[lbo-talk] Principled Discoursin' : BDL on Sweezy)

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Mon Mar 1 14:01:18 PST 2004



> you still haven't addressed Luke's question, oor mine. What does a
> speaker's/writer's stature in their field or productiveness as an
> author/researcher have to do with whether they are qualified to criticize
> someone?
>
>
> Kelley

^^^^^ CB : Despite tu quoque fallacy , I am not willing to take an absolute zero weight to authority attitude to debate.

Let us not forget that Brad D's original statement commits tu quoque fallacy with respect to Stalin , as Michael Perelman alluded to. Being a mass murderer is irrelevant to the validity of Stalin's opinion on the continued operation of the law of value within part of the Soviet Union. Then , I think, there is a second layer of ad hominem in what Brad says, because he accuses Sweezy of bad motive in agreeing with Stalin. Not that Sweezy has made a bad argument, but that he agrees with someone bad. So, Brad D.'s argument is doubly flawed, since we are talking logic.

Ironic that the thread has moved to defense of Brad D based on the non-ad hominem principle, all there are in Brad's , uh , "argument" are one or two ad hominems.



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