Thursday, May 27, 2010

American Family Association: Hitler Was Gay


May 24, 2010 on AFA Channel
(via Right Wing Watch)

30 comments:

  1. Ah, the classic ploy to demonise a group of people: say Hitler was one of them.

    Blatant ad hominem attacks like that are a sign that the argument they think they have is entirely wrong.

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  2. Hitler was an evil person and (believed, liked, was)  <insert noun you don't like here>.  Therfore <noun> is also evil and/or wrong.

    Plug & play kids; it works for anything!

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  3. Don't call it an ad-hominem.  That's misusing the term.  It's simply lying about people, that's all (and that's bad enough).  It's an ad-hominem fallacy only when the demonizing of the other is unrelated to the argument at hand.  For example, "your position on the war in Iraq is incorrect because you are gay."  On the other hand, "being gay is bad and here's some examples of that" is not an ad-hominem example because in this case the demonizing of the other *IS* the conclusion of the argument, so an attack demonizing a group isn't off-topic like it is in the ad-hominem fallacy, and therefore it isn't the non-sequitor that makes the fallacy a fallacy.  Demonizing a group IS the topic here.  

    Now before you jump off in a knee-jerk reaction, I have to make it clear that I agree that the guy in the video is a disgusting bullshit artist who deserves scorn.  I'm just saying be careful to scorn him for the thing he actually did, which is not the ad-hominem fallacy.  What he actually did is engage in two problemsL The first is the  fallacy of guilt by association (Here's some bad homosexuals, therefore homosexuality is bad for everybody).  The second is that his information he's giving is a lie in the first place - he's just making up the claim that Hitler's inner cadre were all gay.  So the premise on which he's basing the argument is a lie in the first place, and even if it was true it still doesn't lead to the conclusion he wants because the guilt by association argument is a fallacy.

    But neither of those problems is the ad-hominem fallacy.

    Why do I care?  Because the term "ad-hominem" has been getting overused to pretend that any time anyone says anything bad about any set of people it's automatically a fallacy, without regard to whether or not the bad thing that was said was  legitimately part of a logical path toward the conclusion.  That's not a precedent you want to help set if you want to be allowed to make valid arguments about the dangers of religious belief, and give examples.

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  4. <span>How can homosexuality be linked to "savagery" as he said? Are "non-effeminate homosexuals" any more agressive than other people? Has this been EVER documented seriously?</span>

    Sometimes I just can't believe how stupid religious fanatics can be.

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  5. WHAT THE F*%K! CRAZY MAN.

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  6. Goooogooooo! Don't even get the strength to laugh.. hearing it all the time and this sucks! it's not about what hitler or some other groop did, but what we do nowadays!

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  7. <span>

    What a stupid story! The gay people/person who run this site must be getting desperate for acceptance. I don't care if you're gay, just don't shove your disgusting lifestyle in my face as if you are some type of special people! Why do you think gays have a average life span of 50 years? Answer: because of the disgusting practices enabling diseases to pass to each other.
    A person doesn't have to be religious to hate the gay life. Lots of atheist hate the gay life!
    <span>

    What next? NAMBA justifying their lifestyle? Where does the slippery slide end?
    </span></span>

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  8. <p>@non-believer: ah, thanks for proving that being an Atheist doesn't necessarily  equate to being smart or even remotely intelligent. You might not be religious, you still fail as a human being. 
    </p><p>
    "<span>Why do you think gays have a average life span of 50 years</span>"
    Well, before we jump to brainstorming about the "why", hows about you tell us where you found that piece of information? My guess is the local pub.
    </p><p> 
    </p><p>"<span>Lots of atheist hate the gay life</span>"
    </p><p>Lots of atheists hate random unfounded discrimination too.
    </p>

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  9. Patrick: Yes, assuming "non-believer" isn't just a pathetic troll, he's a good example of why the goal of any progressive, enlightenment movement shouldn't be non-belief in itself, but rational thought. The non-belief should follow from that. It doesn't work the other way around.

    Non-believer: I don't care if you're a bigot, but I think the fact that you breathe the same air I do is disgusting. A person doesn't have to be liberal to hate bigots. Lots of conservatives hate them as well.

    What's next? People justifying your life has any value?

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  10. Maybe you're an atheist, but you're certainly not a non-believer.  You still have a faith-based belief.  GIven the lies you spread about gays, you clearly don't understand the moral principle that it is dishonest to put belief before evidence.  Evidence first, belief second - do in that order and no other or else you open yourself up to being a bigoted asshole.

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  11. <p><span>Steven Mading,</span>
    </p><p><span></span>
    </p><p><span>You are a disgusting bigoted asshole and a liar!</span>
    </p><p><span></span>
    </p><p><span>The following information has been adapted from website: </span><span><span>http://web.archive.org/web/20010124040800/www.cprmd.org/Myth_Fact_004.htm</span></span><span>  </span><span>
    <p><span> References are cited in chronological order. This information represents a fair summary of the available evidence concerning homosexual lifespan. It indicates that on average, even apart from AIDS, homosexual persons will probably not live past their 40’s, an appalling loss of about 30 years, or nearly 40% of normal American lifespan. </span>
    </p></span></p>

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  12. I'm not gay..but I'll say to you non-believer. Fuck off!

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  13. Poor non-believer, must be tough for such a troll to be filed with such hate. Do you ever crawl out of you hole to bask in the sun? I would do you some good.

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  14. Omg! You've opened my eyes to the truth! Since homosexuals on average live shorter lives than the global average, not only is their sexual orientation the reason, it's immoral and they should be forced to lie about it if they want to serve in the armed forces!

    Oh wait! That's absolute bullshit!

    Go troll somewhere else "non-believer".

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  15. Poor non-believer. I can't imagine being a troll filled with such hate. Crawl out of your cave and look to other less denigrating sources for your information. Shit, have a Corona or two on the beach while you're at it!

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  16. I give credit to nonbeliever for posting where he got his information. Often people who spout random facts have no sources. In this case, the source of information is so overwhelmingly obviously biased, that he should have expanded his research.

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  17. "non-believer" is a DOUCHE!

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  18. Troll troll troll troll...

    Move along, nothing to see here...

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  19. <span><span>
    <p><span>Non-believer...</span>
    </p><p><span>Can you find some church around, in your neighborhood and become an active member of it?</span>
    </p><p><span>No question asked… No references needed…No sources of your information will be required.</span>
    </p><p><span>You can yap and vomit as much as you want…</span>
    </p><p><span>The chances are, you'd be honored and highly respected.</span>
    </p><p><span>The climate of this site is not healthy for the douche like you.</span>
    <span>
    <p> 
    </p></span></p></span>
    <p> 
    </p></span>
    <p> </p>

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  20. <span>Non-believer...</span>  
    <span>Can you find some church around, in your neighborhood and become an active member of it?</span>  
    <span>No question asked… No references needed…No sources of your information will be required.</span>  
    <span>You can yap and vomit as much as you want…</span>  
    <span>The chances are, you'd be honored and highly respected.</span>  <span>The climate of this site is not healthy for the douche like you.</span>  

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  21.  <span></span>
    Hey people, non-believer has some good points. I've known for years that the life span of a gay male is around 50 years old. All you need to do is Google, "Gay male life span", or some other KEY words. Gays don't want the truth. Any information they don't like is, "Biased". Search hard (Google) and you gays may find information to support your disgusting habits.
    Martin, of course the reason their life span is shorter is because of their sex habits. Get real! There's nothing healthy about the gay lifestyle.
    Most of you people are also hypocritical. You talk about the hate non-believer has for gays yet most or all of the replies are spewing hate. Go figure?
    <span>

    Is it wrong, according to gays, to hate pedophiles?
    </span>

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  22. A rational rebuttal of Unbelievers position should probably include a reference to a study or a survey or some type of statistical evidence that would refute the statement. Unbeliever posted a source but the critics have only indulged themselves with ad-hominem attacks. Attacking someone because you do not like their position is bigotry. Perhaps posters on this site should reference the evidence that would prove their position and convince Unbeliever of the error of his/hers.

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  23. All you proved is that you're not alone in the lie you tell.  Your source is just as dishonest as you are.  You failed to back up your claim as to the reason why the alleged shorter lifespan allegedly exists.   Furhermore, this was all in service of your larger point that this means one should shut up about the rights of gays, which you also failed to explain the conection.  By that bullshit faith-based thinking, one should take rights away from everyone who has a shorter lifespan - like cancer patients for example.

    Now own up to your lie or keep acting like a petulant child.  The choice is yours.  I no longer speak gently toward those who use methods they know perfectly well are invalid to support their beliefs.  That sort of self-deception is still lying, and I won't shy back from calling it lying.  It doesn't matter whether it's done in the service of politics or religion or homophobia - it's all the same sort of lying.  You konw how logic works.  It's not a lack of intelligence that makes you like this.  It's the moral failing of not realizing why abandoning logic in favor of faith is really a vice.  Faith is a vice, not a virtue.

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  24. The reason I called him a liar is because of the conclusion he incorrectly claimed was connected to the alleged evidence he posted, not the alleged evidence itself.  He's a liar for claiming to know that sexual practices are the reason for the allged shorter lifespan.  He's a liar for claiming that this is a good reason to tell people they should shut up about gay rights.

    I called him a liar for merely the information already available from within his post itself that proved he was a liar with or without the external link.  He's a liar because he used an obvious fallacy and pretended it was valid.  (and because it's so obviously a fallacy that simple lack of intelligence is not sufficient to explain it).

    But, just in case you're the sort of person who can't understand why it's correct to call it lying when someone deliberately uses a fallacy, and the only thing you'll accept is to attack the premises themselves, fine.  This link shows the flaws in those numbers and how they were arrived at:
    http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/26857.html

    But even if that premise is bogus that still would not justify my accusation of lying.  If his facts were wrong he'd just be mistaken.  It's lying (i.e. his own fault) when he takes those premises and uses what he knows to be incorrect reasoning to draw the conclusions he wishes to draw from them.  It's not the errors in the premises that are lies.  It's the errors in the logic that are.

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  25. Why is it that this guys thinks he can just announce complete rubbish as fact. There is absolutely no historical evidence to support any of this. Even the claim that Hitler might have had homosexual contacts is based on circumstantial evidenc and conjecture.

    But then again, if you believe in God you obviously don't mind accepting fairytales wuthout any supporting evidence.

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  26. Thanks for the link Steven Mading. That article took apart Unbelievers argument very effectively, very rationally.

    As for the original video about Hitler and gays, the guy is just making it up. The brownshirts were SA, not SS. When Hitler took the Chancelorship in Germany he instituted the SS and disbanded the SA in a bloody coup.

    <span>"On 29th June, 1934. Hitler, accompanied by the <span>Schutz Staffeinel (SS)</span>, arrived at Wiesse, where he personally arrested Ernst Roehm. During the next 24 hours 200 other senior SA officers were arrested on the way to Wiesse. Many were shot as soon as they were captured but Hitler decided to pardon Roehm because of his past services to the movement. However, after much pressure from Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler agreed that Roehm should die. At first Hitler insisted that Roehm should be allowed to commit suicide but, when he refused, he was killed by two SS men.</span>
    <span>The purge of the SA was kept secret until it was announced by Hitler on 13th July. It was during this speech that Hitler gave the purge its name: Night of the Long Knives (a phrase from a popular Nazi song). Hitler claimed that 61 had been executed while 13 had been shot resisting arrest and three had committed suicide. Others have argued that as many as 400 people were killed during the purge. In his speech Hitler explained why he had not relied on the courts to deal with the conspirators: "In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I become the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason.""</span>

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  27. I guess Hitler sentenced all those homosexuals to concentration camps for not being fabulous enough, eh? 

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  28. Greg, no the link I posted took apart his PREMISE, not his argument.  There's a huge difference.  The bad argument is why I called him a liar.  (to make it clear what I mean: his premise is the claim about the short lifespans of homosexuals.  His conclusion was that this means it's wrong to argue for gay rights.  It was the path from that premise to that conclusion that made him a liar.)  That the premise it was based on was also incorrect and therefore the conclusion wouldn't necessarily be true even if the argument was valid is just icing on top of that.  The fact that the evidence, even if it had been true, does not lead to the conclusion he was going for, is something that's entirely his own fault and therefore I can blame him personally for it, unlike the incorrect evidence he quoted - where the blame for lying lays with his source not with him.

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  29. I know I'm harping on about the difference between "nonbeliever"'s premises and his conclusions, but it's important because people had only been attacking his premises and that still left wide open his utterly horrible argument that needed to be criticised even more so than his incorrect premise.  Think about this:  He was actually arguing that the reason it's okay to persecute a group is because that group has a shorter lifespan.  They don't live as long, therefore screw 'em - they don't matter.  It was THAT in his argument that really pissed me off the most.  There is absolutely no justification for the idea that length of lifespan is the determining characteristic behind whether or not a group is allowed to have equal rights.  I can see no difference between the argument he was making and saying, "cripples, diseased people, and cancer patients don't deserve the same rights as us nice healthy folks.  After all, they have shorter lifespans, therefore they don't matter as much."

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  30. HI. Would you please explain the "strawman" concept? You're good at this stuff.

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