Joe Doakes of Como Park writes:
See, this is why I hate lawyers who write social commentary:. They commit the most obvious logical fallacy and expect us to ignore the error but genuflect to their credentials.
“As leaders of law firms, we write in our individual capacity.” What the Hell does that mean? Does that mean “Every lawyer in the entire Big Shot law firm opposes . . . “ or does it mean “Some guys who work at the Big Shot law firms oppose . . . ?” Clearly, “individual” means NOT on behalf of the firms; they’re writing as individual lawyers like any of 35,000 other lawyers in Minnesota.
But they’re lawyers and it’s a legal issue, doesn’t that add weight to their opinions? But it’s not a legal issue. If it were, the matter would be settled in court where lawyers’ opinions might matter. This is a legislative issue to be settled in the ballot box, an issue on which the opinions of every citizen are equally valid. Lawyers – even those at big law firms – get one vote each, same as the rest of us. Their law licenses adds no weight to their opinions.
But they work at Big Shot law firms, doesn’t that add weight to their opinions? No, it means for 20 years of schooling they were the most outstanding test-takers, brown-nosers, box-checkers and teacher’s-opinion-regurgitators so they got better grades and therefore got hired by big name firms. They may have higher IQs than you and I, but this isn’t an IQ test so that doesn’t make their opinions more valuable than ours. The firm name adds no weight to the writers’ opinions.
But they’re the managing partners, the guys who run the firms. They manage dozens, maybe hundreds of employees, doesn’t that add weight? Why should the individual personal opinion of the managing partner at Big Shot law firm on a social issue be entitled to more weight than the managing archbishop of the local diocese or the manager of the local road construction company? Why should the manager’s opinion on a social issue be entitled to more weight than the employees’ opinions? Just because you’re management instead of labor doesn’t give you any special insight into how basic societal units should be structured, whether “family” should be one-man-one-woman, same sex, or plural. No, being the managing partners adds no weight to their opinions.
“Appeal to Authority” is a fundamental logical fallacy and they commit it in the very first sentence of the column. Their opinions have no more weight than mine and “Because I said so” quit working when I was 5 years old. With that poison opener, the rest of the column doesn’t stand a chance of persuading me these writers have the authority to instruct me how I should vote on this issue. I’ll make up my own mind, thank you very much.
Joe Doakes
Como Park
RIght. But Democrats, being fundamentally hive creatures, tend to defer to authority first, and ask questions later.
“But Democrats, being fundamentally hive creatures, tend to defer to authority first, and ask questions later.”
He said as he urged fellow right-wingers to fall in line and vote for the author of Romneycare.
Right. Gotta convince ’em individually.
All the Dems gotta do is get George Soros to say “Jump”, and most of the “rank and file” (!) will say “off what?”
Well you have a good start. Your pro-abortion, pro-socialized medicine, immigration-friendly candidate has been “individually convinced” to change all of his former positions.
Well I for one am willing to take a chance on the “pro-abortion, pro-socialized medicine, immigration-friendly candidate”. The abject failure who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. now needs to take a permanent vacation. $16 trillion in national debt. Real unemployment over 10%. Energy policy = do nothing. Yeah, who would want to mess with all that progress?
So, AC, what you’re saying is that seeing the error of your ways is a BAD thing? That explains your life and politics.
Contrast that to the present occupant of the White House who runs Spanish language “novellas” on the radio telling folks they’re idiots for not taking food stamps and who wants to grant “work waivers” to welfare recipients who receive massages? Seems to me he’s learned from Jimmy Carter and intends to do him one better in dumb policies.
Generally if you’re signing something in your capacity as an individual and not on behalf of an organization, you don’t add the name of an organization and your position within it to your signature.
Admittedly, the issue of marriage is, for those of us in the legal and soon-to-be (that would be me) legal profession, a legal issue.
Actually, Ben, it’s not. It’s a political philosophy issue: “How should the fundamental organizational unit of society be structured?” Plato, Burke, Locke, all those guys whose Cliff Notes you read in PoliSci – they were debating the same question. Eventually, the outcome of this philosophical debate will be codifed into law and the lawyers can start to “interpret” it to their liking. But right now, it belongs to the people.