 Posted: 09 Post subject: I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity |
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| I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity
There was the following quote of Rush Limbaugh's apology (or nonapology) in the New York Times' article (March 2nd) reporting that he sorried for his denouncing a Georgetown University law student as a "prostitute," under the title "Obama backs student in furor with Limbaugh on birth control. "For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day,[url=http://www.sport.fr/business/louisvuitton.html]louis vuitton femmes[/url], five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke," Mr. Limbaugh wrote." the title of the article wasn't "Obama backs student in furor with Limbaugh on birth control," but was "Limbaugh Sorry for Attack on Student in Birth Control Furor," and issue date was March 3, not March 2. I confounded it with the title of the previous day's article, "Obama backs student in furor with Limbaugh on birth control. Rush Limbaugh uses a debate tactic dating back to the Romans called "Reductio ad absurdum" in Latin or "reduction to absurdity" in English. Wikipedia describes it as "to demonstrate that a statement is false by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its acceptance." My college debate coach described it as "to discount a statement by taking it to its most absurd extreme and then claim that is the only logical conclusion." An example is "serving sugary foods in school will result in all school children weighing 600lbs and dying from diabetes at age 12." It utilizes logical fallacy and is considered an underhanded debate tactic that may win an argument but does not really attempt to get to the truth of the matter. |
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