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  • Oh my darling buds of May, here's someone who needs a bit of thinking training. Inferring from false premises via a series of fallacies does not a conclusion make. tl;dr: He is entirely wrong.

  • It might sound that way, but that's the way of sophistry. It sounds convincing and persuasive.

    The false premises and false inferences (B follows from A plus whatever when A is (a) untrue and B wouldn't follow from it if it were true, anyway) sort of run into each other--claiming that Corbyn has a simplistic world view (he does not, but it's a standard tactic people use against him, because he's not university-educated so obviously must be a bit simple); implying that Corbyn's not condemning Russia enough or somehow excusing Russia when all he did was refuse to comply with the immediate war-mongering and distraction from home politics that the former 'Home Secretary' is currently employing, all the while appealing to diplomacy and international law, which, if in the post-George W Bush era it still had any power (and yes, I know how Corbyn's appeal to it is effectively in vain, but you have to start somewhere), might just get in the way; implying (a standard tactic, too) that Corbyn might consider Russia/Assad 'powerless' in this scenario--nothing could be further from the truth; asking, rhetorically (another tired one) whether Corbyn would really accept a decision by Parliament in favour of war--no, of course not, but at least due process would have been followed and there would have been a chance of a vote against--somehow, this argumentative tactic even tries to turn Corbyn's vote against the Iraq war in 2003 into a negative--I mean, Parliament voted by majority against him, but did he accept that? Nope (this is in line with persistent attempts to paint him as an enemy of democracy--funnily enough, even being outvoted doesn't mean that one then has to agree with the majority)--anyway, there are some more but they'd take more typing than it's worth to bring them out.

    Anyway, here's a sample fallacious (even allowing for Tw*tt*r-typical condensation)--paragraph (3), after the previous two paragraphs both contained a number of simplistic falsehoods (standard sophistic tactic: accuse others of what you yourself are doing):

    'This is why he will never support any use of military force by the UK, US or any other Western country. They have power therefore it is not legitimate for them to use it. Instead they should give it up /3

    The first sentence is untrue. It appears to be an attempted conclusion of an inference from (presumably) paragraphs 1 and/or 2 and the first clause of the following sentence ('they have power'), with the second clause an alternative re-statement of the conclusion about Corbyn's alleged opinion without naming him. 'Sorting out' power imbalances and solving all the problems of the world that way (natch) morphs into it not being 'legitimate' for Western powers to ever use their power (the use of that word might be a silly oversight, and it is of course used in contexts other than law, but the connection with law is still there). This doesn't follow (while both premises, as far as I can construe them in all this muddle, are false). The last apparent conclusion, although it makes no claim to being logically derived from the foregoing, is also false, and again sophistic: Earlier, the poster talked about the 'unequal distribution of power and wealth'. In the middle sentence, he moves to just 'they have power'. Then he moves to 'they should give [...] up [power]'. Needless to say, it is not the same to criticise and propose to correct power imbalances as to suggest that somehow those who currently have power should give 'it' up (the silent implication is 'all of it'), thereby insinuating Corbyn's politics would leave the West defenceless. Of course he wouldn't say that the West should give up its power, but he would certainly agree, I think, with correcting power imbalances.

    Also, as Corbyn strongly supports the rule of international law, he evidently does not think it always illegitimate for such powers to use their military capacity, as this is permitted under certain circumstances in international law, e.g. as a means of last resort--much of his recent interventions simply boil down to reminders that the means of first, second, third, etc. resort are not being used, e.g. diplomacy.

    The confusion and logical errors and omissions are only deepened in what follows.

    Anyway, this is just tiresome muddle-headed, personally-targeted antagonism from this poster. A lot of people active in or commenting on politics are like that, playing to the crowd irrespective of whether what they say is even remotely true, and generally attacking the person rather than ideas. I would generally first assume that they're just reasoning incorrectly rather than that they know what they're writing is false.

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