but I cannot recall anyone trying to rely upon that fact as a basis for the conclusion that there's hardly a reason for governments to continue to sell lottery tickets. It's interesting that the attitudes of ordinary people may create and maintain what is in effect government greed. If the fee to take a high school equivalency test were high enough to generate revenue for governments, then would there be more support for lowering the minimum age for taking a high school equivalency test, and less opposition to lowering the minimum age for taking a high school equivalency test?
As for high school equivalency tests, I guess the lower limit for age is because there are so few "little geniuses" out there that there's hardly a reason not to have a lower limit.
According to the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth was only one man, and one is the fewest possible number of men that is more than zero men. Would you claim that there was "hardly a reason" not to crucify him? I anticipate that you will say "no" on the grounds that a very cruel kind of execution is unacceptable, especially if it was never shown in court that he committed a capital crime. This train of thought then suggests that instead of discussing the question of how many or how few people are treated in some manner, we should focus on the manner of treatment.
In particular, we can discuss the morality of compelling people to attend classes until they are adequately educated when the government's own test of being adequately educated would demonstrate that they are already adequately educated before attending the classes. Under those circumstances, where is the justice in a government forbidding them from demonstrating that they are already adequately educated?
I initially focused on these words:
"little geniuses" out there
I think that an ordinary straw man operates by deliberately or negligently misrepresenting the reasoning of another person in order to create very flawed and easily criticized reasoning. By introducing the issue of "genius", it seems that you are attributing to other people not flawed reasoning, but arrogance. However, as in the classic straw man, you take the role of defining the other person's position. If I may coin a phrase, I get the impression that you are using a "straw man ad hominem" tactic. It seems to be ad hominem because if you presume that a self-classified "genius" is arrogant, then the arrogance is a quality of the person, but if the discussion is to focus on ideas rather than gossip, then we are supposed to be criticizing ideas, not people. It is a straw man because the word "geniuses" was introduced into the discussion by you, not by whoever might be imagined to be arrogant.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
