You say I've only made straw-man arguments. Illuminate them. You say I'm "outside the scope of my argument." Demonstrate why. Really, what you've said, in 1000 words or more, is "You're wrong, but you're too offensive for me to bother explaining why." That's not debate, that's not even invective. It's this: Abusive ad hominem (also called personal abuse or personal attacks) usually involves insulting or belittling one's opponent in order to attack his claim or invalidate his argument, but can also involve pointing out factual but apparent character flaws or actions that are irrelevant to the opponent's argument. This tactic is logically fallacious because insults and negative facts about the opponent's personal character have nothing to do with the logical merits of the opponent's arguments or assertions. Say what you will about my language, I'm the only person in this discussion that has actually talked about facts. Unless that changes, I don't really see the point in continuing. Making people mad is easy - as you're clearly demonstrating. I can do that anywhere. If you actually have an argument, make it. Otherwise, run along.
Am I mad? Fuck yes! Anger is a completely valid human emotion, and it is my personal natural response to your particular brand of asshole. I'm annoyed by your dismissive and patronizing tone -- I'll admit that. That does not, however, justify your attitude. There is a reason why it's customary to hold a certain standard of decorum in public debates -- to avoid needless banter like this. That's all I'm going to say about that. Now, moving on: > You say I've only made straw-man arguments. Illuminate them. Again, we'll revisit the charity example: > That's not an analogy. That's a "rich people have kids, therefore they shouldn't have to pay taxes" argument. You have not explained why this is so. You took an analogy which mentioned children and somehow transformed it into that simple mantra which you keep repeating. There were no actual children being discussed, not even in the sense that the "poor" are the metaphorical "children". However you have taken this redefined version of the argument and attacked it. That is a straw man fallacy. > You say I'm "outside the scope of my argument." Demonstrate why. I was referring to the fact that you were leaving the boundaries of the proposed analogy. Here, you said: > If you really stretch to make it an analogy, the analogy is "rich people have a paternal relationship with poor people, and without government intervention rich people have a history and tendency of promoting poor people to positions of power out of altruism." Which is a silly analogy to make. Because they don't. And never have, and never will. Unless there's a tax break in it for them, of course. The analogy was only meant to demonstrate the role of coercion within the two models of wealth transfer. If, as Warren states, the wealthy are meant to "pay it forward" to the community which supports them, it is because it is a generally accepted social practice and not because it is federally mandated (as in the example of hereditary wealth between family members). You exceeded the scope of the analogy when you made the quoted argument because you made an observation which, although true, does not actually break the parallels made in the analogy. One could also point to examples wherein the parents do not transfer wealth to their children. The point still remains: there is no coercion involved. Now I'll go back to your initial reply to artifex to highlight more of what I'm talking about. > "The final major principled problem with Warren's position is that the government gives the rich little choice in accepting the alleged benefits of its activities." Did you see that? We're now arguing that the rich shouldn't have to pay for infrastructure because they were never given the option of TURNING THAT INFRASTRUCTURE DOWN. No shit. Here's the elaboration: "And CEOs in Boise — who don't think they are at serious risk of an al Qaeda attack — don't have the option of rejecting the US government's "helpful" foreign policy with its tremendous price tag." That's right - if you don't agree with a government policy, you shouldn't have to fund it. You didn't actually address this argument, you just ridiculed it. Then there is this significant chunk of the article sub-titled "Practical Problems with Warren's Stance" which you didn't not address at all -- and it's no small piece, either. It is a central point which holds tremendous weight in the article in that it address Warren's quote directly.
Really. It seems to me that I'm the one who's trying to bring this back to the issues. Veiled insults? You've called me an asshat three times. DId I call your anger invalid? No, I didn't. I called your anger non-responsive. I further pointed out that your anger with me had absolutely nothing to do with the discussion, yet you persist in making it central. Don't want me to be dismissive and patronizing? Don't make facile and infantile arguments. "You have not explained why this is so." I explained it at length. Again - the argument from the Mises.org article is "rich people have children, therefore they shouldn't have to pay taxes." You keep calling it a metaphor, when the actual phrasing was "parents take care of their children." If that's a metaphor, then the only way it works is if the parents are the rich and the children are the poor. It isn't a metaphor, though, because for four sentences the author continues in the same vein. I don't know which interpretation is more offensive: not-metaphor, as in "don't tax us, we have kids" or metaphor, as in "don't tax us, we're paternalistic towards the proles whose well-being we manage." Either way, it's not an argument of social mobility. >If, as Warren states, the wealthy are meant to "pay it forward" to the community which supports them, it is because it is a generally accepted social practice and not because it is federally mandated (as in the example of hereditary wealth between family members). The reason Warren was prompted to make her statement is that "wealth concentration" has become a hot-button issue. Clearly, "pay it forward" has not happened. The core of Warren's statement is that wealth is not an individualist accomplishment, it is the outcome of a social contract. Further, that social contract is being shirked by those with wealth. "There is no coercion involved' is the direct cause of the wealth concentration we currently experience. Warren, I surmise, would encourage further coercion because the system as currently implemented does not "pay it forward." >You didn't actually address this argument, you just ridiculed it. So I write a thousand words and I'm criticized for not writing more? Okay, I'll write more: A factory in Boise may not appear to have as likely a risk of a terrorist attack as a factory in Newark. However, the entity targeted by "terrorism" is likely to be "weak factories" and if the factory does not have the same intelligence about terrorism as a central authority, the factory is addressing issues of terrorism in an inferior fashion compared to that central authority. Further, a central authority is the most efficient way to deal with central problems - if one does business on a national basis, one should accept the input of a national authority rather than a state or local authority because knowledge can never be perfect. Further, if one practices business on a national level, one must necessarily use infrastructure provided on a national level unless one wishes to build a parallel infrastructure from the ground up. Simply put, unless you're building your own UPS fleet to run on your own roads to deliver your goods and services to everyone, you owe taxes on the highways between you and your customers. And if Al Qaeda intends to attack "the united states" as a resident of "the united states" you share the burden of paying to protect "the united states." >Then there is this significant chunk of the article sub-titled "Practical Problems with Warren's Stance" which you didn't not address at all -- and it's no small piece, either Would you like me to address it? I can. Or would you rather call me "asshat" again? Perhaps "provocateur" and "egoist." Maybe "smug" and "annoying" would suit you better. How 'bout "asshole?" This can go one of two ways. You can actually try and have a civil discussion, or you can continue hurling insults. Let's be clear about one thing, though - YOU brought us here.
I'm calling it an analogy. It does not have to be clearly labeled as an analogy to actually be an analogy. The author does not have to have to explicitly say "To make an analogy . . ." or "Consider the following analogy . . ." or so on for us to make the logical conclusion that it is, in fact, an analogy. Why else would the author all of a sudden start talking about children in a political article? The fact that she continues the analogy for several sentences just means that it's an extended analogy -- call it an allegory then; that's probably a more suitable term anyway. > If that's a metaphor, then the only way it works is if the parents are the rich and the children are the poor. I don't know which interpretation is more offensive: not-metaphor, as in "don't tax us, we have kids" or metaphor, as in "don't tax us, we're paternalistic towards the proles whose well-being we manage." Either way, it's not an argument of social mobility. The purpose is to demonstrate the role of coercion in both models, not to provide an insulting metaphor of relations between the rich and non-rich. We both agree that the assumptions it makes are unrealistic, but that is beside the point. > The reason Warren was prompted to make her statement is that "wealth concentration" has become a hot-button issue. Clearly, "pay it forward" has not happened. The core of Warren's statement is that wealth is not an individualist accomplishment, it is the outcome of a social contract. Further, that social contract is being shirked by those with wealth. "There is no coercion involved' is the direct cause of the wealth concentration we currently experience. Warren, I surmise, would encourage further coercion because the system as currently implemented does not "pay it forward." We both agree on this. Had you written this to begin with instead of the inflammatory rant you did, this discussion wouldn't be happening. > Would you like me to address it? Preferably, yes. That would be useful in perpetuating discussion.
- If it weren't for the prior existence of language (not to mention the discovery of mathematics and electricity), then the current members of the Forbes 400 list would be living like savages. - Yet for some reason, Warren acts as if the "social contract" always means we can take more from rich people, regardless of how much we're currently taking. - Warren simply asserts that the government should be the recipient of this understandable urge for the wealthy to share. - Here again, we see Warren injecting the government into the mix, without any justification. - It's not as if a factory has a choice between getting products via government highways or privately run highways. These are not valid points of discussion. These are the rants of a Libertarian mindset so far removed from logic that they see "big government" in every statement. The idea that taxes should be optional because public roads are not is preposterous on the face of it - yet this idea, and ones like it, are typical of mises.org. And that's why I gutted the article and walked away, rather than bludgeoning through the whole "the rich pay more taxes so pay no attention to the fact that as a measure of wealth they pay less" aspect of the part you want me to discuss. So if you would really like me to talk about that more, apologize, asshat.
Parents == the wealthy Child == the tax-funded community (roads, libraries, USPS, Welfare, SS, etc) The central point here is that when a wealthy parent bequeaths money to his children, it is a voluntary action. Warren probably would not advocate a law which automatically took a portion of a parents' wealth and distributed to his children. Therefore, the author requests justification for Warren's claim that the wealthy should be forced to give back to the community. That force, in the form of a law, is (from a libertarian standpoint) undue coercion. The analogy obviously falls apart under scrutiny (parents do not rely on their children, wealth will not be efficiently distributed, etc). However the basic principle is that this form of coercion is wrong. That is the point, and that is the assertion worth debating. Not the straw man you've been suggesting. It has nothing to do with wealthy people having actual children and therefore being exempt from taxes. That doesn't even make sense on a superficial level, because poor people have kids, too. > But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along" - nowhere does she say "the government is entitled to your wealth" I thought that is was a given that we were talking about a progressive income tax code, in which case, the government would be entitled to a fraction of a person's income. > nor does she say "you need to pay for a welfare state so that the indolent can continue to suck off the public teat." This, too, is a straw man because the article doesn't argue that, either. It simply contests the idea that the wealthy are due a debt to the community which supported them. > So if you would really like me to talk about that more, apologize, asshat. This is what I don't understand about you. Before you were adamant that I return to the actual discussion at hand and stop making this about you. Now you want an apology. To be completely honest I did actually considering adding an apology to the end of my previous message, but decided against it because I thought (1) you would think I was being insincere, (2) if I attempted to justify the purpose of the insults in any way we'd get tied up in more pointless bickering, and (3) I didn't think you wanted one. So, although I risk violating my second point in saying this (and possibly the first), I do apologize for calling you an asshat or an asshole -- but not for calling you smug or intentionally provocative because I honestly believe you were. It didn't call for the harsh language I used, but let's not pretend that it was unprovoked. But I don't like resorting to personal insults, and I don't like making people feel like shit. I truly am sorry.
>Child == the tax-funded community (roads, libraries, USPS, Welfare, SS, etc) >The central point here is that when a wealthy parent bequeaths money to his children, it is a voluntary action. So. By your own read, of this interpretation of a 3rd party article, the author of the 3rd party article is saying "the rich should not be forced to pay for roads, libraries, USPS, Welfare, SS, etc. because they're as naturally inclined to pay for these things as parents are naturally inclined to give their children money." Not only is that insultingly paternalistic, as I've said for hours, it's also laughable. The notion that public works would be kept alive by charity in the absence of taxes is fallacious by inspection; people donating money to "the government" is a rare enough occasion that it usually makes the news. Never in the history of mankind have taxes been voluntary, and never in the history of mankind has a culture flourished on charity. Charity has always been the discretionary largesse of a populace that has already supported its infrastructure based on compulsory taxation; compulsory taxation dates beyond the Code of Hammurabi. Here's a bunch of ancient Egyptian tax cheats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wells_egyptian_peasants_ta... Now - you can make the argument that in Rand's magic valley, everyone will pay their own way and bootstrap themselves to success. But we don't live there and neither did Ayn. Elizabeth Warren is simply pointing this out. >I thought that is was a given that we were talking about a progressive income tax code, in which case, the government would be entitled to a fraction of a person's income. So now you're arguing against taxes? >This, too, is a straw man because the article doesn't argue that, either. It simply contests the idea that the wealthy are due a debt to the community which supported them. The article argues that the wealthy do not owe anything to the community from whence they sprang. It does not argue it successfully. >This is what I don't understand about you. Before you were adamant that I return to the actual discussion at hand and stop making this about you. Now you want an apology. Before you were busy calling me six different names and refusing to have any sort of discussion. Now you're continuing to call me names and wanting to hear me elaborate on the stupidity of the article. The only consistent part is you calling me names, while also insisting I'm the rude one. I'm just rubbing your nose in your hypocrisy. >To be completely honest I did actually considering adding an apology to the end of my previous message, but decided against it because I thought (1) you would think I was being insincere, (2) if I attempted to justify the purpose of the insults in any way we'd get tied up in more pointless bickering, and (3) I didn't think you wanted one. I pointed out no less than three times that you're the one being uncivil. It took demonstrating just how childish and uncivil you were being before you even considered attempting to be civil. Again, I didn't start this fracas by attacking anyone - I attacked an article. Meanwhile, I've been called an asshole, an asshat, an egoist and (most amusingly) a bigot for attacking the logic of a facile Libertarian hit-piece. And somehow, you think me attempting to bring things back to the discussion at hand is at loggerheads with me wanting things to be civil? I've said it before, and I'll say it again. My behavior is no different from anyone else's, I'm just better at it. I don't attack, I counter-attack. And I've had lots of practice. >I do apologize for calling you an asshat or an asshole -- but not for calling you smug or intentionally provocative because I honestly believe you were. It didn't call for the harsh language I used, but let's not pretend that it was unprovoked. Oh, come now. "intentionally provocative" is a bizarre read for what can only be viewed as an antagonistically dismissive comment. What I wrote was intended to shut down debate on the points under discussion - and the best you've come up with is "the rich will make up in charity what you take away in taxes" which is a laughable argument. You're only still having this discussion because of a serious case of high dudgeon - you say you're a "a Liberal who supports progressive tax rates" yet here you are saying that the idea of taxation = coercion is an "assertion worth debating." I'll say the same thing to you that I said to Artifex - if you don't want the discussion to dive into the gutter, don't steer it there. What sort of response do you expect when you write: >Your response to the article in question is so weakly constructed and your manner so abrasive that I did not think it worthy of any serious critical response when I first read it earlier today. I was seriously disappointed because I thought hubski was better than that. ? Yet I'm the smug and provocative one.
- Understanding and addressing opposing arguments as they are meant to be understood is the only way to honestly defend one's own position. Attacking straw men or being categorically dismissive of certain ideologies advances nothing. - For the very reason stated above, I played devil's advocate for an opinion with which I disagreed in order to represent it fairly (which you failed to do). That the argument falls apart is of no consequence to me, because it was never my point to militate it. - We have completely different views of what is provocative or smug if you honestly feel offended by that last quote. Criticism and disappointment =/= provocative and smug. - I called you an asshat multiple times. Well, again, sorry. Didn't think it would cut so deep with you. Unless you want to crack this wide open again, futilely chasing up all the irreconcilable loose ends, then I think we're done here. I will no longer respond to concerns which I have already addressed.
TLDR: The Internet. Srs Bsns.