23 Jun Straw Man Fallacy – FT#2
Show Notes
When someone makes a strong argument that’s hard to refute, don’t despair. Simply pretend they made a different argument, that’s easier to knock down – you could massively oversimplify what they said, misrepresent the point of their argument, or just put words in their mouth. Congratulations! You’ve just constructed a Straw Man that’s easy to defeat.
The examples used in this episode will be coming soon.
Here are the links to the stories we talked about
Lying is not a logical fallacy – https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018/06/15/donald-trump-makes-22-false-claims-including-big-lies-in-rambling-trip-to-white-house-lawn.html
And finally, some things we didn’t have time to talk about:
- The fact that Trump habitually rips up any piece of paper he’s finished with, and a team of records officials are paid over $60k a year each to tape them back together so that they can be sent to the National Archives.
- EPA chief Scott Pruitt illegally used government resources to try and get his wife a Chick-Fil-A franchise. This revelation did NOT come out of one of the 15 current federal investigations into Pruitt’s corruption scandals.
- The Supreme Court kind of said it’s OK to discriminate against gay people if you believe in God hard enough.
- Paul Manafort got put in jail to stop him from doing any more witness tampering. Trump called it ‘a tough sentence’, proving once again he doesn’t know what a sentence is.
- Trump disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles for not being patriotic enough, then held a ‘Celebrate America’ event instead, but refused to learn all the words to God Bless America.
- Trump said Russia should be let back in the G7 summit, turned up to the summit late, clashed with all the other world leaders and left early. Then he insulted Justin Trudeau and refused to sign the joint communique from the summit.
- Trump met with Kim Jong Un, agreed to stop joint military exercises with South Korea (without telling South Korea) and in return got a promise to talk more in the future. Then he tweeted “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.
- And on Trump’s 72nd birthday, the New York State’s Attorney General sued the Trump Foundation, alleging that the charity engaged in “a pattern of persistent illegal conduct occurring over more than a decade.” Happy Birthday Mr President!
