> No no no. Let the punks revel in their adolescent ad hominems
> regarding a person they've obviously never met in the meat world. It
> might be best for any future archive peruser to see how far in the
> toilet leftists sink when there's a war on, as if there isn't enough
> cruelty in the world. But of course we'll all be perfectly respectful
> and friendly after the revo. too, you know, the way we all like to
> think of ourselves now.
Until I came to this post I had no intention of adding to the discussion of Pugliese. But this calls for a response.
"Ad hominem" is a technical term, and misuse of it tends towards a pollution of language.
1) John is a republican voter, and therefore what he says is vicious by definition.
2) What John says is vicious, and therefore he is a shithead.
******
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html
Description of Ad Hominem
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."
An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:
1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
Example of Ad Hominem
1. Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong."
Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest."
Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?"
Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say." *****
Now, one does not need the assurances of Doug and Thomas that Pugliese is, personally, a nice guy. That was obvious to me a long time ago, and evidence of it can be found in some of his most obnoxious posts. But arguments _for the person_ are as fallacious (i.e. irrelevant to the positions he/she expounds) as are arguments against the person. It is an old cliche that a concentration camp guard may well be kind to animals and help old ladies across the street.
Probably this would be a better list if there were fewer personal attacks. It _certainly_ would be a better list if there were far fewer ad hominem arguments. Unfortunately, not only do such arguments flourish, but if you check the various discussions of "motive mongering" you will find that the list owner regularly, and on principle, not only indulges in ad hominem arguments but defends the practice as desirable. That is intellectually and politically corrupt.
"X says that because Y is her motive." Such arguments are despicable and a pollution of the public mind.
X is a shithead. That is often, perhaps always, uncalled for, but it is not intellectually corrupting, it is merely impolite.
Tom Walker wrote:
>
> "...those who are now attacking him. I am sure they think they have
> scored a victory."
>
> How bizarre. It's most likely the creeps, fools and punks who are
> hurling ad hominems. I think this could all be cleared up with a few
> dozen unexplained URLs and some random snippets of gossip about 1930s Reds.
>
And earlier Tom Walker wrote:
>
> Pugliese reminds me of nothing
> so much as the sectarians he sees under every bed. An imitation of myth
> produces tragedy; an imitation of that imitation, farce. Iterations
> beyond farce approach noise asymptotically.
Clearly, "Pugliese" here refers to Pugliese's statements, and it is obviously an accurate assessment of those statements, an accuracy which is not brought into question by anything that might be said about Pugliese's personal qualities.
Several of the one-line zingers (both attacking and defending Pug) added little to the discussion -- but it was those defending him who tended towards Ad Hominem arguments, not those attacking him.
Sometime in the last few years Justin exploded at one red-baiter, who (according to Justin) had in effect demanded that Justin personally repudiate Yoshie. That is, the attacker in effect had said that Justin was a stalinist droid unless he joined in the ritual denunciation of Yoshie as a plotter of mass murder. That seems to be what Pugliese has been demanding of all of us.
The kinds of arguments that P vomits forth (or gives the URLs for) are the kinds of arguments that ever since the Palmer raids (or even since the Haymarket executions) have not merely been impolite or crude -- they are the kind of arguments that have destroyed millions of lives and will doubtless do so again in the future.
They are also, as Tom suggests, the kind of arguments that one finds Stalin's speeches honeycombed with. Look for the square brackets around "thunderous applause." Then look at the sentences which provoked that applause. They will remind one a great deal of the kind of venoom that pugliese has been pouring on this list.
This is not an attack on Pugliese. It is an attack on the substance of his posts. Probably Stalin could be a friendly dinner guest too.
Carrol