Arguing with Aspies

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My point is more that if one is going to criticize someone's viewpoint as illogical one should be able to point out real factual and logical inconsistencies or contradictions.

You can't have a well-rounded understanding of an issue without doing this.

My logical reasoning and shear stubbornness make me very good at online debating.

I think we've been talking past each other to some extent, because I totally agree with this.

Okay. That's good. I was just trying to clarify.

How can you make the above statement, although it was about someone using a figure of speech, then contradict your "logical" self by stating this:



No-one "actually" gotten off or gotten onto any wagon.

I find it quite strange how someone who claims to be so logically thinking, cannot work out, logically, when something is said as literal or as figurative.

OK I admit I like it too, but most people don't

Getting on or off a wagon is an analogy. It is a method of communicating an idea. You are attacking an idea as being illogical by rejecting the way in which it was communicated (ie rejecting analogy as a method of communication) and then claiming the idea was invalid because of a communication method you don't like. This is irrational - the idea's validity doesn't depend on what communication style is used to present it.

Sorry for the jump back, I'm fitting posting into my work/wife schedule and my timing is all off.

I just wanted to address this one real quick because I feel that people often misunderstand or misconstrue me on this point because I tend to condemn largely moral judgments or arguments. I don't argue that you can get by on logic alone, but when "testing" a premise or idea it's logic that should be your primary tool because it's less subjective than other measures. I understand how someone just seeing me taking apart someone else's position without ever putting one forward myself might get the impression that I oppose all moral and emotional reasoning, but my true position is closer to thinking they should be used less often and logic more so. It's a hierarchy, not absolutism.

I gotta use this for an example of something real quick Marshall, it's not intended as a rebuttal of anything you're saying.

Marshall just picked up on a very subtle piece of spin in there, one that I didn't really intentionally put in but one that reflects my own bias on the issue of progressive taxation; intellectually I largely accept Marshall's more nuanced definition, but emotionally I just don't like it and my word choice reflects that. What lies beyond my reflexive dislike of any program that takes from the individual for the common good is a deep seated suspicion of who then controls those programs and their motives/incentives, bureaucracy creep, slippery slopes and all the other good stuff that puts me in the libertarian camp; but that's another thread.

To bring it back to loaded words, my own near allergy to the more obvious one probably comes from my longtime involvement in gun politics, where hunting rifles become "assault weapons", regular magazines become "high capacity magazines", and virtually any type of jacketed bullets become "cop killer bullets". My current favorites from that camp are renaming bolt action hunting rifles "medium caliber sniper rifles" and calling a bill that would treat carry licenses like drivers licenses the "George Zimmerman Armed Vigilante Act". Maybe it's just what side of that debate I'm on, but to me at least nothing smells of desperation quite like language that tortured.

Are you specifically talking about sociopaths? One of my best friends from school was most definitely on that spectrum, cool enough guy as long as you remembered never to lend him money or really do anything for him expecting reciprocity.

I think that I am moar suited for a life of mixing chemicals and cutting up brains in a deep dark basement laboratory where I live and almost nevar leave than any kind of arguing or debating or intellectual back-and-forth something something. I only understand the parts of this thread that are about licorice. I don't like licorice. I like red vines, and iScream for iScream.

That's actually the kind of "reasoning" that I really frown upon and try to avoid. That's partially why we end up with things like a massively bloated defense budget, people employed in the industry voting to keep themselves employed at taxpayer expense. Someone who's dependent on a program or a job isn't really in a good position to objectively evaluate the true value of that thing, especially if other people are footing the bill.

I am finally compelled to weigh in....
...I am in fact bi-curious of sorts - - I love both black licorice and red vines.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I wasn't trying to say you use it intentionally as spin. I just don't like it. The thing is I've heard people on the left try to use it in a positive sense and I really wish they didn't because it comes across as divisive. I'm also not comfortable with 99% vs 1% rhetoric chosen by the OWS movement (even though I agree with most of their concerns and grievances). I and a lot of people on the left (at least the intelligent ones) have a more nuanced view on the "evils of inequality" than mere signs and slogans would suggest.

The thing about "redistribution" that bugs me on an emotional level is this... It gives the impression that government is taking from one group and giving to another with no strings attached. Even if it might seem accurate on a very literal level, when that "redistributed" wealth is used for things like affordable health care, something I don't see as an optional luxury but a survival necessity, it comes across as almost insulting. It comes across as equating someone needing emergency care to someone "needing" to go out and buy a big screen TV.

That really isn't my point at all. I just don't see emotional detachment as necessarily a good thing in all cases.