3 ms·
I don't think identifying the source is exactly an ad hominem. I'm pretty sure you have to attack the source as unreliable or somehow bad. Understanding that
by dgabriel 17y ago
I don't think identifying the source is exactly an ad hominem. I'm pretty sure you have to attack the source as unreliable or somehow bad. Understanding that the source is conservative can be helpful in understanding biases within the article itself.
Note that it contains no sources or methods for evaluating the true or falseness of its claims, nor can we be sure about the broad categories the author presents. Without that information, taking such a list at face value seems like a bad idea.
- SamAtt 17y agoThe source is the U.S. budget itself and that's not hard to verify (harder than it should be but still). The categories again could be verified simply by looking at the budget yourself. Any information could be untrustworthy and every author has a bias no matter how hard they try not to. The problem with your statement is that you're assuming an inherent falseness based on the authors' political stance and that's an ad hominem.
- dgabriel 17y agoNo, I'm not assuming anything (perhaps you are referring to a different comment). I'm asking for baseline substantiation and citation. Simply this - be aware of the biases of the material you read, and be skeptical of anything that boils something as complex as the budget into a bulleted list. Especially if that list is packaged up as a press release. I would say the same if ACORN released a list like this.
- SamAtt 17y agoI can see your comments in the context you put them in here but keep in mind that there's an overall discussion which was a reply to the original comment which accused the article of "spin" and attributed it in a derogatory manner to the article being written by a conservative. So I took your comment to be supporting that point.