Saturday, September 16, 2006

Ad hominem attacks

It's good to see Clayton Cramer descend from his invory tower and engage in debate and discussion. He takes a shot at Chris at Liberal Idaho here. I do wish he'd avoid the ad hominem attacks such as this one, though.
What's sad about Chris at Liberal Idaho is it seems from the frequency of his postings about this subject, that alcohol is a very important part of his life.
What do you mean by this comment, Clayton? Chris is a bad person because - your assumption based on few facts, i.e., a hasty generalization - he likes alcohol? Do you mean that Chris's opinions are less valid because he apparently drinks alcohol? Are you implying that you're a better person than Chris? Do you drink alcohol? How about focusing on the logic of Chris's arguments?

Finally, don't you think this is pretty judgmental? I grew up in Blackfoot in Eastern Idaho, which was and is heavily Morman. Mormons avoid alcohol, and good for them. However, many of them were very judgmental about smoking and drinking, expressed those judgments, and thereby contributed to a real us vs. them mentality. Because of this, lots of non-Mormans felt like "you're either a Mormon or you hate Mormons." I'm not trying to indict Mormans, because they have a diversity of behavior and opinion like any other group. The point is that being so judgmental is divisive and leads to hard feelings.

Reasonable and mature people try to avoid being judgmental. Clayton, how about showing us that you are in that group and lay off the personal attacks.

2 comments:

saraeanderson said...

If we can't stand up for booze, what can we stand for? He's just trying to attack our real base of power - Drinking Liberally.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Clayton's a teetoller. I think he's suggesting if you post a lot of posts about bar drinking that you're drinking a lot at bars. (or very liberally indeed.)

And you quoted one snippet of the piece, Clayton's focus was on the substance of Chris' argument. This was more of an aside.