This is a logical fallacy because the validity of an argument has nothing to do with the personality traits of the person who voices it. It has nothing to do with whether or not the perceived fault is correct or not. It is to the argument that one should bring the attacks, not the person who is writing the argument. Take a look at the link below. It is pretty straight forward. datanation.com LindyBill dismissing Scheer's article with "He's a liar and a leftie" (without even an attempt at addressing and refuting his argument) was classic ad hominem. I don't know why we are still talking about this, really. I hope the link above will be enough to answer your questions on how and why LindyBill's statement was ad hominem.