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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
To that, I'd say there are two checks: a relevance check, and a truth check. Relevance checks come first. If it doesn't pass that then it's truth content doesn't matter. Homeless people are not immediately relevant to Syrian Refugees, so some justification of relevance is required. If you can't justify the relevance, it doesn't matter if it's true. That's where things like an understanding of funding levels is something you should care about.
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This is interesting and I think the principle makes good sense. Maybe a materiality check is also worthwhile, so we don't spend a bunch of time talking about minutae (which has become its own problem). That being said, this may simply be playing into my bias as a lawyer, since relevance and materiality are the things we look at to determine if a document is producible in litigation.
However, while I'm on board in theory I'm not sure your example works here. Homelessness and refugee status aren't directly correlated, except to the extent we're talking about spending $700m on a problem. If the context of the discussion is, "what should we spend this money on", then sure, it's relevant, isn't it?
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That's all "questioning the motive" is, a relevance check. That's why it matters a lot. You can absolutely skip the truth of a statement if the motive for presenting it isn't justifiable.
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This, I have to completely and utterly disagree with for two reasons. One, again, in almost every situation you cannot mind-read. You do not know what the motive is, you can only speculate. There are going to be exceptions - if you get a comment from Fred Phelps on gay marriage you can guess his motive from track record. However, in most cases this is absolutely not the case.
Two, even if Fred Phelps is a complete #######, he might accidentally make a good point. Or he might have a dozen points, eleven of which are complete hogwash, but the twelfth happens to be well-reasoned. Or, as Mill points out, he may be totally wrong but give us an opportunity to refine our position to ensure it's as strongly reasoned as it can be. Certain good ideas can come from terrible sources.