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Old 12-04-2014, 04:18 AM   #2952
Tinordi
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Yes, that position is one extreme - the other extreme being that the City should give them the Katz treatment no questions asked.
ALL this is rhetorical posturing in the attempt to undercut my argument. I've presented data, facts, principles and reasoning as to why it is not appropriate to subsidize billionaires. The only "argument" you now use is that that is an "extreme" position because it means that one side achieves its desired outcome and the other side doesn't. By that logic anything is extreme where one side wins and another loses. You invoke the logical fallacy of appealing to the middle ground.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_moderation

Quote:
An appeal to moderation, otherwise known as the false compromise or the argument from middle ground is a logical fallacy that states that the answer to a problem is always between two extremes. It is closely related to the balance fallacy.
The problems with this fallacy are numerous but one I want to highlight is that you have made yourself the arbiter of what the middle is. In public policy decisions involving millions of dollars we need to have our objective criteria be something better than "making sure everyone gets a little bit of something." The bottom line is that this money that the city is putting up either by cash or land or other in-kind services is money that is taken from other purposes. That's the big problem.

This then leads to the Balance Fallacy. Whereby your view that public money should be used because you want a new arena is an equal but opposite view to mine that public money should be spent with the highest scrutiny and effect. I would argue that these arguments are not balanced. You can think whatever you like, but you should know that subsidizing billionaires so you can drink beer in a palace is not an equally valued opinion to using public money with the objective of maximizing social welfare.
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