Context : talking about pro-cop libs
Would you agree that people generally have the belief that the police are essential? I think that it causes people to not be able to imagine society without them
Response I got:
That’s a straw man argument, you are building up an effigy to burn.
Idk plz help
That’s fallacy of fallacies: seeing fallacies everywhere instead of talking like a normal person
Um actually this is the fallacy of fallacies fallacy where you accuse someone of being overly pedantic to avoid engaging in the marketplace of ideas.
It's a little phallus-y :kelly:
A straw man is when you say your opponent believes or advocates for something that they do not. You're taking a roundabout way to posit a thesis and asking if your interlocutor agrees with you. You're not even accusing them of possessing that belief.
Just point out that the whole point of fallacies is to use them to make your argument better and destroy your opponents argument. That’s their rhetorical use. Just naming the fallacy (inaccurately because you’re not even using one here, you’re positing an idea and asking if they agree) isn’t an automatic win button, it’s proof they dont have an argument.
You're not making a straw man argument with this statement, but his "you are building up an effigy to burn" suggests to me that they feel (correct or incorrect) that you are laying the ground work for one. Hasn't happened yet..but he presumes to know where the argument is leading. Either way he sounds insufferable.
It would be a straw man if "people were anti-cop" and your argument was based on "people are pro-cop".
The worst that could be said of your argument is that its generalizing.
careful, they'll do that thing where they try to "win the conversation" by mansplaining to you non-stop until you run out of time.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” -Inigo Montoya,
no. You are stating what you believe others think, and then positing what that might change about their perspective.
Offering a radical departure from typical context isn't a strawman. If you said that every single cop was literally a nazi-worshipping klansman, that's sort of a straw man.
well i guess that's kind of true, but you get the point
