| The most annoying common form of propaganda is the association fallacy, which is a more subtle form of the ad hominem fallacy [1]. It works like this: A. You believe X. B. A crazy person also believes/believed X. C. You are a crazy person. D. Optionally: I won't consider your argument unless you tell me why being a crazy person is ok. Why do you support doing crazy people things like being a serial killer? Example: A. You are against cigarette smoking. B. The Nazis were also against cigarette smoking[2]. C. Therefore you are a Nazi. D. Optionally: I won't consider your argument unless you tell me why being a Nazi is ok. Why do you support anti-semitism? This is by far the most common bullshit argument I get when talking with people about controversial topics. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy#Guilt_by_a... [2]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251213.The_Nazi_War_on_C... |
Police are saying that person who is obviously crazy and did <bad thing> also happened to believe in X.
Coming up. A special report where we look at all the crazy people who believe X.
Did <historical bad guy> believe in X? Find out next as we explore history.
Should the statue of historical person be removed because he believed X?
And so on and so forth.