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Just an observation:

I think any attack on Horner is adhominem meaning it is a personal attack on the arguer rather than their argument. It is irrelevant if Mr. Horner is an idiot or a genius. His case stands on the grounds of whether charging men one price and women another is discrimination according to the law of the land.

claudius

Claudius wrote:Just an observation:

I think any attack on Horner is adhominem meaning it is a personal attack on the arguer rather than their argument. It is irrelevant if Mr. Horner is an idiot or a genius. His case stands on the grounds of whether charging men one price and women another is discrimination according to the law of the land.

I doubt anyone is disputing that by the letter of the law, any difference in treatment based on gender, creed, religion, clothing, etcetera is discrimination. The issue at hand is, if this case is a) important enough to motivate the media coverage, b) if it is not in fact a subversion of the purpose of the law in favour of the letter of the law, and c) if in fact Mr Horner is not aware of this and just using this pretext to get his 15 minutes, in which case "idiot" is more descriptive than abusive.

The law of the land in question is an interesting thing... If you manage to twist its meaning sufficiently to support your claim, you can with the help of a smart lawyer be a rich man. Nowadays, frivolous lawsuits aren't about the law, right or wrong, justice or any other higher value. It's business, plain and simple. Big business at that.

Silur:

I mentioned ad hominem because it is an example of a flawed argument. It is a common one too. Often a person is attacked rather than what they have said or done with the assumption: if person x is dumb, bad, or can be demonized then whatever they said or did was also bad, dumb, or evil.

Discussing the issue of the need for media coverage is interesting, and NOT an example of adhominem. I am curious what the media chooses to bring to bear as well. My two cents: the media is a collection of businesses and NOT a public service. So the STAR magazine chooses one set of articles and PEOPLE magazine chooses another while others choose their own stories. I think that the news would definately cover other forms of discrimination but it doesn't tend to cover the descrimination mentioned in this thread 76% lower wages for women (except for woman's magazines like Mother Jones) etc.

As far as if the intent of the law is to let things like cover charge escape its net I simply don't know. It would then become the subjective opinion of the judge as to whether something is discrimination. And I might agree on judge Xs ruling on cover charge but then be shocked when on one of my pet issues the judge overrules my hope and says "I was ruling on the intent not the letter"

I don't know if he just wants fame but that is an example of ad hominem. It doesn't matter if he just wants fame. If he makes a convincing argument you must uproot his argument and not his character.

claudius

Ad Hominem attacks, and a lot of other so-called logical fallacies, are not always unfair or necessarily flawed. If a person has a glaring mental or social flaw, then any extensive proposal they make should be at the very least held up to greater scrutiny and from time to time arbitrality rejected. If someone's a crackpot, idiot, sexist, Nazi, whatever, it DOES speak to the validity of their ideas to some extent.

As to the topic at hand, I don't feel that treating people equally means treating people as if they're the same. You can put an 80 year man and an olympic athlete in a foot race and then claim it was fair since neither of them got a head start, but that's absurd - at no point do you get 'equality' by treating those two individuals the same.

Also, bars are fun, but they're not essential social services. That's also why it's okay to charge women more than men for haircuts. I think I might get in trouble for that one.

kyle wrote:Also, bars are fun, but they're not essential social services. That's also why it's okay to charge women more than men for haircuts. I think I might get in trouble for that one.

Not really. This and many similarly stupid complaints have been made in Sweden and what happened was that for a short while, one hairdresser charged more based on the length of hair, which couldn't be construed as discrimination (under current law, at least). Now things are back to normal.

Claudius wrote:I don't know if he just wants fame but that is an example of ad hominem. It doesn't matter if he just wants fame. If he makes a convincing argument you must uproot his argument and not his character.

This would be true if I were to be arguing with him. I might even consider resorting to an ad bacculum if it would put some sense in him. Since we are discussing his case without him, and from the facts available to us conclude that the guy is an idiot, it does not constitute an ad hominem. He could claim that it is defamation, but I'd doubt he'd have a foot to stand on.

Silur:

If I understand you correctly you are saying that it is not ad hominem because you were not objecting to his arguments but were rather intentionally attacking his character for that purpose.

Yes I would agree. Ad hominem means that you attack the person as a way of attacking the arguments. Sounds like you are just discussing your personal subjective reaction to that person.

I mentioned ad hominem because I felt that people might conclude that his case was worthless because he was declared a cheap, idiot, loser. And concluding his argument to be based on his character IS ad hominem.

claudius

Of course what I've said about Horner is an ad hominem attack. Calling someone a cheapskate idiotic loser is usually considered a personal attack, at least where I come from, and I thought that would be obvious to everyone who knows anything about logical fallacies. That's why I embellished it and rubbed it in and nearly beat it to death. If people know what a fallacious argument is, it won't hurt them, and if someone reading this thread doesn't know anything about logic, then it doesn't really matter whether I use a valid argument or a fallacious argument, does it? Believe me, I don't even try to argue with some of the people in my life, and the only way to make a point to them is to call people names. Seriously. So that's what I do. As long as I don't flame the members of this message board, namecalling seems to be an acceptable part of debate. Besides, I never said my remarks weren't fallacious, and I wouldn't try to prove they aren't. Ever hear of "proof without issue"? Here, let me introduce you to Mr. Straw Man, right after I show you a nice, fat red herring. If I don't feel like arguing this particular case on its merits, I don't have to, and I don't want to, and you can't make me. Some people come to this establishment just to have fun, not to be logicians and write dissertations based on ironclad proofs. Especially not some of the people who like to go to bars a lot. Not to make an ad hominem attack on them or anything like that. I'm just saying.

The problem with Horner's own argument is that he's barking up the wrong tree. When he talks about "gender discrimination", what he really means is that women who want to go to clubs get "special privileges" (i.e. free cover and cheap drinks). "Special privileges" are actually a little bit different from "discrimination". If the difference is not evident, then I don't feel like trying to explain it. But whether or not fighting to take away someone else's special privileges is worthwhile pursuit, you would think that a person who has such strong convictions would focus on something that actually matters, such as Yale legacy admissions (which are worth way more than a lifetime of free drinks) or hell, even the "glass ceiling". But no--all he cares about is making sure that women have to pay a cover charge if he has to. What an idiot. He can't see the forest for the trees. Horner comes across as a smallminded person who's a pain in the ass. He hurts business, ties up the time and energy of public servants, wastes public resources that could be better spent on more important things, and wastes the time of people like me who have to point out what a loser he is.

Silur wrote:I just recently read an article on the role of the media not being to provide information on the state of the world as much as to distract ordinary people from it. This is a typical example of such distraction, since it brings up a ridiculous albeit formally correct grievance going opposite the prevailing norm. The true issue of discrimination, be it based on gender, creed or otherwise, has of course been marginalized and defused, and people are taking sides in this highly irrelevant case instead - thus fueling "the war" in all the wrong ways for all the wrong reasons. Am I paranoid, or do you think they blow these things out of proportion on purpose?

I don't think you're paranoid; I think you're giving the people who run the media too much credit for knowing the difference between what's important and what's marginal. I don't think they're trying to create any sort of distraction by running sensationalist stories like this while failing to clarify the underlying issues that might make a difference; I think they honestly believe that the stories they put forth are more important than the stories they don't tell. Their reasoning is that the public decides what's important. If the public can't grasp a story or think of a response that makes the public feel comfortable about it, then the people who run the media don't think it would be helpful or make any difference to run such a story. Eventually, they themselves believe that up is down.

Claudius wrote: I mentioned ad hominem because I felt that people might conclude that his case was worthless because he was declared a cheap, idiot, loser. And concluding his argument to be based on his character IS ad hominem.

No, the case is ludicrous on its own merit, therefore we conclude that the plaintiff is a moron.

Vondondue:

I read your post and yes I understand that you are aware of what you are doing. I have to admit that I wasn't stating it was ad hominem because I thought that you shouldn't call people names etc. I mentioned it because I was interested more in whether he had a case and less what my knee jerk attraction/aversion to him was.

I didn't know that there was a legal distinction between discrimination and privilage. The law is a great mystery to me. Thats why people go to law school! Of course if I have issue with something such as cover charges I would either research it myself or go to legal counsel as Mr. Horner has done.

I am searching for why I disagree with the argument that Mr. Horner's concern is unimportant... Honestly my soundest feeling is that each instance of suffering in the world from an ant beeing squashed to 700 people dying in a plane crash are all worthy of boundless love, compassion, and joy (there being existent a path to remedy the suffering). They are worthy of relative measures (conditional) to alleviate that suffering and remove the causes.

Indeed boundless (unconditional) love is only possible if it applies to all beings and we do not divide the world into 1000s of separate categories. I will admit that I don't experience boundless love for all creatures but I believe that others have accomplished that by removing the causes and obstacles that obstruct. I see it as possible for anyone.

That being said it is unclear to me if the best way to alleviate Mr. Horner's problem is to change the law (or rather enforce a law that isn't typically enforced in this way). There are certainly more people on the earth than him So theres definately room for a discussion..

claudius

VonDondu wrote:Believe me, I don't even try to argue with some of the people in my life, and the only way to make a point to them is to call people names. Seriously. So that's what I do. As long as I don't flame the members of this message board, namecalling seems to be an acceptable part of debate.

I personally don't think that namecalling is an acceptable part of debate.

VonDondu wrote:Some people come to this establishment just to have fun, not to be logicians and write dissertations based on ironclad proofs.

Some people do, some people don't. Everyone has his/her reasons.

VonDondu wrote:The problem with Horner's own argument is that he's barking up the wrong tree. When he talks about "gender discrimination", what he really means is that women who want to go to clubs get "special privileges" (i.e. free cover and cheap drinks). "Special privileges" are actually a little bit different from "discrimination". If the difference is not evident, then I don't feel like trying to explain it.

I think you're right. After this point you made, I'm gonna edit the first sentence of my first post in this thread, where I talked about discrimination.

VonDondu wrote:But whether or not fighting to take away someone else's special privileges is worthwhile pursuit, you would think that a person who has such strong convictions would focus on something that actually matters, such as Yale legacy admissions (which are worth way more than a lifetime of free drinks) or hell, even the "glass ceiling". But no--all he cares about is making sure that women have to pay a cover charge if he has to. What an idiot. He can't see the forest for the trees. Horner comes across as a smallminded person who's a pain in the ass. He hurts business, ties up the time and energy of public servants, wastes public resources that could be better spent on more important things, and wastes the time of people like me who have to point out what a loser he is.

Don't charge him with all this load, his gonna sink to the center of the Earth!

(I don't want to go into the :mischief: media discussion now)