Reply from Congressman Emanuel Cleaver concerning Orphan WorksActof 2008

[Jeffrey Watts]

Okay I lied again. One _last_ post, sorry.  I had "straw men" on my mind
apparently.  Leo's current sin involving Paris is more a hasty
generalization.

Jeffrey.

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 1:12 AM, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> His Paris Hilton argument is a classic straw man.  He uses her because most
> people despise her, and takes a trivial relationship between otherwise
> extremely dissimilar things and blows it up into a side-by-side
> comparison.   It's the same silly thing you see on McCain's "celebrity"
> adverts.   In this case, Paris Hilton is known primarily for her sex tape,
> her name, her lack of shame, and her overexposure.  Her criminal problems
> were just icing on the cake and fodder for the gossip-mill.  What's "wrong
> with her" is not her disregard for the law - her problems are much much
> deeper than that.  Thus comparing her with a complex issue involving
> MILLIONS of people is flimsy.  If he weren't trying to use a straw man he
> wouldn't have selected such an incendiary subject for his analogy.  As I
> said, he's not stupid.
>


-- 

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine
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