{"id":15360,"date":"2010-11-15T06:19:48","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T11:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=15360"},"modified":"2014-04-21T19:18:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T00:18:22","slug":"logic-for-leftybloggers-begging-the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=15360","title":{"rendered":"Logic For Leftybloggers: Begging The Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a typical argument that I’ve been having with more than a few lefties lately:<\/p>\n

ME: Here’s some more evidence that fraudulent votes were cast<\/a> in the election.<\/p>\n

THEY: \u00a0You shouldn’t say that. \u00a0Minnesota has the best voting system in the country.<\/p>\n

ME: \u00a0Maybe, maybe not – but there’s some room for improvement, as these stories show.<\/p>\n

THEY: But you shouldn’t impugn the voting system. \u00a0You’ll discourage voting.<\/p>\n

ME: No, I’m encouraging people to hold their idiot government accountable.<\/p>\n

THEY: \u00a0But your “evidence” is wrong.<\/p>\n

ME: Why?<\/p>\n

THEY: Because we have the best voting system in the country.<\/p>\n

ME: (Looks for ways to change the subject)<\/p>\n

It’s called “Begging the Question<\/a>” – which may be the most mis-used term in the whole world of logic, by the way. \u00a0Correctly used, it means “Using the presumption that your claim is correct as evidence that your claim is correct”.<\/p>\n

Constant repetition that Minnesota has the best electoral system in the country, even if it’s true<\/em> (and it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that it’s a ludicrous claim, unless the sole goal is to rack up vote counts, which is a stupid goal) doesn’t pre-empt evidence that there are issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a typical argument that I’ve been having with more than a few lefties lately: ME: Here’s some more evidence that fraudulent votes were cast in the election. THEY: \u00a0You shouldn’t say that. \u00a0Minnesota has the best voting system in the country. ME: \u00a0Maybe, maybe not – but there’s some room for improvement, as these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[287],"class_list":["post-15360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geekery","tag-logic-for-leftybloggers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15360"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43271,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15360\/revisions\/43271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}