Re: A prediction about the Presidential campaign

In article <1pnlq31g7uo3ralfacfh5g0an4p759gt8p@xxxxxxx>,
Tim Merrigan <tppm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:35:27 -0800, David Friedman
<ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<b3908fa8-362f-4d28-b9ba-41f666695f52@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Will <mclean1382@xxxxxxx> wrote:

The definition breaks down once the government is willing to make the
cost of any resistance very high. Then accepting the exaction becomes
simultaneously normal and accepted only when the cost of resistance is
very high.

That doesn't mean the definition breaks down, just that you can't use
that particular case to test whether or not the organization is a
government.

--

If you can't use the the definition to answer the question it tries to
answer, then it isn't a very useful definition. It's not as though
governments that make the cost of resistance very high are exactly
rare.

The fact that there are some bits of evidence which don't answer the
question doesn't make the definition useless. Governments that always
make the cost of resistance--for every possible act of resistance--very
high are indeed rare.

Fallacy: Reducto ad Absurdum

1. Reductio ad Absurdum isn't a fallacy, it's a legitimate form of
argument.

2. But this isn't an example, as I think would have been clear if you
had followed the argument.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
.

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