The Broken Soldier

Sorry Lyle, had to take you down little fella.  Work on a decent comment.  Your keepers, bastards they are, give you only so much time out of your cage sans hockey helmet and oven mitts, I understand.  Spend some of the time you’d spend chasing parked cars getting me a comment worth keeping up, and the comment will remain up for as long as this site is up.

I’ll even help you out dude.  Speaking and writing naughty words and poking fun at one’s opponent are great fun, but shouldn’t be the meat and the veg of any statement in discourse.  See the paragraph above for example.  I swore and mocked you, but I was sure to make a point while doing it.

Don’t assign a weak argument to your opponent.  Give him or her the most charitable rendering of his/her position.  Then, if you’re able to overcome his/her argument, there’ll be no doubt who won the day.  As well, when you argue against a position you made up (called a straw man in case you’re interested), you really haven’t accomplished anything - unless you think having an argument with yourself accomplishes something.

That’s about all for now Lyle.  We’ll go slow.  If interested, look to posts from several months ago: Intro to Informal Logic primers.  When you stop by to test my manliness, my long-haired chihuahua will be ready to test your forensic prowess.