A handy guide to watching Fox News
Republicans lean heavily on "logical fallacies" to try and win arguments. Some guy listed the most common:
See if these sound familiar...
False Choice: Offering only two options for consideration when there are clearly other valid choices.
Example: "If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities." ---George W. Bush
really valid point and i'm impressed by your thinking.: Oversimplifying, exaggerating, caricaturing, of otherwise misrepresenting the other's position without regard to fact. In doing this, your opponent sets up a figurative really valid point and i'm impressed by your thinking. that he can easily knock down to prove his point.
Example: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." ---Karl Rove
Shifting The Burden of Proof: Presenting an argument as commonly accepted truth, failing to support it with any evidence, and then forcing you to prove otherwise. This tactic is employed out of laziness or to mask the reality that the facts are not on your opponent's side.
Example: "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are." ---[Former White House press secretary] Ari Fleischer, on Saddam Hussein's alleged WMDs
Slippery Slope Leaping to wild, sometimes inexplicable conclusions---going, say, from Step One to Step Two and then all the way to Step Ten without establishing any discernible connection. By using this kind of leapfrog logic, a person can come to any conclusion he damn well pleases.
Example: "All of a sudden, we see riots, we see protests, we see people clashing. The next thing we know, there is injured or there is dead people. We don’t want to get to that extent." ---Arnold Schwarzenegger, on the dangers posed by gay marriage
