Message #47776

[mccoy]

Dear Steve,
I am attempting to observe reality from a detached plane.

From one side I see a president elect, Mr. Donald Trump, who speaks what he thinks. It is evident that Mr. Trump does not reason very much about the words he pronounces, how such words can be used by his political enemies, adversaries and opponents, becoming tools of propaganda. This is a political game which he is not very able with.

From the other side, I see political adversaries like Senator Sanders, who are very willing to grasp the occasion to use a logical fallacy for their agenda.

The fallacy is this: Mr. Trump's verbal statement (that guy, a dictator, is smart) is turned into an ad hominem political fallacy: since Mr. Trump states that such a man, a dictator, is smart, then he is praising him, and then he will try to act like him.

Identifying a simple statement about an individual (he is smart, intelligent) with a global judgment and general admiration of an individual is a logical fallacy. Political opposition, Senator Sanders, the newspapers, and people, thrive on logical fallacies.

Bottom line. I agree that Mr. Trump should have told: that guy is an evil genius. But we all know that Mr. Trump is not a champion of verbal skills. This constitutes knowledge a priori, we cannot neglect it. If we discard prior knowledge, this is wrong when thoroughly examining a given sphere of thought. We can of course criticize him for not being extremely clear and attaching a negative connotation to those guys, after the positive (smart) adjective. But criticizing a person for lack of verbal refinement is not the same as criticizing him for liking Hitler.

Hence, we cannot with logic infer that Mr. Trump admires those dictators and the evil actions they are carrying out. This is an illogical extrapolation, with no evidence from reality, this is a fallacy, this is a wrong sphere of thought. Adherence to such a wrong sphere of thought stems out of political acrimony, even personal acrimony, I understand how this man can generate personal repulsion.