Talk Elections

well i cant say i believe that when i dont even believe citizens should be walking around with guns in the first place.

i guess this is kind of a 'hide behind the poll'  since even asking for all the facts in this case is grounds for being called a 'racist.'

and apparently weve gone from 'we are the 99%' to 'we are trayvon martin'

Depends. Which side has Nancy Grace taken?

Not precisely.  It's not like Martin is boldfaced lying about being shot.

But I think the anti-racist/anti-police left shouldn't be so quick to make him their poster boy when we don't even have the autopsy and we do have conflicting, questionably reliable witnesses growing out of the woodwork, and I'm really wary of public protests demanding that a particular individual be arrested and prosecuted.

I'm just afraid this may be used to galvanize more racial tension. If Martin was really beating up the guy, he had every right to defend himself regardless of what race he is. I just think the rallies and movements are a bit premature without knowing all the facts, much like the Duke "rape" case turned out to be.

Not a chance, although it could come close if new video or a new witness who saw the beginning of the confrontation emerges and is favorable to Zimmerman's account. But we shouldn't assume that would happen. It seems very unlikely at this point.

The Duke 'rape' victim recanted, which is the ultimate evidence that she wasn't raped; Martin is not around to recant anything, so we'll never know what happened that night. Zimmerman's claims have one big problem in them and that is motive. Has this kid had a history of violently attacking strangers so ferociously that they feared for their lives? I mean, Zimmerman wants us to believe that this kid who for all we know was non-violent was just walking home from the 7-11, in his apartment complex, randomly sees a guy and decides he's going to beat him to death in the middle of a courtyard where dozens if not hundreds of people can hear and look out the window to see what's happening? Zimmerman's interest in Martin is a lot better established than what Martin's interest in Zimmerman would be.

Not even Zimmerman disputes that he shot Martin.  That alone takes this case to the level where it's Zimmerman arguing for self-defense vs. Martin's side arguing that Zimmerman shot unprovoked.  Even if Zimmerman wins, it's not like the Duke rape case: he still fatally shot an unarmed teenager.

no one else finds the 'skittles' story just a little too cute and contrived?  ready made for tv...and al sharpton!

im not suggesting that makes zimmerman any less of a murderer.  but i am suggesting we havent heard the facts.

ive caught a lot of crap on this board for my gun stance.  but let's face it...had zimmerman not been toting a gun, martin would be alive today.  our insane gun policies result in more and more people dying.  pretty simple to figure out, actually.  too bad our politicians havent figured that out.

What I find cute and contrived is the Zimmerman/Sanford PD version of events.

This is the point at which I remember that the name given to TotallyNotWells in Hot Fuzz is Sandford.

of course it is.  but that doesnt make the skittles story true, either.

the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

and hopefully this will serve as a wakeup call to the benighted  states like florida to strengthen their gun laws.

I don't necessarily see any reason to believe it's not.


Golden mean fallacy.

A seventeen year old goes to 7-11 and buys some candy and an iced tea.  This is contrived...how?  Buying snack food at 7-11 is pretty standard behavior.

Also, Golden Mean Fallacy etc. what Nathan said.

Forensics should provide an answer.  If this was a struggle, there would be very close contact powder burns.

He's been dead for a month and they still haven't determined this? Does forensics usually take this long or am I missing some other horrid aspect of the way this case has been handled?

Also, re the tea and skittles, weren't they found on him by the police afterwards?  It's not like they were made up by Martin's side.  Walter, why do you find it unlikely that some kid is walking back to the house he's staying at after visiting 7-11 and picking up some snacks?

They may not have released the information yet.  I have known of cases where the police has sat on information for years.

Of course. Blacks are involved.

The police would not necessarily release this information to prevent "witnesses" contriving their testimony to fit the evidence.

Um, once the term "probably" is used, the Golden mean fallacy isn't really applicable. The statement, "The odds that the Truth is something other than the two stated positions is greater than 50% [60?,70%?]" is simply not an appeal to the Golden mean fallacy.

The sentence 'The truth is probably somewhere in the middle', while it is qualified, is clearly meant, emotively, to appeal to the golden mean fallacy. Stop splitting hairs, Bob.

I say this as somebody who likes Scholasticism.

Wow, you combined three logical fallacies in one sentence. First, you used ad hominem fallacy. You asserted an intent to deceive. Second, you used the strawman fallacy twice. You asserted that a qualified statement "really" wasn't qualified, and you asserted that the argument was "emotive" when it wasn't., Third, you used the dual of the golden mean fallacy. Namely, you implied that the truth must lie at one extreme, since believing anything else would constitute the golden mean fallacy.

I didn't assert an intent to deceive. I asserted splitting hairs, which you are still doing because, substantively, you're not currently exhibiting much of an understanding of how normal, non-formal-logic use of language and rhetoric works.

Understanding non-formal-logic use of language and rhetoric will, of course, also do away with the other fallacies of which you're accusing me. You are, to your credit, not using any logical fallacies, but you are empirically not demonstrating much of an ability to understand the way people actually write when they are not in philosophy departments or debating societies, including common cliches.

I'm coming to the conclusion that you're unable to carry on this particular argument substantively so you are just pretending that we (or maybe just WalterMitty?) are absolutely formal in our use of rhetoric and cannot be criticized on the basis of informal construction issues as long as we cover our ass formally. Feel free to disabuse me of this conclusion by demonstrating otherwise.

The Duke case was a total fabrication, in this case we have a dead teenager. So no.

You asserted that the original poster didn't mean it when he qualified his statement. So, yes, you did.


Alternately, I am demonstrating how irrational and illogical what passes for "rhetoric" is nowadays.

In today's "rhetoric" when someone says, "I think the truth lies somewhere in between." they are expressing an opinion. Opinions are opinions, not arguments. Only arguments can be fallacious. Opinions are either factually correct, or incorrect.

Empirically, if you asked a thousand judges, "In the cases where the positions between two parties conflict, and that difference cannot be the result of honest differences of perceptive, etc., in your judgment, in most of those cases is one party telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or does the Truth lie somewhere in between?," I'd suspect that most judges would chose the latter option.  While assuming the Golden Mean is fallacious, it is also the way to bet!


No matter how formal, or informal your attempt at logic were, you were simply wrong to dispute the logic of an opinion. You dispute the factual accuracy of an opinion.

()

Um, that helps Zimmerman, but it doesn't turn this into "duke rape case" 2. We already knew he had some injuries on the back of his head from the fight. But it doesn't tell us who started the fight. It also suggests that Zimmerman knew that he was going to be in legal hot water, since he had an acquaintance of his take this photo. It's fascinating that these seeming wounds would not require bandages.

Also today, we had this come to light, that doesn't help his case:


Source (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/20/468409/prosecutor-zimmerman-slapped-his-ex-girlfriend-and-asked-her-how-it-felt/)

The picture was taken before the police arrived, and when Zimmerman was telling the person what his wife should tell 911, Zimmerman said to tell them that he had shot someone.   Obviously, Zimmerman had deliberately cornered Martin where he had alibi witnesses.

The Duke rape case was completely fabricated. This concerns an incident that everyone agrees happened; the issue is over why it happened. And one of the people involved is dead and obviously won't be telling his side of the story.

Hopefully. It would be a pleasant suprise to find out Trayvon was not shot and killed.

Even if it turns out to be unjust to send Zimmerman to prison for murder, he was still extremely shady in this whole affair.