Subject:
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Re: John Leo's opinion of "The West Wing"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 4 Oct 2002 15:39:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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808 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys writes:
> > Larry's point was that he would never accept ideas and concepts coming from
> > the idiot box...
>
> Yeah, that is probably an overly broad statement.
>
> About the Caesar quote...
>
> The importance of getting the cite and who said it correctly has to do with
> a rhetorical technique called an appeal to authority. The person making the
> quote is saying, "Here is this statement made by so-and-so. If you don't
> believe me then surely you would consider the words of this wise authority
> figure." If the quote is incorrect, or if the quote is attributed to the
> wrong person, or if both are incorrect -- the whole point of making the
> appeal to authority falls apart. Such a rhetorical faux pas, BECAUSE it IS
> so easy to check a source, has the effect of making the speaker seem
> entirely unreliable, ignorant, and maybe like they are trying to pull a fast
> one.
>
> Babs wasn't discussing something casually, she didn't preface her statement
> with a vague qualifier like "someone once said"; she was speaking in front
> of an important group of people and made a very particular attribution as to
> the original source of the quote. She tried to imbue the quote with the
> wisdom of Shakespeare; and however good the quote may be it was not written
> by the bard. And citing the incorrect author matters because Shakespeare is
> one of those authorities whose words are generally so clever that they are
> hard to refute. Plus, when people hear that the quote is from Shakespeare
> there's a tendency to simply give up any possible debate in favor of
> something like, "O wow, Shakespeare -- that guy was brilliant. What DIDN'T
> Shakespeare know about human relationships and politics...?" Getting the
> quote all wrong had the effect of making Babs seem unreliable, ignorant, and
> like she was trying to pull a fast one (see above).
>
> When we have discussed the Constitution and other early american freedom
> documents I like to cite guys like Jefferson, Franklin, etc. Why? Because
> they wrote and argued over the precise meanings of the words in those very
> documents. Don't believe little ol' Hop-Frog, argue with Jefferson instead.
>
> Quotes from authority can be very powerful if used correctly.
>
> If one doesn't know the source of a quote, and unless it is a well-known
> quote from an anonymous source; stylistically speaking, one might as well
> put the argument into one's own words.
>
> -- Hop-Frog
And I agree with everything you have stated above, and I love to find
someone who is 'smarter than me' to cite. I would add, however, if I get
the source wrong, and the source is refuted, it in no way diminishes what
the point was, it just diminishes the person who actually said it, so we're
back to attacking the person instead of the point.
It's akin to thinking that, "Aha! I caught you! I have 'knocked the legs
out from under you' by showing that your quotation comes from a different
source!" Well, no, you just demonstrated that I have faulty research, the
quotation is still standing out there, with it's "own legs", waiting to be
refuted.
But I did like what you said, and I'll try to argue with the 'Jeffersons'
and the 'Franklins' and I'll do it by dealing with the issues at hand.
Dave K.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: John Leo's opinion of "The West Wing"
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| (...) But if we're talking about gun control and you say "in 1780, Jefferson wrote x in a letter to the Virginia assembly about the meaning of militia" and it turns out that the quote was actually written by Sarah Brady in 1989, the quotation is not (...) (22 years ago, 4-Oct-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: John Leo's opinion of "The West Wing"
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| (...) Yeah, that is probably an overly broad statement. About the Caesar quote... The importance of getting the cite and who said it correctly has to do with a rhetorical technique called an appeal to authority. The person making the quote is (...) (22 years ago, 4-Oct-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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