[MD] Advanced Battle Tactics

[MarshaV]

Greetings,

I couldn't resist and swiped this review from Daily Kos: 
http://www.dailykos.com/

In the "Advanced Battle Tactics" chapter of his new book, How to Win 
a Fight with a Conservative, Dan Kurtzman shows how Republicans lean 
heavily on "logical fallacies" to try and win arguments.  He defines 
logical fallacies as "the three-legged stools of faulty reasoning 
that conservatives use to prop up many of their ridiculous ideas." 
See if these sound familiar...

False Choice: Offering only two options for consideration when there 
are clearly other valid choices.

Example: "If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will 
face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities." ---George W. Bush

----

Strawman: Oversimplifying, exaggerating, caricaturing, of otherwise 
misrepresenting your position without regard to fact. In doing this, 
your opponent sets up a figurative strawman that he can easily knock 
down to prove his point.

Example: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and 
prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and 
wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for 
our attackers." ---Karl Rove

------

Shifting The Burden of Proof: Presenting an argument as commonly 
accepted truth, failing to support it with any evidence, and then 
forcing you to prove otherwise. This tactic is employed out of 
laziness or to mask the reality that the facts are not on your opponent's side.

Example: "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't 
have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are." 
---[Former White House press secretary] Ari Fleischer, on Saddam 
Hussein's alleged WMDs

------

Slippery Slope Leaping to wild, sometimes inexplicable 
conclusions---going, say, from Step One to Step Two and then all the 
way to Step Ten without establishing any discernible connection. By 
using this kind of leapfrog logic, a person can come to any 
conclusion he damn well pleases.

Example: "All of a sudden, we see riots, we see protests, we see 
people clashing. The next thing we know, there is injured or there is 
dead people. We don't want to get to that extent." ---Arnold 
Schwarzenegger, on the dangers posed by gay marriage

------

It's a quick and often funny read, with simple and solid advice for 
swatting down nutty conservative ideas with ease. Special bonus: it's lead-free!