Nothing more to add, but I’d like to second the motion on #5 when it comes to some of my students, at times. They often confuse “having a different opinion” with “giving a wrong answer.” I used to counter with, “It is my opinion that there is a silver dinosaur who lives in the park across the street and sells maps to purple monkeys,” but it got too depressing when they didn’t get the point.
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.
We’ve covered this before. Implies that (a) all pertinent information was presented clearly, (b) a final decision was made, and © nothing has changed since then, so (d) shut up.
They are, but analogies should never be used to prove anything; they are an illustrative device, nothing more.
There’s also no such thing as a perfect analogy; if the object and analogy are identical in every way, the analogy will be just as difficult to grasp as the object. If they are not identical in every way, then the analogy is less than perfect (and in my experience this tiny and often insignificant difference, although not intended to form part of the comparison or impact on it, will be the thing seized upon triumphantly by your opponent).
Similar to that one is I expected you all to say that. (implications of clique, conspiracy, closed-mindedness, over-skepticism, whatever).
The passive voice
I don’t disagree with this per se, and it doesn’t occur very often on the SDMB, but when it’s used in the context of: “It’s believed that…” or “Calls are being made for his resignation…”, this is an example of lazy journalism and often includes a free straw man with every use; I should know, I used to do it all the time when I was a lazy reporter.
Note please the ironic construction of the above paragraph.
Attacking the person, rather than the idea that person is putting forth.
Granted, there are some situations where, after repeated acts/statements/previous examples a person can be shown to be ignorable and wrong from the get go, but I am inclined to think that in most cases it is just better to stick to what a person is saying rather than ignoring what they are saying and attacking the person.
Another one from me:
The qualifier game
“Roses are red.”
“No, lots of roses are other colors. How dare you say they are all red?”
“Hey, I didn’t say all roses were red!”
But you might as well have. “All” is just an intensifier. It does not need to be present for the statement to be taken as a generalization about all roses. If you didn’t mean all roses, you should have used a qualifier.
Of course, even if one uses qualifiers properly people might not get it.
“Some roses are red.”
“No, lots of roses are other colors. How dare you say they are all red?”
Uh, I didn’t. I was very careful not to. I said “some” because I meant “some”.
You’re infringing on my free speech!
Guess what? Free speech might mean you can say idiotic things, but it also means that I can say that what you say is idiotic. When we’re on a message board, and I’m not government or a moderator, it’s pretty darn hard for me to infringe on your speech.
That cite is from a biased source!
Well, I’m sorry, but the liberal newspaper you happen to frequent and indoubtedly think of as neutral just doesn’t often report on inefficiency of government-provided social services or false environmentalist claims, you know? And similarly, the conservative website that guy holds as the arbiter of balance often keeps silent of corporate influnce in U.S. government (unless it’s about Democrats, of course) and things America does abroad. If you think that source is wrong, that it willfully misrepresents an issue, say so - but don’t just scream bias.
You’re a hypocrite!
Oh, this burns me. We have your anti-war activists who think that everyone who supports war in Iraq but doesn’t sign up is a HYPOCRITE, your pro-choicers who think that everyone who’s pro-life but hasn’t adopted 5 kids is a HYPOCRITE, your tougher-crime-laws types who think that everyone who supports lenient penalties but isn’t willing to have a released murderer living next door is a HYPOCRITE, and so on. And know what? It’s possible that everyone is a HYPOCRITE - but what does that have to do with the thing they’re arguing about? If it just so burns you up to actually debate ideas instead of engaging in ad hominem attacks, just imagine it’s freakin’ Mother Teresa’s ghost you’re arguing with.
Exactly! I’ve been known to state that, although I’ve never actually eaten crap, I’m pretty sure it’d taste like crap (and I don’t just mean that by definition).
Of course, we should have expected a Zebra to say that. 
Just an intensifier? I really disagree here. If I want to mean “all” I’ll say it.
And if you want to mean “some” you should say that too, right? That way you never run into the “Roses are red” problem, where the statement could be interpreted to mean “All roses are red” or “Some roses are red” (although I feel the former is the more obvious meaning), a problem that can derail an entire debate.
“there is no way your argument about whether or not Jesus or Allah is God has any validation, because there is no God.”
Even if that is what you whole heartedly believe (or the other way around, too), that’s not what the debate is about. Start a new thread!
It happens in other GQ, too, and about other subjects, more or less, but it happens all the time in GD threads about an aspect of religion.
Well, Lamia one should always indicate as unambiguously as possible (given practical English), so yeah, that’s right. I’ve never considered “all” an intensifier as such, but a quantifier. If universal statements are so difficult to make, why would you choose that as the default interpretation?
Jes’ wondering. Not really up to debating debating with you. 
[shakes fist at sky pixie]
“One should always indicate the object or objects under consideration etc”
Actually, I was feeling uncertain about describing “all” as an intensifier and am not married to the idea – in retrospect I probably would have done better not to mention it at all. The thing I dislike is people making a “Roses are red” type statement that is wrongheaded or bigoted (to flagrantly violate my OP’s #1, something like “Black people are lazy”, or “Men are insensitive clods”), and then when called on it try to escape by saying “Well, I didn’t say they all were.” Perhaps not, but “All roses are red” is a perfectly understandable and predictable interpretation of “Roses are red”, as is “With very few exceptions, all roses are red”, which amounts to much the same thing in many debates. I mean, “With very few exceptions, all men are insensitive clods” is hardly any better than just saying “All men are insensitive clods”. It’s not as easy to disprove (a single counterexample could falsify the latter), which is one reason why people may claim it as their meaning, but it’s not really any less offensive.
I think the little “Oh, but I didn’t say all roses” game is just a trick to distract people from whatever the real issue at hand is. People can go on for post after post trying to pin down what sub-set of roses was meant, what could reasonably be inferred from the original statement, and all kinds of other side issues that distract people from serious questions like whether being a rose causes redness or what should be done about red flowers in general and lure them off into the cloudy land of “That’s been my experience of roses” and good ol’ #5, “How can you say my opinions about roses are wrong?”
I’m so glad to see that you agree with me that “all” is an intensifier.
What? No I didn’t!
I hate it when people twist my words and claim I’m agreeing with them, when obviously I’m not.
Daniel
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
That always makes me want to display my sophisticated debate skills by screaming, “Shut up! Argue with me now or I’ll call you a poopyhead!”
[ul]
[li]Invoking the dead to make your point for you.[/li][/ul]
Example: Our local (Santa Cruz) peace activists, or some other peace group are organizing an anti-war march on Martin Luther King day, so of course they’ve placed his noble visage all over their flyers.
This bothers me intensely. Probably because it seems to me that they’re using a man I have the deepest respect for to push their cause. They make it seem that he’s given his stamp of approval to their actions, which he can’t because, of course, he’s dead.
Whether or not Rev. King would be for or against attacking Iraq is immaterial, IMO. He’s dead, show some tact.
[ul]
[li]The “Think of the children!” argument.[/li][/ul]
The same flyers I mentioned above use a photo of a wonderfully sad-eyed and resumably Iraqi little girl for a cheap emotional response.
I think that Godwin’s law should be expanded to include references to ‘saving children’ or ‘thinking of children’. Gah!