this<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\u201cAs leaders of law firms, we write in our individual capacity.\u201d What the Hell does that mean? Does that mean \u201cEvery lawyer in the entire Big Shot law firm opposes . . . \u201c or does it mean \u201cSome guys who work at the Big Shot law firms oppose . . . ?\u201d Clearly, \u201cindividual\u201d means NOT on behalf of the firms; they\u2019re writing as individual lawyers like any of 35,000 other lawyers in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019re lawyers and it\u2019s a legal issue, doesn\u2019t that add weight to their opinions? But it\u2019s not a legal issue. If it were, the matter would be settled in court where lawyers\u2019 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 \u2013 even those at big law firms \u2013 get one vote each, same as the rest of us. Their law licenses adds no weight to their opinions.<\/p>\n
But they work at Big Shot law firms, doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s-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\u2019t an IQ test so that doesn\u2019t make their opinions more valuable than ours. The firm name adds no weight to the writers\u2019 opinions.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019re the managing partners, the guys who run the firms. They manage dozens, maybe hundreds of employees, doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s opinion on a social issue be entitled to more weight than the employees\u2019 opinions? Just because you\u2019re management instead of labor doesn\u2019t give you any special insight into how basic societal units should be structured, whether \u201cfamily\u201d should be one-man-one-woman, same sex, or plural. No, being the managing partners adds no weight to their opinions.<\/p>\n
\u201cAppeal to Authority\u201d 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 \u201cBecause I said so\u201d quit working when I was 5 years old. With that poison opener, the rest of the column doesn\u2019t stand a chance of persuading me these writers have the authority to instruct me how I should vote on this issue. I\u2019ll make up my own mind, thank you very much.<\/p>\n
Joe Doakes<\/p>\n
Como Park<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
RIght. \u00a0But Democrats, being fundamentally hive creatures, tend to defer to authority first, and ask questions later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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. \u201cAs leaders of law firms, we write in our individual capacity.\u201d What the Hell does that mean? Does that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-universe-and-everything"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28968","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=28968"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28997,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28968\/revisions\/28997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}