4 ms·

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but it's about as original and convincing as saying that "liberalism is a 'coherent political philosophy' only if you ar

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but it's about as original and convincing as saying that "liberalism is a 'coherent political philosophy' only if you are a poor inner-city black kid whose parents are on welfare". They make for witty-sounding quips, but both are ad-hominems[0] that do little to actually address and argue against the tenets of either philosophy. [0] (In before someone points out that this is not a true ad-hominem because it attacks a stereotype (and a straw man at that) rather than a specific individual).

wpietri 13y ago
This definitely isn't an ad hominem, and it isn't even analogous to one. Enraged_camel is implying that libertarianism is missing something that is easy to miss if you have led a relatively comfortable and unchallenging life. The criticism is oblique rather than explicit, but that doesn't make it anything like an ad hominem, because ad hominems are essentially distracting with irrelevancy.