Comments on: Intolerance of Ideological Minorities

By: Alan K. Henderson

Alan K. Henderson — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:22:33 +0000

This whole concept of singling out and labelling as “weirdos” and “fruitcakes” political figures because they espouse views that are held only by a small number of people…
…would be pretty dang hypocritical, I think – doesn’t everybody have certain beliefs shared only by small numbers of people?
As philosopher said, Paul’s critics are attacking his ideas on the basis of not their popularity but their merit.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:45:12 +0000

References to facts you believe are untrue does not equal “promoting” anything. What conspiracy theory is Paul “promoting?” From what I can tell, he’s “promoting” smaller government, lower/no taxes, and more freedom. He may have some facts wrong (I’m sure I’m wrong about all kinds of things I think are “facts”) but he’s promoting values, not facts.

By: philosopher

philosopher — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:08:51 +0000

Oh, come on. Could you Paulists PLEASE stop pretending that there aren’t oodles and oodles of perfectly good argumentation out there against your boy’s views? This ooh-you-meanies-calling-names-instead-of-giving-evidence line would work a lot better if it weren’t for the fact that there’s plenty of evidence on offer.
And there’s a bald instance of post hoc, ergo propter hoc in that last paragraph. That Ron Paul is (i) defending views held by only a small minority and (ii) labeled as nutty, does not entail that (i) is the causal explanation of (ii). A much, much better hypothesis is that there is a third factor — (iii) Ron Paul’s views are, in fact, nutty — which causally explains both (i) and (ii).
That the guy promotes weird paranoid conspiracy theories on his campaign website is surely further evidence in this regard.