quote:Are you coming from the position that slippery slope arguments are automatically discounted?
I'm coming from a position where I am asking you to tell us how you define the slippery slope fallacy. Right now you're unintentionally just responding with the fallacy itself, not an explanation. Unless this is a clever sort of performance theater based explanation, just either define it or admit you can not.
Of all the responders, I respect you the most..you are asking me to define the indefinable. I attempted to answer you last time. I deal in black and white. Some people understand shades of gray. Black and white has clearly defined boundaries, shades of gray is a slippery slope. The slippery slope is the realm of the liberal. Intolerant conservatives think black or white.
Black and white thinkers like me, are opposed to illegal immigration, support the constitution and believe write in candidate spelling should be accurate....the law said so. Gray area folks, want to interpret the "intent" of the law.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote:Of all the responders, I respect you the most..you are asking me to define the indefinable.
No. It's not indefinable. It's not even that hard. You have two links in this thread alone that define it really, painfully clearly. Are you admitting you don't understand what a slippery slope fallacy is?
quote:The slippery slope is the realm of the liberal. Intolerant conservatives think black or white.
"If we let gays marry today, tomorrow people will be marrying their dogs!"
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Ask your grandmother, or great grandmother before she dies if she would agree.
What the hell kind of link was that? Did you create that website yourself to prove your own point? It looks like an advertisement for the University of Phoenix to me. What a great and highly respected institution.... Are they still accredited? My wife is building a website as a grad school project. I think yours was created by a U of P online learner, and it was his personal blog.
Don't believe everything you read.....certainly, don't use ANYTHING you've read to prove a point.
Slippery slope isn't "six degrees of Kevin Bacon"
Are... are you serious? I must have missed this, because I didn't see it earlier. But seriously?
You respond to a simplistic but textbook example of a well-known and real logical fallacy with open mockery, followed by a lame attempt to deflect and a complete non-sequitor? (The six degrees of kevin bacon thing. That makes no sense, man.)
Oh, and about my grandmother? My grandmother isn't so stupid as you think, I'd appreciate it if you take back your insult. Thinking she wouldn't understand a slippery slope argument... geez.
Let's be clear. Here's a slippery slope argument:
A.) If mal isn't forced to shut up, he'll keep talking.
B.) If mal keeps talking, he'll just keep lying.
C.) If mal keeps lying, someone might believe him.
D.) If someone believes him, they might become paranoid.
E.) If the person becomes paranoid, they might end up getting even crazier beliefs, like wanting to kill the president.
F.) They might act on this, ala John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald.
G.) So, to protect the president, let's force mal to shut up.
Do you still embrace the slippery slope as... whatever insane thing you were saying it was? Conservative? Whatever?
Oh, yeah! The indefinable! Right above! It isn't so hard to define if I can come up with an example so easily, don't you think?
No, no. You'll just continue with the Orwellian doublethink.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
People who think in just Black & White don't just miss the shades of gray. They miss the blues, greens, reds, silvers, and all the other colors.
Still, Mal, you claim to think in just Black and White--but you condemn this law because its a shade of gray. Its a white law--being legal and trying to do good, but you condemn it not because of what it does, but because of what in may lead to.
The law bans giving away a toy with unhealthy meals to discourage companies from bribing kids into eating badly.
It does not ban the toys or the food.
But because it "May" lead to more absurd laws, you are against it. "May" is about the grayest word out there.
See, if you deny the city the right to regulate advertisements and food then there "May" be many other dire results. Then there "May" be painful disturbing deaths as food becomes totally deregulated and poisonous cheap foods are sold. Then there "May" be toys and who knows--baseball cards--given away with every carton of cigarettes you buy. Sure its illegal to sell them to kids, but I'm sure the parents are buying them and giving them to the kids. I can produce 20 more "may" and Gray things that might happen if the government were not allowed to regulate advertising and food.
Oh, and Megabyte--I said earlier that arguing extremes and Mal-like is fun. Was I right?
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
The government has no business regulating what we choose to eat. Trans-fats, soda.... the specific items. Water can't be attacked for its content, but it can for its container. The slippery slope is allowing the government control of the hill, if only a small portion. The Court's use of precedence, is in itself,...slippery slope. Once the precedence is set, it's cited to establish a new one.
Now it's considered right wing and extreme to believe in the constitution. Now, our founders would be considered Tea Baggers.
Now, the American flag is considered to "Incite Racial Tensions". No one would've thought that the attack on the Confederate flag would lead to this..... A flag is a flag and you should have the right to wave a black power flag. Of course, community organizers and our apolagizer in chief, view the American Flag to represent evil.
posted
The government absolutely has business regulating some of what is fed to children, but that's not what it's doing in this case, malanthrop. Not that I expect you to acknowledge that with your usual spineless dishonest discussion methods.
They're regulating what can be advertised and marketed specifically towards children and packaged as part of a meal for free to them, not what can be fed to them. The products being regulated in this way are quite bad nutritionally speaking, and childhood obesity as well as adult obesity are both very serious problems in this country. You can choose to acknowledge all of these things, which are facts, or continue to make a fool out of yourself for the entertainment of all and the mockery of your own political slant. Up to you!
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posted
I'll acknowledge that obesity is a problem and glad to live in a country where the poor aren't starving, they're fat. You right, they're regulating marketing, they're regulating speech to influence eating.
Parents should be able to decide and businesses should be able to give away free toys. Stop by the ghetto some time, those fat little poor kids are playing with McD Toys. Take away the toy, the parents will still take them to McD's...and the meal will likely be cheaper for lack of a toy. You'll end up with even fatter poor kids with less to play with. The toys are junk, my kids throw them away, right away. Believe me, my kids aren't influenced by a crappy toy.
Social security is also optional. They aren't forcing you to contribute, they're regulating benefits. You don't have to participate, it's your choice...if you choose not to, you can't work or go to school. Taxing a cheese burger 500% isn't regulating food, it's taxing a product,...according to your logic. The ends justify the means. Too bad American parents are considered too stupid to feed their own children. We need the government to manipulate our behavior.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
You think it's the poor that are fat, and that's it? Then you're as ignorant about the obesity problem in this country as you've been about slippery slopes in this thread, malanthrop.
I looked at the numbers, and with the exception of a handful of states there wasn't one that wasn't badly past the poverty rate in its obesity rate. And whereas people tend to improve their financial health after their teens and early 20s, the same cannot be said of their physical health, so this statistic is even more critical of your 'point'.
quote: Parents should be able to decide and businesses should be able to give away free toys. Stop by the ghetto some time, those fat little poor kids are playing with McD Toys. Take away the toy, the parents will still take them to McD's...and the meal will likely be cheaper for lack of a toy. You'll end up with even fatter poor kids with less to play with. The toys are junk, my kids throw them away, right away. Believe me, my kids aren't influenced by a crappy toy.
You're right, malanthrop. Children aren't influenced by the toy. The reason McDonald's is fighting this decision is because of a virtuous defense of the First Amendment. The reason they take such care to market to children is just because they love children so much, not because it's good business or anything. Listen to yourself. Advertising works. You know it. You're lying. Normally I wouldn't be so free to throw that accusation out there on a political discussion, but this is such an incredibly obvious point and your participation on this subject is so dishonest I feel pretty comfortable making that accusation.
quote:Social security is also optional. They aren't forcing you to contribute, they're regulating benefits. You don't have to participate, it's your choice...if you choose not to, you can't work or go to school. Taxing a cheese burger 500% isn't regulating food, it's taxing a product,...according to your logic. The ends justify the means. Too bad American parents are considered too stupid to feed their own children. We need the government to manipulate our behavior.
This is a great big subject change, because once again you lack the wit to defend your original argument and the courage to admit when you've been proven repeatedly to have been mistaken.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
All Americans are fat. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to be fat.
Advertising does work and I am not lying. Who drives the child to McD's and pays for the meal? Parents. I guess the assumption here is, parents are controlled by their children and children are controlled by marketing from an evil corporation. We need government intervention.
Didn't intend to "change the subject". Just pointing out the "slippery slope" of things like.....offering federal dollars to states for highway funds, then demanding a 55 mph speed limit, drinking ages, seat belt laws and dui limits. Of course, the states are the ultimate legal authority according to the constitution for these matters. They can CHOOSE to keep a 75 speed limit, no seat belt law, 19 year old consumption of alcohol, etc. Once they depend on those federal dollars, they give up their sovereignty.
Parents are the ultimate legal authority over how to feed their children. Restaurant portions are too large. Some restaurants actually market their portion sizes to entice people to spend their money there. We need a law limiting portion size. Know what I do? I order two Chinese meals for take out and feed a family of four. Of course, some people just cant help themselves...there needs to be a law. I should be forced to buy 4 meals to feed 4 people.
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posted
Also I think this is the sort of threshold I always observe to finally throw a forum off and as a result expect the forum to slow waaaay dooowwwnnn
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posted
I'm not the one to introduce "slippery slope" into this thread.
Individual freedom or the greater good? Who decides what the greater good is? Ban bottled water and tax soda. In my family, soda is a special occasion treat. Of course, the greater good is best served by a federal law controlling (directing) irresponsible parents. Some parents might put soda in a baby bottle and a certain demographic in our population has an 80% illegitimacy rate. We need laws and government to take care of the individuals that are too stupid to take care of themselves...at the expense of the ones that can take care of themselves.
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: I'm not the one to introduce "slippery slope" into this thread.
You were. Several people noted that you had made a slippery slope argument. You then proceeded to show us that you are incapable or unwilling to understand what's wrong with that, all the while just firing off a slew of half-baked points unrelated to what people are trying to get you to understand about the classic mistakes of your theory. And you still are now.
quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: I'm not the one to introduce "slippery slope" into this thread.
You were. Several people noted that you had made a slippery slope argument. You then proceeded to show us that you are incapable or unwilling to understand what's wrong with that, all the while just firing off a slew of half-baked points unrelated to what people are trying to get you to understand about the classic mistakes of your theory. And you still are now.
Congratulations.
I made an argument and was accused of "making a slippery slope argument". Is this an automatic trump card, like accusing Obama opposition of being racist. The Tea Party is racist, right?
Current events illustrate the slippery slope. The slippery slope has been accellerated so much that soda in a plastic bottle is attacked for it's sugar content....at the same time, water in the same container, is attacked for the container. Why not attack soda for the container and the content? Slippery slope, sugar free soda will be attacked for the container, water already is. The same reason I consider MLK to be a great man. Content of character and individual rights are my foundation.
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: People who think in just Black & White don't just miss the shades of gray. They miss the blues, greens, reds, silvers, and all the other colors.
Still, Mal, you claim to think in just Black and White--but you condemn this law because its a shade of gray. Its a white law--being legal and trying to do good, but you condemn it not because of what it does, but because of what in may lead to.
The law bans giving away a toy with unhealthy meals to discourage companies from bribing kids into eating badly.
It does not ban the toys or the food.
But because it "May" lead to more absurd laws, you are against it. "May" is about the grayest word out there.
See, if you deny the city the right to regulate advertisements and food then there "May" be many other dire results. Then there "May" be painful disturbing deaths as food becomes totally deregulated and poisonous cheap foods are sold. Then there "May" be toys and who knows--baseball cards--given away with every carton of cigarettes you buy. Sure its illegal to sell them to kids, but I'm sure the parents are buying them and giving them to the kids. I can produce 20 more "may" and Gray things that might happen if the government were not allowed to regulate advertising and food.
Oh, and Megabyte--I said earlier that arguing extremes and Mal-like is fun. Was I right?
I believe a city has the right to ban toys. Power should be local. We have dry towns. In a way, San Fran is following the view of our founding fathers. San Fran trump federal power with their sanctuary city, marijuana and gay marriage laws. San Fran ignores federal marijuana laws, marriage laws and immigration laws. What if a town in Texas decided to allow automatic machine guns and slavery? Would you be so tolerant of the local blind eye to federal law? What if a Texas town decided not to enforce federal gun laws? In this town, the local police wont arrest you for having a machine gun.
Who's blurred the lines? Who controls the slippery slope?
quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: I made an argument and was accused of "making a slippery slope argument". Is this an automatic trump card, like accusing Obama opposition of being racist. The Tea Party is racist, right?
You made a fallacious slippery slope argument and had it pointed out to you that you were making a fallacious slippery slope argument. It's not an 'automatic trump card,' its an attempt to inform you what makes your position nonsensical and/or fallacious, in the hopes that you stop making bad arguments.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
"I made an argument and was accused of "making a slippery slope argument". Is this an automatic trump card, like accusing Obama opposition of being racist. The Tea Party is racist, right?"
posted
You do know that the premise of this thread is WRONG, don't you? The SF Board of Supervisors passed a law which forbids giving away toys with "meals exceeding 650calories, 35% coming from fat/oils, and [some set number] of milligrams of salt". McDonalds HappyMeals come in under those limits.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Self control. He kept his calorie intake within normal limits and evil food benefited his health. Some people lack self control and need government intervention....slippery, slippery slope. Are twinkies good for you? He got healthier eating them...he must've been really hungry, limiting his calories and controlling his behavior, while eating twinkies and doritoes - resulting in better health.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
You know, I've been on 4chan enough to know a troll when I see one. I could be wrong of course, but better safe than sorry. I won't respond to mal again in this thread, it's just too painful.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Did you even bother to check the troll's link?,,,,CNN.
Of course, being called a "troll" might be your last resort. When Obama supporters have no logical argument left, they call his opposition "racist". Go ahead...give up...you're pulling the "troll card".
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote:Are twinkies good for you? He got healthier eating them
Several points that (surprise) add the nuance missing from your point: * He only ate five Twinkies a day, for a total of 750 calories and 25 grams of fat. Both well below the USRDA. * Twinkies aren't actually *that* bad for you. They are mostly flour and sugar. * The "scary" stuff like saturated fats cause long-term health issues, nothing that would show up in a short-term experiment like this. * He ate more than just Twinkies. He also ate protein shakes, vegetables, and multivitamins. The Twinkies provided most of his calories, but the other stuff provided his nutrition. * He lost weight because he kept his calories down, not because he ate junk food.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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posted
Hamburgers contain all the food groups. Are they bad for you? What did he consume to provide his "nutrition" that lowered his bad cholesterol and raised his good cholesterol? Protein, vitamins don't contain either.
Self control...he must've been starving. Twinkies aren't filling and I order 2 chinese dinners and feed a family of four. Most people don't have the discipline of this man. He tested the bad foods, and proved it's calories that matter. We naturally crave sugar and fat for their efficiency. Strange, on one hand the liberal wants efficient energy and inefficient food. Sugar and fat are solar power....we need the government to limit???? Efficient fuels for cars and inefficient fuels for humans.
posted
While 'the liberal' wants efficient energy but inefficient food, 'the conservative' confines his contradictions to preaching smug superiority while refusing to address posts containing multiple clearly listed damning criticisms of his arguments while pretending they never happened.
Even though it's perfectly clear they did, and the only person he makes look foolish is himself. 'The conservative', folks! Well, this conservative anyway. Well done!
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Please stay on topic. Sugar and fat are the most efficient fuels for human existence. Go green,...eat fat and sugar. Go green, find the most efficient fuel for your car. The only difference, cars don't have cravings, they only run more efficiently on the fuel people put in them. Parents feed their kids happy meals and outlawing a toy isn't going to change it. My car's engine might prefer Techron but I decide the station to stop at. I decide whether or not my kids get a happy meal.
The government has no more constitutional authority to dictate my car get 10% ethanol than it does to outlaw happy meal toys.
Efficiency is best...capitalist, free market, constitutionally defined limited government is best.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
Why do we need the government to protect us from fat and sugar content? We naturally crave things like salt, sugar and fat. We have salt mines, so salt is easy....too much of a good thing. Why do animals eat organs first, yet we waste them? The internal organs of an animal are the most nutritional bits. Eating liver is a dying art. We're so nutritionally spoiled, we've lost the craving for liver.
In thousands of years we might lose the cravings for salt, fat and sugar. Nothing better for you than a liver. Liver and kindey were, and stil are in some counties, the prime cuts.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: What is a processed form? To me, a processed form is Al Sharpton living in a rich white neighborhood or an America hater being president.
threw you a bone.
Something is seriously broken in your head. Oh well, the forum is defenseless to waves of nonsense, so have at it.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Malanthrop: At this point, you are not even attempting to be coherent. You are not discussing anything specific, so much as using just about any topic as a lead-in to things you have said many times. Pet topics if you will.
If you want to discuss the constitutionality of the government mandating what we can and cannot eat, that is fine. If you want to just take pot shots at people and concepts unrelated to it, read Al Sharpton, and President Obama, that's unacceptable, and is by no stretch discussing in good faith.
This isn't the first time you've done this, so I'm not feeling particularly inclined to just say "Here's a warning." You need to stop doing this immediately, if you wish to continue posting here in the future.
I would be more than happy to talk over email with you, if you wish to discuss this without anybody from the peanut gallery jumping in.
Posts: 1194 | Registered: Jun 2010
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posted
Orin, wouldn't that depend? I'd agree that a McD's burger is unlikely to be all that healthy, but a burger I make at home, with lots of tomato and lettuce, on a whole wheat bun, has a rather different nutritional profile, neh?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
It hasn't even successfully made it on the ballot. I find the fact that it is being pushed disturbing, but let's not make more of it than it is.
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posted
"People can practice whatever religion they want, but your religious practice ends with someone else's body,"
I can't imagine this passing, let alone not being challenged in the courts and struck down.
edit: I agree with rivka, its kinda disturbing, but to be honest if you saw all the legislation citizens submit to congress for ratification, you'd wonder just how on earth we don't all kill each other in this country.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: Orin, wouldn't that depend? I'd agree that a McD's burger is unlikely to be all that healthy, but a burger I make at home, with lots of tomato and lettuce, on a whole wheat bun, has a rather different nutritional profile, neh?
Sure, especially if you're using lean beef or ostrich. But I mean, for practical purposes of this discussion, that's not so important. It's useful to take any comment such as mine with the understanding that I'm speaking to the overwhelmingly common experience, which is a burger on white bread, with fatty beef, covered in sauces high in fat and cholesterol as well as sugar- and that experience taken beyond moderation, which in the case of your typical burger is eating one anything more than very occasionally. You can take most any food available in a restaurant and offer something in a similar form factor to fit a healthy diet. But again, overwhelmingly these are not the foods offered, nor the foods bought or served, particularly in restaurants, but also in the home.
Sort of like if I said: "Ice cream is bad for you." You'd have to assume I wasn't talking about a sugar-reduced, low fat scoop of vanilla once a year.
Burgers, in reasonable and practical terms, are bad for you.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
And the French are expelling their Gypsies. In keeping with the EuropeanUnion exemplar, the Brits should expel their Angles, their Saxons, their Celts, and their Picts along with other similarly late arrivals. Britannia for the LittleFolk and the Fey!!!
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: And the French are expelling their Gypsies.
Meh, not really. They're following the terms of the Schengen agreement and deporting (for free) immigrants who enter France without the means to support themselves, and who plan on taking unlawful advantage of national social programs. They are not expelling *their* Gypsies- they are expelling some of *Romania's* Gypsies, and they are well within their rights to do so. That such actions are called racism is a bit of a Samaritan snare- the Gypsy problem is highly visible and consequently a lot simpler to address than more minor abuses of the Schengen Agreement. The French recognize the problem because it is highly visible, but understand too that those with jobs and accommodation are not being deported. France is deporting people who are violating the terms of the Agreement- Gypsies, nor any other national or ethnic group has an express right to settlement in France under Schengen law.
And lest you throw illegal Mexican immigration in my face- the dynamics of this situation are very different. These people have rights, but they also have responsibilities- and those who don't play by the rules are sent home. I can't say I blame France for that.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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