Critical thinking skills--a distant memory

I just retired from a message board discussion in which either/or ruled, so therefore, it was impossible to make a factual, rational point, including the point at issue in the discussion. Rhetorical fallacies are no longer anything to be pointed out--they are the discourse. One is shocked when there are few of them in the course of a discussion.

Which brings me to the fake "free speech" argument. In a recent MoJo post, I pointed out something very offensive that was broadcast on television by a company, and, of course, someone immediately attacked me for wanting to "shut down" free speech. As a sane commenter pointed out, at no time did I say or imply that I believed the company did not have the right to say what they wanted--just that the content was offensive.

I see this fallacious argument a lot these days: Object to something someone says, and you are immediately accused of wanting to take away the person's right to say it. I remember, a few years ago, explaining to a woman that one of the many reasons I didn't shop at WalMart was that the store discriminated against women in its pharmacy. "But don't they have a right to sell what they want to sell?" she asked. "When," I asked her, "did I say they didn't?" She just looked at me with a blank look. "This discussion," I went on, "was not about WalMart's rights in the market; it was about gender discrimination." Another blank look.

False dichotomy (fallacy of the excluded middle), post hoc ergo propter hoc, either/or thinking, hasty generalization....these now rule the day. Doesn't anyone learn anything in school anymore?