SD: you're mostly quoting me quoting Putin there, better specify that before people start putting words in my mouth...

sorry i meant to add in an extra set of quotation marks! only the last part was you, i know, oops!

Well I'm hardly saying that "because Churchill said it, it must be right."

I just think it's a good quote, and applicable. If not western style democracy, then what? We must have SOME form of government, and I can't think of one that has had more success in preserving individual liberties, creating robust economies, and promoting the general welfare.

made a new thread just for a talk about it

Yeah what did happen to Putin?

Well done Socrates. That's in the spirit of the best part of our Democracy.
Discussion, discussion...
I hope I find time to look into that new thread and we leave the kids to their argument analysis course. It's like birdwatching.
I spotted a fallacy! A straw man! Ha, I saw a red herring!
Oops, didn't I just commit an ad hominem... probably a straw herring too.

I think Socrates finished off that discussion satisfactory although his writing was apparently rushed and unpolished and not so easy to penetrate.
But making a try might pay.

A logician plays with his bricks. Every piece is ready-made and defined and user friendly for easy playing his intellectual games.
Reality is too equivocated for him. It has got infinite perspectives and nothing is stable.
Suddenly a jar becomes a cup, a party becomes a row, a rabbit a duck...

Thanks Sylence, if you make way to that thread at some point I would be interested to hear your views.

I do find the fallacy watch interesting - obviously fallacies do not increase the validity of the argument, but when your response is just to say 'I spotted a fallacy!', you too are committing a falacy.

Sorry for the rushed writing, I have very little time here and I think much quicker than I type - with no going over what I've written.

Sylence et al,

If you think that I responded to putin merely by whining about his fallacies and ad hominems, you are mistaken. Any half-decent debater will capitalize on such tactics by briefly pointing out the fallacy and then taking the opportunity to continue pummelling home his points in the (perhaps temporary) absence of effective counterargument.

So I didn't find it hard to debate putin effectively. I was merely remarking, since it had come up and was not in the context of an actual discussion with him, that I never did find him a very good debater, precisely because he employed these tactics.

"but when your response is just to say 'I spotted a fallacy!', you too are committing a falacy."

That's not actually true, usually. It's true that you're not displaying very good rhetorical skills; but if your opponent was attempting to establish something, and you demonstrate that he used a fallacy in a sufficiently key way, then you have actually refuted his argument and put the burden of proof back on him.

if someone comes with an argument and their fallacy is a small part at the end, it is fallacious to point out the fallacy and end it there with your superiority seemingly demonstrated by their use of a fallacy, is what i meant, but i'm fine to leave this lol

lol. That's reasonable.

semck he's complaining at me, not you.

Apparently I've chosen to point out his fallacies, so he's found me a pigeonhole he's comfortable with. I'm a "logician," ain't that grand!

Anyways, since you, sylence, are more comfortable attacking my style of debate than you are addressing the points I make, I'll just assume that's because you thought real hard and crapped out a turd for your efforts. You wouldn't be the first.

SD said "if someone comes with an argument and their fallacy is a small part at the end, it is fallacious to point out the fallacy and end it there with your superiority seemingly demonstrated."
Yes and I'm in for making the point stronger than this. But doubt I shall have the ability to make the needed impact.
I am glad I am in good company here.
Good old Socrates in Athens 400BC, he fought precisely this thing... They were called the "sophists" and made careers out of "demonstrating their superiority" in argumentation, selling their orator courses and court speeches.
The soil of the "science" of rhetoric as well as formal logic.

Well, my fallacies have been pointed out by YJ and I have not addressed the points he makes. How many times do we not hear this jingle on Internet forums and political debates? Well, if it is popular maybe it is good so let's try and sing along and answer...

What are the points he made that needs my addressing? I'll see...

He, the Jacket, generously, invited me to rephrase my impromptu response to this sentence:
Putin33 tried to sell DPRK as a democracy because they could vote which guy from the communist party they wanted to elect :P
And he'd call you an idiot for disagreeing with him.

And he found that authentic Putin-quote saying that to anyone who understands the real meaning of Democracy etc... there is no irony in the official name of N Korea as Democratic.
Whilst I had said that I doubt Putin did call N Korea a Democracy.

OK it's hard to claim that he did not call N Korea a democracy. Only if you take it as he "tried to sell it as such though they could not choose between different parties." That is starting out from the premise that Putin considers democracy as possibility to choose between parties and then tried to sell to gullible buyers that N Korea lives up to this condition. Whereas what Putin did was to give an altogether different description of what he thinks democracy should mean if it be true to its etymological and intuitive meaning and said that N Korea is closer to this description than the western democracies.
I considered the best way to was to move on and broaden the vision in meaning and intent so I commited a "red herring". But on being called out now I go back and try to be more detailed and give this required rephrasing and elaboration - so that maybe even a "logician" might be satisfied.

I'm not in here for agreeing with Putin on the "true democracy" issue. That discussion may be taken in SDs "Democracy" thread. We're discussing Putin's and his present critics intellectual honesty.

Not at all, sylence.

I had been actively discussing with you and others Putin's views on democracy. That's an entirely separate issue.

The red herring came about when you first chose to dedicate a short paragraph to my debate style as a "logician." There was no cause for saying that: it was completely off topic, and I pointed that out.

Now, I have been following SD's and others' arguments for the potential "multiple definitions" of democracy, and I will cheerfully admit for starters that it may not be as cut and dry as I had imagined, due to a perhaps somewhat too limited premise. Funny how logic can do that, huh?

------------------

None of that detracts in any way from the fallacies you had presented along the way as you allowed yourself to get off topic, first by misquoting me, and then by continuing to pursue a line of argument against my style of discussion. In other words, you aren't making any huge mistakes that I can see when you stick to the topic, so why don't we try that out?