Leftists, especially, like to whine on and on about “personal attacks” and bloggers and email listers have for years been accused of making “ad hominem arguments” …when often the whines about “personal attacks” and “ad hom” arguments are little more than misdirection attempts by wolves trying to pull the wool over sheeple eyes…
A “personal attack” that cites facts of a person’s actual words and deeds is not a personal attack at all, and anyone who makes arguments or accusation from FACT decrying someone\’s actual words and deeds need NEVER back down when falsely accused of making a “personal attack” that is a false accusation aimed at nothing less than OBSCURING relevant facts.
That\’s the kind of behavior Lefties like to pull on such folks as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: label relevant truth and fact-based opinion as “personal attacks” in an attempt to shout someone out of the public arena. Disgusting, but what can you expect from liars, poltroons and whiners?
ad hominem ad hominem [ahd hoh-mi-nem; Eng. ad hom-uh-nuhm]
Latin.
1. appealing to one\’s prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one\’s intellect or reason.
2. attacking an opponent\’s character rather than answering his argument.
(Note the brief definition above recognizes the potential “positive” as well as negative appeals to emotion based on prejudicial circumcstances; most folks only think of ad hominem as regards negative statements about another to discredit the other’s argument, though.)
If I were to say, “Jean Fraud Kerry is a slanderer.” and then go on to say, “BECAUSE he is a slanderer, he is unfit for public office,” many would accuse me of making an ad hominem “attack” on JF Kerry. Not so. An (antipathetic) ad hominem attack, MUST argue that someone else\’s arguments, statements, etc., are necessarily false, untrue or invalid because of their special condition, a defect of character, racial, ethnic, religious background, relation to the matter under argument, etc.
Note carefully, that a factually-based accusation that Kerry is a slanderer and that this fault of character is great enough to disqualify him for public office is NOT an argument against his ideas, policies or arguments. It is itself an argument. “Proposed: character matters in choosing public servants, and demonstrable liars, hypocrites, slanderers, thieves and perjurers disqualify themselves by their choice of unethical behavior from “serving” in public office.”
That J.F. Kerry is–at the very least–a slanderer who gave false testimony (under oath? I need to re-read the copy of his testimony I have) before the Senate in his “Winter Soldier” testimony is a demonstrable and material fact, and is useful in the pursuit of this argument. So, correctly labeling him as a slanderer is in no way an ad hominem attack, but a legitimate statement of fact as a consequence of a larger argument.
Now, name-calling (my fav). Mass Media Podpeople. Academia Nut Fruitcakes. Congresscritters (politicians *spit*). All characterizations of classes of people that I have supported with factual citation in the past, demonstrating that these classes have earned the names I call them. If any in those classes don\’t like the names they have earned, let them change their behaviors.
‘ll deal with being rude–even roughly rude–with those who have earned the derisive disapprobation of any rational, ethical being in another post.
Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson\’s Website, The Random Yak, Adam\’s Blog, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, The Uncooperative Blogger ?, Conservative Cat, Wake Up America, Rightwing Guy, 123 Beta, Outside the Beltway, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, third world county, The HILL Chronicles, Faultline USA, Woman Honor Thyself, The Uncooperative Blogger ?, stikNstein… has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Pirate\’s Cove, Renaissance Blogger, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox News, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe
