----- Original Message ----- From: Bill Sanderson To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 8:28 PM Subject: RE: [UC] The UCD answer
I disagree. The term as Glenn used it implies the involvement of a governmental body-the court system. This wasn't the case here. The initial press report used imprecise language, which led to confusion on this issue. We now know that there was no such court system involvement, so implying otherwise is misleading. Yeah, so the student was being coerced by an authority to which he or his parents or somebody had spent a good many thousands of bucks to have him tutored, into doing community service, probably because of that cow in the library, or on the roof of the engineering building or wherever. At least it wasn't a rooster in Clark Park! This is a huge development, Sanderson. If you are correct about this, this Penn program may also violate the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. Do you have proof? Do you know who at Penn transfers the students to community court probation without a legitimate legal process? Thanks for the tip to the community. I can imagine the headlines around the world: Ivy University , Thumbs Its Nose at 13th Amendment. Involuntary Servitude Flourishes in UC District and IVy Program Glenn ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 12:09 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [UC] The UCD answer In a message dated 5/27/2007 10:12:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Can you provide a usage of this that's not invented by you? I checked out dictionary.com and found these: 1. a person who is confined in prison or kept in custody, esp. as the result of legal process. 2. prisoner of war. 3. a person or thing that is deprived of liberty or kept in restraint. Kyle: You know as well as the next person that Glenn was using the term loosely. We all understand what he meant. An argument based on a denotation of a term whose connotation everyone understands with essentially zero ambiguity is an example of the class of "logical fallacies" usually called "Red Herrings" or, sometimes "Smoke Screens." Here's a citation: A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form: Topic A is under discussion. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A). Topic A is abandoned. This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim. In this instance, the "red herring" is Glenn's use of the term "prisoner" to denote the people forced by some authority to do some form of indentured servitude. OK, it wasn't quite the right term. But everyone knew what he meant. For general interest, there's a nice compendium of logical fallacies online at: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ Among other things, it has several variations on the theme of argumentum ad hominem -- about which this list has many ad hominem arguments. Al Krigman (And, yes, I'm looking forward to upgrading my summer wardrobe at the Second Mile Center's 50% discount sale tomorrow. What can even the people who are envious of my mature good looks and scintillating personality possibly find wrong with that?) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ See what's free at AOL.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ See what's free at AOL.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.8.0/819 - Release Date: 5/26/2007 10:47 AM
