Law of Charity and Theory of Choice

RussellCrawford said:
If I am a complete and total idiot, that is not a personal attack.

It is because I am not a complete and total idiot that it is a personal attack.

I did not post anything that does not follow logically.

So your insult that I do is a personal attack.
Click to expand...

Then, you clearly have no understanding of fallacies.
 
(Q) said:
Then, you clearly have no understanding of fallacies.
Click to expand...

Discussion
AdHominem is only a mistake in the context of deductive reasoning and logic. If, however, Joe and I are having a debate and I am able to effectively destroy Joe's credibility with an AdHominem attack, it can only be because Joe's credibility was somehow susceptible to that destruction. It is not enough for me to say "Joe is a twit; don't listen to him". But if I say "Joe is a marketing boob; don't listen to him" and Joe is in fact a marketing boob and that's relevant to what is being debated, then Joe's piteous cries of 'AdHominem' don't carry much weight. --AndyPierce
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AdHominem

If you will read the discussion above you will find that if you say I post illogical assertions and I do not, then you have committed a ad hominem fallacy. If it were true that I do post illogical assertions then it would not be a ad hominem fallacy.
 
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