If by "if-by-whiskey" you mean the fallacious, flip-flopping, cowardly practice of pandering, then certainly I am against it. But, if when you say "if-by-whiskey" you mean the circumspect, open-minded, responsive practice of consideration, then I am certainly for it. This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.
If by "if by 'if by whiskey'" you mean to circularly employ the same manipulative tactic of deceptive self-promotion, then I am certainly against it. But if by "if by 'if by whiskey'" you mean to strategically exercise the same practice out of admiration of its effective and pacifying avail to reason, then I am certainly for it. That is my position. I will not waver.
If by "If by \"if by 'if by whiskey'\"" you mean you're offering me some whiskey to help with trying to comprehend this level of nesting, then yes please :-)
If your "if by 'if by "if by whiskey"'" comment means to regurgitate the tired and immature recursive "100 pushups" style threads so popular at Reddit, then these sorts of comments add nothing to the discussion, worsen the HN community, and are completely uninteresting to me. But if you mean to inject more clever and lighthearted humor into the overly dry and serious HN community, then I believe you do this community a great service, and I commend you for it. Don't bother arguing with me.
If by 'if by "if by 'if by whiskey'"' you mean to usurp primacy by passing judgement, I remind you, judge not lest ye be judged. But if by 'if by "if by 'if by whiskey'"' you mean to shed light on these proceedings, to guide your fellow citizens, then I am certainly for it. These are my morals. They will not falter.
Is this a fallacy? It seems that the speaker is clearly being satirical, especially given that he prefaces his speech with
" On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be."
And then proceeds to argue for both sides of the issue.
Perhaps politics in 1950's Mississippi were just as solidly partisan as our national politics are today. In that case, perhaps Mr. Sweat's satire was meant to try to influence the partisans to, at least somewhat, understand the other side.
It seemed to be pretty clearly satirical to me as well. I'm actually surprised that others are arguing your point, I didn't realize people interepereted it otherwise.
Fyi, reading the first linked reference in Wikipedia brought me to a page talking about "the satiric straddling" in regards to the speech, which makes me think it also considers it satiric.
Seems more likely that he was simply pandering to both sides, and/or trying to dodge responsibility for a position altogether. The history of political speeches is pretty rife with this sort of tactic, although seldom as memorable as in this case. Politicians and public figures who don't want to alienate either side of an argument will often pay lip service to both sides.
> Seems more likely that he was simply pandering to both sides, and/or trying to dodge responsibility for a position altogether
No, it's explicitly a sarcastic parody of his fellow politicians behavior that he gave at the end of his only term in office on the floor of the legislature to his fellow members, not to pander to constituents. It was essentially a convoluted way to call his peers a pack of idiots and invite them to kiss his ass.
He was a cagey legal mind without a lot of patience for idiots, and he notes his amusement with the fact that half of his peers in the legislature heartily applauded the first half, and the other half heartily applauded the last half, and each half hated the other.
The easiest way to avoid responsibility is to not talk about the issue all together. Here he managed to outline the positives and negatives of both cases. If his view of whiskey's positives and negatives line up with yours, perhaps he understands and feels about the issue the same way you do and might make the decision that you would make in the same position. If not, you actually don't like his stance on the issue.
I think it's more interesting to consider the concept he isolates, though, and it's bothersome that we can so cleanly map the concept he considers to issues we have today.
"The easiest way to avoid responsibility is to not talk about the issue all together."
Yes, but often politicians and public figures aren't given that choice. In this case, the man in question was either a judge or a lawyer at the time, and it seems likely that he was being asked or compelled to weigh in on the issue. His speech was a way of satisfying the weigh-in requirement without taking a controversial stance.
"If by C programming, you mean writing unreadable code with memory leaks that is impossible to support and violently breaks in unpredictable ways, then I am against it.
If by C programming, you mean writing elegant code that dances with the machine producing blazing code, optimized to the technology and problem at hand, then I am for it.
This is my stand. I will not compromise."
I really hate to say it, but I haven't seen this if-by-whiskey technique so formally named, but it does give me great insight into political double-speak. And perhaps it'll give me a few outs from tough situations. :-)
On the other hand you made an example that was accidentally valid. The axis of good/bad code exists independent of language. But there is no such thing is good/bad (morally) casks of whiskey.
Get to work strongly implying that C is the actual cause of all these things with no externalities, and then you get toward the fallacy.
mathattack was focusing on the programming language. To parallel the whiskey morals they need to focus on the act of programming, or on the programmer. Not the language.
I interpreted it as more of a longwinded way to take both sides of an issue to not anger either side. C programming seemed less controversial than something like guns or abortion, but perhaps not around here. :-)
This immediately made me think of abortion and the terms pro-life and pro-choice. I am both pro-life and pro-choice by the literal meanings, but many in the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" camps seem to use their terminology to paint the other side as bad (i.e. the opposite side is "anti-life" or "anti-choice" by default, even though that's not necessarily true).
Is there a situation where the belief that abortion should be illegal does not oppose a woman's ability to choose abortion? Of course the central premise of opposition to abortion is not (usually) opposition to choice, but "anti-choice" isn't technically an invalid characterization.
The central premise of opposition to abortion is whether the baby gets a choice. It's not "anti-choice", it's insisting that everyone involved have a fair say in the matter.
That's clever, but I'm guessing (maybe wrongly) that you'd wan't that baby raised in a belief system that says it will go to hell if it commits suicide. There's still no choice of whether or not to live. That's probably a good thing, but it's still technically opposed to choice.
Of course there's a choice then. Strongly influenced perhaps, but even the most devout believer can choose to sin or not. If he's dead by another's choice, he doesn't have any choice.
Not really because it's fairly obvious that the baby has no ability to say anything. In fact, most abortion opponents are also "parental rights" supporters, which means they're actively opposed to kids having any kind of fair say in anything even when they are old enough to do so: http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2011/10/20/religious-r...
To your first question, that sounds like a tricky one logically.
In my simultaneous pro-life and pro-choice belief, I don't believe abortion should be illegal. However, it shouldn't be trivial and easy to do and should require medical oversight and counselling (non-extensive, non-judgmental, and non-coercive). That is to say, any woman should have the right but it must be a considered, reasonable choice (a bit like required for gender reassignment, euthanasia, or any number of significant medical decisions).
I think the point is that I'm pro-life, I'm just "proer"-choice.
Obviously situations where the mother's life is in danger are kind of a gray area, but I think you could comfortably be "proer"-life and oppose the choice in non-life-threatening situations. Not that I agree, but that opinion wouldn't be "anti-choice".
And most of the pro-life positions people take are also pro-choice, just to a lesser extent than they are pro-life.
Choosing what you perceive to be the lesser of two evils doesn't make you pro-evil;
choosing what you perceive to be the greater of two goods doesn't make you anti-{life,choice}.
EDIT: To further clarify, I'm not at all confused as to what camp I'm in. By standard definitions, I'm definitely pro-choice. The point I'm making is that the standard definitions are not hugely useful.
It's the same sort of weasel words that Creationists use to confuse Christians who can accept science but now think it runs counter to the idea of "God's Creation".
Finally somebody I can get behind; we need to get this guy into office.
Does anyone know of any other examples of if-by-whiskey being used today?
Is it useful for politicians or would it completely backfire, where any opposition would try to say "You are quoted as being pro-alcohol: calling it the philosophic wine" or "anti-alcohol, calling it the devil's brew" and pick the paragraph that suits their needs?
"Does anyone know of any other examples of if-by-whiskey being used today?"
The whole debt debate. If by spending you mean crippling debt being left to our children, interest paid to furreiners, etc etc, it's bad and everyone who supports it is bad. If by spending, you mean the concrete things that we are spending money on, of course this specific thing is so wonderful that it's worth it and anyone who says otherwise is bad, and in fact I may I just go out on a limb and say that we need more of this sort of spending.
(Lest you think I'm being partisan here, there's a very clear pattern in the last 20 years on which party in the US wants to spend, and which party wants to cut, and it's not D/R or liberal/conservative in either direction. The pattern is that the majority party wants to spend, and the minority party wants to cut. One can not help but cynically observe that what really bothers the minority party is majority's successful ladling out of the pork for patronage to the other guy's constituents, rather than any sort of real offense about spending. And thus, to be clear, the reason I chose this as my example is that you can find instances of the same individual giving both halves of this speech, playing both sides of the argument, separated by about a decade and one flip of the majority party.)
The minority party certainly did not want to cut from, say, 2002-2004. If anything, the dynamic was just the opposite: Stimulus bills didn't have enough "state aid". Medicare Part D had a miserly donut hole. Special education was being woefully shortchanged if the Federal government didn't honor its "promise" to pick up 100% of the cost. Oh, and don't forget that we weren't spending enough on body armor and the VA.
Pity Google doesn't have a "please just let me search in 2003" mode. Democrats got tons of mileage out of Bush-era deficit complaints, though. I'm pretty comfortable with my general thesis.
You can find some of these types of arguments when reading opinions on the death penalty, gun control, and abortion.
The arguments aren't always doublespeak I'd say. You can very well be for something, given a set of circumstances, but against the same thing, given a different set of circumstances.
The political problem I'd say, is figuring out how to separate, or even if you can separate, the "bad circumstances" from the "good circumstances"
I don't think that's really a fair comparison. Assault weapon is a strictly legal term which refers to a specific subset of the category we refer to as rifles. The word rifle usually brings to mind a class of weapons that were specifically not covered by the assault weapons ban.
A more apt analogy would be
Religious Conservative : Taliban :: Rifle : Assault Rifle
My point being that, in this case, it's not simply a matter of perspective. Now, if the debate were much more polarized, one could see something like
I think it is a fair comparison. If by guns we are talking about those used to kill animals... / If by guns we are talking about those used to kill people...
The only real difference between an "assault rifle" and a "regular" rifle is the color/design. One is painted black and looks scary. The other is usually wood tone. They are equally dangerous. You can find high capacity clips/magazines for virtually any brand or style semi-automatic rifle (and handgun) made.
Even more basic, I don't think I'm going to be jumped by ninja, but that doesn't stop me from practicing martial arts. I see no reason why someone who likes to shoot shouldn't be allowed to. In fact, I'd rather they learn to shoot safely then not.
Is that militia well-regulated? I understand that firearms are well- (maybe even over-) regulated, but I'm thinking about the militia itself. My understanding is not as thorough as I would like.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Some people argue that this means:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of persons who belong to such a militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
This raises two questions:
1) Why did they not write that?
2) Did every person who fought against the British, and who had a weapon of their own, belong to a militia when they purchased the weapon?
Aftern considering these questions, it is clear that the second interpretation is not what they meant at all. What they meant was:
A) A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.
B) A well regulated militia cannot happen unless US Citizens have the right to bear arms. That there be a large element of the population who can rise up and form a militia, "officered by men chosen from among themselves"[1] is necessary for (A) to occur. Therefore, whether or not such a militia exists, and whether nor not a given person is a member of such a militia, all persons have the right to bear arms because one day they may be needed.
So when people say "Well we don't have an organized militia so you don't get to have guns", they have it exactly backwards. Instead of banning guns, we should be organizing militia. Not government militia. Not state militia. But organizations of free citizens getting together to organize and practice. This is exactly the opposite of what the federal government has been doing. Where these organizations exist, it has been shutting them down by force.
By all means argue that we have no need of a militia, and that we should therefore strike the second amendment. However, do not pretent that the second amendment means that only army reservists or state police should have guns, or that "regulated" implies that the very enemy it protects against (the state) should do the regulating.
I think you've made a cogent argument against somebody else's position. I wasn't stating a position; I was asking about what mechanism exists to keep the broader, only semi-organized militia you describe well-ordered.
An assault weapon is a legal term concocted by lawmakers who wanted to ban scary-looking guns. An assault rifle is a rifle designed to shoot lower-power, lower-caliber ammunition for use in assaults, as compared to the fewer, larger shots from a typical bolt-action rifle (or, as we like to call them, "Fudd" rifles :)
If I remember my history correctly, assault rifles replaced "battle rifles," which were similarly designed but fired much heavier and more powerful cartridges (and were necessarily larger and heavier). The way I learned it, armies discovered that typical infantry engagements were at distances of hundreds of yards, rather than the mile-long distances guns like the M1 Garand could fire at, and that the weight of the ammunition and recoil of the guns were making soldiers less effective.
Lately, "assault" weapons are (legally) characterized by the amount of ammo they can hold. For example this 30-round magazine is illegal no matter which gun you put it in, whereas the same gun with a different-sized magazine may well be legal. http://www.mediaite.com/online/nbcs-david-gregory-displays-3...
Magazine restrictions are a separate law in most states. California has an assault weapon ban which restricts features such a pistol grips, collapsible stocks, and flash hiders. They have another law restricting the possession of magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. Old magazines are grandfathered in, so you can use them in legal rifles.
It looks like the law is similar in DC. Possession of a magazine with >10 round capacity is a crime. Other firearm laws are irrelevant to the case you linked to.
OK, interesting. I know my home state of NH also has an "assault weapons ban" that just bans certain magazines, although we probably have other laws too that one bugged me.
Perhaps it's a fallacy that you can be both in favor of a particular thing and also against that same thing?
I have the feeling that if I heard that speech I would actually believe that Soggy is both for and against whiskey. I don't think I'd vote for him, but I would believe him.
That's not what he meant when he said it though. After characterizing the supporters of prohibition as drooling religious fanatics, he made some pretty good points about the judicious use of alcohol as a social and physiological enhancer.
He was acknowledging that alcohol could be used for good or for bad things, and he was (maybe from our perspective only) making a good point about the use of polemic, misleading, and ridiculously overblown rhetorics. His was a reasonable argument, a witty meta argument, and a biting satirical observation all at the same time.
The point is, "Soggy" wasn't really undecided on the issue. Hell yeah, I'd vote for that guy.
I considered this possibility but I think it is false because this kind of fallacy just doesn't occur in real life. I find it more believable that the author was just trying to ridicule the exaggerated rhetoric of both sides.
Because the answers to "if -by whiskey" you mean this, or you mean that, render the argument that alcohol should be banned as unsound. One can argue equally each side of the argument depending on the definition of alcohol they choose.
Well I think thats cause on the one hand a supporter might consider " the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together..." as true while another might consider "the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence" as true. Depending on ones opinion something is true for one but not true for another. A person might only be able to see their own side of things without allowing other opinions. So I guess fallacy is a somewhat appropriate term here:)
This seems like a more schizophrenic version of the no-true-scotsman fallacy.
In that it can be used to show support for something (often some ideal) whilst distancing oneself from any negative consequences of that.
Which talks in detail about the "informative" and "affective" connotations of words (it's a lot more entertaining than it sounds). Only slightly related, but I was just reading in the book how we have the terms "light meat" and "dark meat": because ladies and gentleman in 19th century Britain couldn't bring themselves to say "leg", "thigh" or "breast" – even of a chicken!
The question is "Should whiskey be prohibited or not?" but he takes it to be "Is there anything good or bad about whiskey?" or "Do I think whiskey is good or bad?".
If by politician you mean a tireless statesman, fighting the good fight, a champion of worthy causes that benefit us all, then I enthusiastically concur.
But if by politician you mean a low, corrupt, power-mad petty puppet jerked around by evil special interests, then sadly I have to agree.
He condones what is widely seen as good about whiskey and he condemns what is widely seen as bad about whiskey. That is the stance he's getting across, and it's one which is also sort of (unsurprisingly?) the sum total position of the people he represents.
He's against irresponsible drinking to the point where it will cause harm to oneself and others, but for responsible drinking to the degree that it will confer benefits.
