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An analogy doesn't automatically become bad just because it was once used to support a bad policy. :)
by jamesaguilar 14y ago
An analogy doesn't automatically become bad just because it was once used to support a bad policy. :)
- yew 14y agoIt does become suspect if the underlying logic is the same, though. I might call "clear and present danger" ethically problematic, but it was hardly unjustified.
- jamesaguilar 14y agoNot really. I could say that talking about kittens is like yelling fire in a crowded theater. The fire-in-a-crowded-theater argument is not diminished because I did a bad job of lining up reality with the analogy. The problem comes in when people are allowed to say, X is like ..., without X actually being like that.
- yew 14y agoI doubt the general public and the Supreme Court would accept your logic for a span of almost fifty years, whereas they don't seem to have had much of a problem with Justice Holmes'. I think that tells us quite a lot about how human psychology tends to work in these cases, though your opinion may differ. I suspect time will tell which of us is the more accurate, though I wish it wouldn't.
- jlgreco 14y agoThe Superior Orders defense did not automatically become a bad defense just because a certain unsavory bunch of people decided to use it. ...but let us be honest. It did.