What is a straw man argument?

Open Forum in English
21

I would say it’s the opponent’s argument itself.

Person A makes an argument.
Person B replaces said argument with a distorted version of the original argument (stands up a straw man).
Then person B proceeds to refute the false argument (knocks down a straw man).

But yes, I guess you could also think of it as knocking your opponent down.

And a straw man is always intentional – a distortion intended to catch the opponent off guard or to paint the opponent in as bad a light as possible in the eyes of the audience.

22

The straw man argument does not mean introducing a different topic. It is a tactics to forge a false statement, which you show to your opponent and audience as your opponent’s statement about the topic, that can be easily refuted by you. It is not, for example, to ask about death penalty when you noticed that your opponent’s opinion of gun control was different from yours.

23

Hitchens also famously supported the Iraq war.
I had never heard his views on abortion one way or the other.

I’m no expert on fallacious arguments, but I kind of agree with Yutaka. Your example sounds more like some sort of Ad Hominem attack. They’re attacking YOU instead of your argument about how your right to carry a gun should be informed by your lack of a criminal record or mental health issues.

— I believe people without a criminal record or mental health issues should be allowed to own most kinds of non-automatic firearms.

— Yeah, you probably believe in the death penalty, supported the invasion of Iraq, and would like to abolish publicly funded health care too.

— No, as a matter of fact, I do not support or endorse any of those things.

— Yeah well, you’re probably a gun nut just the same.

Of course some people, especially in the USA, would argue that you’re not a gun nut, but rather some kind of a (I don’t know, anticonstitutionalist?) because you’re trying to infringe on people’s rights by limiting their access to only non-automatic firearms.

By the way, by far my favorite line of reasoning from Hitchens was his argument against censorship by the media, namely in the US and UK, of the Danish cartoons and the disgusting condemnation at various levels of society of the cartoons (not to mention Salman Rushdie) rather than condemnation of the ensuing violence (and death threats) that took place. This was years before the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

Thankfully, society and the media have become a little more enlightened thanks to Mr. Hitchens.

Here’s a Danish documentary on the subject:

24

Christopher Hitchens was against abortion, but he didn’t talk about it very often.

25

I like his brother Peter Hitchens too (who is, of course, still very much in the land of the living.)

The two brothers were so very different…and yet so very alike!

26

“…Of course some people, especially in the USA, would argue that you’re not a gun nut, but rather some kind of a (I don’t know, anticonstitutionalist?) because you’re trying to infringe on people’s rights by limiting their access to only non-automatic firearms…”

This would be exactly right.

(I myself don’t own any firearms.)

27

I’ve never owned any firearms or been around firearms much, other than firing a hunting rifle with my cousin once at my grandfather’s farm when I was a kid, using trees for target practice. My cousin, my aunt’s daughter, could, as the euphemism goes, shoot the wings off a fly, whereas I had horrible aim and was lucky to hit the tree. And I remember I had a friend in high school whose father was a cop, and we fired a handgun once in the woods behind his house, again using trees for target practice.

But I try to stay as far away from guns as possible.

I was sitting at a small pub once having a beer and a uniformed cop walked in with his gun strapped to his side, sat down right next to me and ordered a beer. The last thing I want to be around is an asshole with a gun drinking alcohol, so I got up and left immediately, leaving my beer sitting there.

Another time my in-laws came to my house and my father-in-law brought a small case with some kind of weird tiny handgun where you had to assemble all the pieces together. He had it in the glove compartment of his truck and brought the thing inside the house and proceeded to start putting it together!! I told him, “YOU CAN GET THAT THING OUT OF MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW!!” My wife got upset that I ordered her father out of the house, and said it was HER house. I had to remind her that it was MY house too and definitely NOT her father’s house. Anyway, the in-laws left and I never saw that gun again.

Now, I have had my nephew, who is a Marine, stay the night and he had his service revolver with him in his suitcase. I wasn’t too happy about it, but at least I understood why he carried it with him. Although honestly, I could have easily taken that gun out of his suitcase without him even knowing it!!!

I also know / have known a couple of different people who owned one of those large safes for the home with the touch pad lock, which were filled with an arsenal of guns, including semi-automatic. Luckily, I’ve never seen any of those guns fire, nor do I want to. What the heck they think they’ll ever need all of those guns for, I’ll never know. And I’m not interested in asking to find out.

28

Sorry to say, I’ve never even heard of his brother, Peter Hitchens. I feel kind of stupid.

29

I wonder to what degree he was against abortion. People can be against abortion themselves, but still be for the right for a woman to choose to have an abortion. Anti-abortion, pro-abortion rights. Big difference.

30

I believe Peter H is not well known in America. He is quite well known here in the UK as a journalist and commentator.

The two brothers had a feud for a number of years, but latterly (before Christopher H’s death) they were reconciled.

Here together on BBC TV talking about Rushdie:

31

The “Straw Man” Fallacy

32

“One of his[Christopher Hitchens’] assignments was a New Statesman profile of Margaret Thatcher in which he riled the future prime minister’s Conservative Party supporters by calling her sexy. In a subsequent encounter at a party, Thatcher called him a ‘naughty boy’ and swatted his behind.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/15/local/la-me-christopher-hitchens-20111216/2

What was her response to the expression? Was she not so angry? I suppose he used the expression “sexy” intentionally or unintentionally as a praising word, if the descriptions by the writer of the obituary is correct.

Christopher Hitchens obituary Christopher Hitchens obituary | Christopher Hitchens | The Guardian
"Hitchens, in many respects a traditionalist, was never a straightforward lefty. He abstained in the UK’s 1979 election, admitting he secretly favoured Thatcher and hoped for an end to ‘mediocrity and torpor’. "