You seem to have misinterpreted what I've been saying, Yellowjacket, and I don't know how to be any clearer. This is an even bigger waste of time than I thought.

I'm white. If I tell Scarlett Johansson that she's not white, because I'm white and I don't think she is, does this mean she's not white?

That's effectively what you're arguing here.

Yes, I often get "bored" when I can't refute a point, too.

I mean let me point out I wasn't the one who thought that this needed such a degree of discussion. I made what appeared to be and still is a prima facie argument which for whatever reason you two decided needed to be challenged. You have been unable to provide reason why it shouldn't

Instead, you resort to playing off of "those socialists and their shifty motives" and in fact argue that the socialists who identify as socialists are "extreme" socialists, and therefore not reflective of what the majority of "true" socialists believe. What the heck is a "non-extreme" socialist, then? No true scotsman.... err... socialist.... after all. No, you are trying to delineate distinctions where none exist.

I'm sorry, I feel ill-equipped to answer your example. But if this person doesn't believe Christ is God's son, only an important figure, and if a vast majority of Christians say he's not a Christian, then yes, I'm reasonably confident saying he's not a Christian. In fact, what you've described sounds to me a lot like what we call a "Jew." It's not absolute, but in the absence of other evidence its weight cannot be dismissed.

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Look it seems like I've made a pretty simple general and specific case argument here:

The general case being that the state of a person's membership to a club can most often be determined to a reasonable degree of certainty by the consensus of that club.

The specific case being that since socialists reject Obama, Obama is probably not a socialist.

You seem to be attacking both the general and the specific cases. Your attack on the general case is dependent on a hypothetical 'psuedo-christian', or perhaps some other equally rare example. In other words, you are thus far unable to provide commonplace real-world examples of why the group's consensus should be dismissed.

Your attacks on the specific case are rife with special exceptions for socialists - implying without support that they behave in manners not typically seen among other fringe political groups.

"The specific case being that since socialists reject Obama, Obama is probably not a socialist."

I think Obama had a good, let me guess, 400000% of the socialist vote during the last election.

You pretty much couldn't have misread me worse. It's really an accomplishment.

PE I think you're misunderstanding me, and it's not entirely your fault. I played a bit fast and loose with my wording early on. I was implying consensus, and apparently doing a poor job of it.

In other words if 99 other white people say SJo is not white, and you say she is, I'm pretty confident concluding that she is not.

Now, if I then look at SJo, and see that she is in fact pretty pale-skinned, I'd probably have some more questions about it.

"You pretty much couldn't have misread me worse. It's really an accomplishment."

That's probably because I was talking to semck :)

So YJ, why don't you believe in God?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/americans-continue-believe-god.aspx

:P

Wow krells that is a crazy statistic. I thought it was way lower than that.

It must be because I'm a socialist :)

Actually, Obama almost certainly didn't come close to 100% of the socialist vote at the last election - probably most went to Jill Stein.

YJ - I didn't make the stat, I just linked it. You aren't suggesting, are you, that statistics and polls and such can be <gasp, say it ain't so> skewed, are you? You mean...you mean if I'm selective about who I talk to, I might be able to....<no no no!!!>... create the illusion of consensus?

mendy! It's your turn on the other thread. We left it off with "anal tear-age". Your reply.

<Sorry YJ...don't mean to cross-thread. Oh...wait...yes I do...>

Haha well OK krellin, of course you can confound statistics. But I'm not saying there are stats here. I'm just asserting that the vast majority of socialists would reject Obama as a socialist. Nobody has argued against that point, so far. In other words, you are correct, but it doesn't seem to apply.

Ok, that fits significantly better -- but now you're framing it as merely an indicator that it's not true (to which I don't think anyone objects) and not proof that it's not true (which is another matter altogether). You yourself even said you would actually take a look at the relevant data to see if it's true or not, implying that the real driver behind your claim is the data, not what other people say.

Following along that, sure, if virtually every socialist said he isn't one, and if you looked at his policies and saw that he isn't one, then he isn't one

Yj - I'm ignoring your topic, figuring that it's already been abused beyond repair. I haven't really read the thread...but that isn't going to stop me from trying to derail the thread based upon a word or two I read.

PE, yes an indicator. I've actually been pretty consistent all along saying that its "weighty evidence," and that it "cannot be dismissed outright," or that it is "reasonable conclusion, though not foolproof."

I've said more than once that it isn't outright proof of anything (what is?), and I've made it clear that this is an entirely separate position from what other relevant data may say. Both Semck and Invictus asserted that other data may be more important, and I did not challenge that position.



But still both Semck and Invictus have taken issue with this relatively mild assertion. I know, I'm as astounded as you are :)

@krellin rofl I know I know. Hush now, we'll play later, OK?

@PE I would also like to make the distinction though, as I did with Invictus earlier, that while SJo's whiteness is pretty objective (to most people), what constitutes socialism is much more nuanced, and that actual socialists are in the best position to say what defines socialism (i.e. how any "other data" ought to be interpreted).

I would trust their answer more than anybody else's.

YJ I rarely see you make so bad an argument so badly.

@redhouse cool story bro.

When Luther came along, Catholics would call him a heretic. I'd say he understood more about Christianity than a good 95% of the Roman Catholic church at the time.

No, he understood more about what Christians *today* think about Christianity than 95% of the RCC back then.

The 95% who rejected him are speaking for what it meant to be a Christian (catholic) at that time. To say that Christianity at that time meant anything other than what the vast majority of Christians claim it meant is to engage in a no true Scotsman fallacy.

So for all intents and purposes, it would (and was not) unreasonable for a person living in ML's time to say "He is not a Christian." Today, we can easily look back and say, "Boy, what a Christian!" But that's because we've redefined in the last few hundred years what that word means.

*other than what the vast majority of Christians CLAIMED then it meant, sorry.

No Scotsman is Irish. Just saying.

Many scotsmen are irish, but no true scotsman is.

Who does even think that Obama is a socialist?

No offense but sometimes americans surprise me in a bad way, really, specially when they talk about politics.

"Who does even think that Obama is a socialist?"

Quite a few people actually. They're all idiots though.