...Robert Kennedy Jr who had this to say the other night on Hardball: If we had left those fuel economy standards intact, Ronald Reagan rolled them back, we would not have had to import one drop of oil after 1986.... Yet he will get re-elected. There is only so much one can do to educate the electorate. |
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Written By:
bains
URL:
http://
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Zealots do it for Aiur. |
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Written By:
TallDave
URL:
http://www.deanesmay.com
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McQ, you attacked his position by basically calling him crazy. That is argumentum ad hominem, a logical fallacy. You can do that (you certainly do seem to enjoy insulting others), but it would be more effective if you would try to debunk his position first with a reasoned argument to show he’s wrong. Otherwise, if I were a debate judge, I’d have to rule in favor of him because he’s at least made an argument. You haven’t. |
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Written By:
Scott Erb
URL:
http://faculty.umf.maine.edu/~erb/blog.htm
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Erb,
Kennedy made an unsourced assertion. In fact, he made a whole chain of unsupported assertions. As we have no reason to believe he has any particular expertise in this area and he did not detail the "reasoning" that led him to those conclusions, we have absolutely reason to believe that anything he said is fact.
If you were a debate judge and treated unfounded assertions as well-founded arguments, then any director of a debate tournament would be well advised to never assign you to judge another round.
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Written By:
Terry
URL:
http://
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IOW, even if McQ had simply insulted Kennedy rather than making a cogent political comment prior to the name-calling, it would definately be the caliber of response justified by by Kennedy’s level of "argumentation." |
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Written By:
Terry
URL:
http://
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Well yeah Scott, it was ad hominem, but I think the stance was that Kennedy’s assertions were so ridiculous as to be obviously so and not need countering.
The claim that if we had had higher mileage standards in place that we would be using 40% less oil than we do now? Seems rather laughable. |
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Written By:
ChrisB
URL:
http://
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The World Trade Center would probably still be standing. What leap of logical faith did this sprout from. Could anyone please explain to me how Reagan’s fuel economy standards caused 9/11? And then he was given a complete pass on his comments by Chris Mathews. Talk about an empty suit!
But I have to say I especially like the comment left at the linked site responding to Kennedy’s comments:Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is fascinated with the Butterfly Effect. He manages to NOT bring up this fascinating effect, when it concerns his Uncle Jack at the Bay of Pigs. The use of merely two destroyers in a three-hour bombardment would have resulted in Fidel fleeing to the Soviet Union in about two weeks. This would have cascaded into Ho Chi Minh’s fall 18 months later. Dissolution of the Soviet Union would have occurred two decades earlier - with unwarrented accolades to President Lyndon Johnson.
Several proxy wars and innumerable deaths would have not occurred (imagine… no killing fields, etc.) Two high-profile assassinations would not have happened in the U.S. After communist China dissolved, Taiwan elements would have been less successful than the Hong Kong institutions in the Chinese changes - - consequently the business interests of Japan and the Uniteed States would have experienced enormous angst - - to the benefit of the entire world. |
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Written By:
SShiell
URL:
http://
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Or Bobby Kennedy Jr is just nuts In the meantime, he has to help uncle Teddy block that cape cod wind farm....
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Written By:
shark
URL:
http://
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In the meantime, he has to help uncle Teddy block that cape cod wind farm.... Yes, it is a wee bit hypocritical to complain about oil usage and at the same time blocking alternatives because you want to "preserve" your land values. |
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Written By:
cap joe
URL:
http://
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Scott Erb, this isn’t a debate tournament. Perhaps YOU can’t see that Kennedy’s remarks are crazy, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t, nor does it mean their craziness needs to be explained. Saying that leaving the fuel economy standards intact would have avoided 9/11 and resulted in no more imported oil is crazy. It’s not a great leap of thought to understand why. Some things are self-evident.
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Written By:
Grimshaw
URL:
http://
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"Yet he will get re-elected. "
Re-elected to what? He doesn’t hold political office.
" Otherwise, if I were a debate judge, I’d have to rule in favor of him because he’s at least made an argument."
Lewis Carroll would agree. |
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Written By:
timactual
URL:
http://
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He doesn’t hold political office.
My mistake - as with other surnames (Bush, Gore, Ford, etc), I just presumed a Kennedy would necessarily be a politician. |
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Written By:
bains
URL:
http://
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"I just presumed a Kennedy would necessarily be a politician."
Understandable, but even a few Kennedy’s are too dumb or crazy to get elected. |
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Written By:
timactual
URL:
http://
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>"I just presumed a Kennedy would necessarily be a politician."Understandable, but even a few Kennedy’s are too dumb or crazy to get elected.And yet there’s Teddy...
Oh, and...Yes, it is a wee bit hypocritical to complain about oil usage and at the same time blocking alternatives because you want to "preserve" your land values. Can we backdate carbon footprints? How much oil/fuel/pollution do you think the Kennedy rum-running boats burned/caused durring prohibition?? |
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Written By:
Scott Jacobs
URL:
http://
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Sorry about the post above this... It previewed fine... Here it is fixed..."I just presumed a Kennedy would necessarily be a politician." Understandable, but even a few Kennedy’s are too dumb or crazy to get elected.
And yet there’s Teddy...
Oh, and...Yes, it is a wee bit hypocritical to complain about oil usage and at the same time blocking alternatives because you want to "preserve" your land values.
Can we backdate carbon footprints? How much oil/fuel/pollution do you think the Kennedy rum-running boats burned/caused during prohibition?? |
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Written By:
Scott Jacobs
URL:
http://
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"And yet there’s Teddy..."
Alas for the Kennedys, there is at least one dumber; Joseph P Kennedy II. Of course he was formerly an elected politician. Now he is doing PR work for Chavez and struggling to make a living convincing poor people to buy cheaper fuel oil from him.
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Written By:
timactual
URL:
http://
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