Elastilogic

Faulty arguments stretched to their (il)logical extremes:

Argument A: Muslims should not build their cultural center in Manhattan since the terrorists were also Muslim, thus it's insensitive.

Argument A taken further than its proponents intended while remaining logically consistent: That's true! Furthermore, I have it on good authority that the men who committed the atrocity breathed air. We'd better make sure no air breathers are allowed near Ground Zero, as that'd be insensitive.

Does that seem ridiculous? It's conceptually the same as the base argument.

Argument B: Birth Control shouldn't be used because you're killing your unborn child.

Abortion is a pretty sensitive subject, and probably one I will try to remember to devote a full post to in the future. There are those who argue abortion is murder as it is killing the child. Fair enough, as there is a baby there, though at what point it stops being a few cells and starts being a baby is a subject of much debate by people who have done far more research on the topic than I. However, some people take it further and argue that birth control is bad too, as it's killing the theoretical baby. Well . . .

Argument B probed a bit more deeply than its makers intended: If preventing a baby from being conceived is murder, then logically any method of preventing a potential baby is the same. Any woman who spends more than 9 months not pregnant has just killed the child she could have been having. Men are even worse, since every time a man does not impregnate a non-pregnant woman, he's killing the potential kids. Furthermore, you are then guilty of killing any children that those children would have had. Thus, by the same logic employed to argue against birth control, ever single non-sterile human beyond the age of puberty is guilty of infinite counts of infanticide. Way to go guys. You're all ultra-dicks.

That's it for the moment. I was going to do something gay marriage related but I did that recently, and there are so many faulty arguments employed there I could make a novel out of them. I wouldn't know where to start.