Straw/Strawman Argument

[melissa90299]

This is not an attempt to continue a locked topic merely but to explain what a straw argument is. I have found that those to the right on the political spectrum are most often guilty of trotting out straw arguments. My theory is that straw arguments don't seem illogical to people who engage in black/white thinking which is often the case with conservatives, especially conservative men.

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. Often, the straw man is set up to deliberately overstate the opponent's position.[1] A straw man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.[2]

Its name is derived from the practice of using straw men in combat training. In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it.[3] It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy, scarecrow argument, or wooden dummy argument.

---wikepedia

[Susan]

Stop.