As I recall, that one actually is a real fallacy with a Latin name … oh yes, here it is, argumentum ad baculum.
No, that’s Argumentum ad baculum, literally “appeal to the stick”.
Nah, that would be this.
To answer the question, I don’t know that “I served the military and I believe X” was ever all that meaningful in terms of economic or social policy, was it? Has there ever been a time where the general public, or even a good majority of people, looked to the military for verification on issues other than maybe foreign policy?
I know :). But I realize now I made a mistake.
I thought **Kinthalis **meant “Argument to weapons”, which would have been equivalent to said “argument to clubs”. As opposed to “Argument to Army”, which I now realize he probably meant.
I goofed thus because while arma is often used in Latin in a …damn, what’s the name of that figure of speech, part for the whole…metonymy, that’s the one. Often used in a metonymical fashion, it really does mean weapons.
Or he should read Starship Troopers and get it out of his system.
Yeah, it’s so obscure it’s been a top news story for months now. I know when there were 20,000 of them marching to close down the port in Oakland last night I thought, “That sure is an arcane protest going on outside.”
Too late to edit: I’m fully prepared for the possibility I was whooshed with that comment.
No, it wasn’t a whoosh. I first heard of it a couple of weeks ago here on the SDMB. I have seen it referred to elsewhere since then, but not to such an extent that I’d see “OWS” and know what it was referring to.
Good point. He can hope for a better future, until the bugs attack.
Perhaps. But I’m going to forever read that as “Appeal to the Penis-Bone”.
I noticed that too, but they get to it by the end.
But the trick is that you can’t recall someone to active duty simply for disciplinary reasons. So, the guy who wrote the political letter is pretty much fine.
That’s weird because lots of retired generals have campaigned for various political candidates.
I remember both John Kerry and Barack Obama regularly touting the names and ranks of people who supported them and more than a few appeared in campaign commercials with their ranks prominent, often in uniform.
In practice it means someone on the Retired List is free to be as politically active as any civilian but he should be careful that it does not cross the line into outright slander or insult against the civilian leadership. * “Candidate X stands for the sort of policies that will keep America strong and end the ill advised experiments of the current leadership”* will probably get a bye as being not contemptious speech.
OTOH there have been reported cases of active-duty higher officers, who should know better, being careless about in what terms they expressed their dissatisfaction, and paying for it, such as (quite egregiously) MG Harold N. Campbell re: President Clinton, and more recently the whole matter with Stanley McChrystal and his staff in Afghanistan.
Yeah? I got your baculum right here, pal.