Quicklink: Language, as a tool, is never neutral
Language is a weapon used to make ‘others’ of people in poverty.
Fallacy Watch: No True Klansman
I may have contributed to a new term for a rhetorical ploy we see more and more. Here’s how it happened – I’m rather proud of this coinage, but wonder whether we may be reinventing the fallacious wheel. Is there an already apt term in rhetorical jargon?
Today in nodding furiously: what do you mean when you say you’re entitled to your opinion?
If “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” just means no-one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial. But…
I missed this back in 1995: quick facts about that McDonalds Coffee lawsuit
It would be nice to think that there weren’t still ignorant twerps repeating the idea that the lawsuit was unfounded/frivolous/a grave miscarriage against a poor defenceless megacorporation/harrumph/wharrgarbl, but sadly there still are.
When one’s right to dissent is so terribly, terribly suppressed…
…that one can only manage to get one’s views published in the opinion pages of a national broadsheet, one knows that the nation is in a parlous state of enforced conformity indeed.
Apparently there’s no context on Twitter
So it’s said, by nong after dreary nong around the interwebs. It’s just that one string of 140 characters, that’s it!
A few links about what is and what is not a ‘blood libel’
A ‘blood libel’ is much more than just a ‘false accusation’, and there’s no way that the speech-writer couldn’t have known that.
Quote of the Day: martial language vs eliminationist rhetoric
The problem is not martial language. The problem is the discussion of martial solutions, mentioned as actual policy options. That’s what “eliminationist rhetoric” means, you weaseling fucks.
ADDENDUM: Sarah Palin fans the heated rhetoric flames by playing the victim card and describing criticism as a “blood libel”. Seriously.
Peeve: it’s RAISES/RAISING the question, dangnabbit
Unless one has made some detailed study of the field of rhetoric, and the use and misuse of logical fallacies therein, one is almost certainly not using the phrase “begs/begging the question” correctly. Yes, world – UR DOIN IT RONG.
Fought and died “for the flag”?
One thing that leaped out at me during the media blitz on the Battle of Trafalgar flag that fetched a record price at auction is that it brought out one of my least favourite pieces of rhetoric from the anonymous flag collector who won the auction, in a radio interview, about the connection he felt to those who had “fought and died for this flag”.
Sweet FSM, that phrase raises all my hackles.
That Ms. Cover
As no doubt the editors hoped, this cover for Ms. Magazine’s Special Inaugural Issue has generated a lot of controversy. Many feminists feel that Obama’s feminist credentials are not nearly as strong as they could be, while the cover has generated an escalation in panic-mongering and shrill we-told-you-so’s from the religious right plus a great deal more snark about Obamessianic visions and rainbow unicorns from the neocon right.
Another for the “beware delegating authority to thugs who like uniforms” file
A baby from Samoa who had been approved entry to the USA for heart surgery in Honolulu dies after being detained in the airport without an oxygen mask due to questions over his mother’s visa (the accompanying nurse and the baby were both US citizens, so there was no reason to detain them with the [...]
“Moderate” language
Image Credit: Karen Wehrstein, Gliese 581c, uploaded by Phil Plait The picture has nothing to do with the subject of the post, it’s just v. cool (follow the link). Lindsay Bernstein, of Majikthise, has a post up talking of the effect of describing some Muslims (or some Christians) as “moderates”. Although the intent may be [...]
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