View Single Post
Old 04-15-2008, 12:41 PM   #50 (permalink)
Truth-Bringer
Mercenary
 
Truth-Bringer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 293
Country:
Quote:
Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois View Post
Your argument is a straw man. Given the conspiracy theory overtones in it, your argument couldn't be anything but a strawman, because that's what you believe in.
Appeal to Ridicule fallacy.

Quote:
Not only are those laughable black helicopter overtones in your argument,
Appeal to Ridicule fallacy.

Quote:
but you've also contradicted your own points and ideology on several occasions, deifying the founders when convenient and trashing them when convenient. You've also ignored the principal founders who supported a standing army (Madison, Hamilton and Washington). You throw your weight behind Jefferson, who was not a founder of the Constitution and was in Europe at the time of the Constitutional Convention. You do not have an argument here.
All Straw Men, all previously cited as such. A clarified statement is:

The vast majority of Founding Fathers, and a majority of the most influential Founding Fathers, supported the militia as the primary means of national defense. This majority allowed for the creation of a standing army for emergency situations, but did not intend for it to replace the militia as the primary means of defense. They believed the United States should remain neutral in foreign wars and should use the militia and army for defensive purposes only. They would not support current U.S. foreign policy.

George Washington - from his Farewell Address on September 17, 1796:

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world... As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the Public Councils… Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences...constantly keeping in view, that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard."

Quote:
Just the remains of an out house after it's been hit by a smart bomb.
Appeal to Ridicule fallacy. The argument stands. The truth of the matter is irrefutable.
Truth-Bringer is offline   Reply With Quote