Majoritarianism is a poor technique of argument

[bluestateguy]

For the last 5 years the Right has resorted to this technique of argument called majoritarianism.
Which basically says that if a majority agrees with their position, it must be the correct position, along with a year and a half of childish gloating about the 2004 election. They can't defend their ideas on the merits, so they resort to majoritarianism as a basis for their position.

Regardless of what the majority believes or how they vote, it's a poor technique of argument. Saying, "well, 63% of Americans disagree with you and agree with me, so you're kind of out of the mainstream," is a poor technique of argument. Am I happy that Bush has a 39% approval rating? Sure, because presidents with low ratings don't get their bills through Congress. But none of that should be used to obscure the substantive point about what Bush has done and not done in office to make him a bad president and a bad man.

[JeffR]

1. Well said

And when they're not playing the majoritarian card, they simply resort to ad-hominem attacks, even on their own apostates.

[Sammy Pepys]

2. Agreed..

...unfortunately, the Republicans are not the only ones guilty of this.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. So what does that say to their argument about abortion? The

polls I've seen show that the majority of Americans favor keeping abortion legal.

[GR]

4. It Is Usually A Poor Argument...But We Use It Too...

However, the majority does sometimes win elections and in that sense it does matter...but not as to the truth or falsehood of a point...

There are also several situations in which is totally meaningless...That is in cases where the majority cannot possibly have the knowledge necessary to support a particular opinion. One example would be "do you agree that the United States will be fully withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2006?"

[JeffR]

5. Or the polls showing a majority for Scalito...

[CanCon]

6. This IS a Constitutional Republic, after all...

..and therefore neither the desires of the majority nor the minority are paramount, only the Constitution.

The favoured opinion of abortion doesn't matter, the support for warantless wiretaps doesn't matter, and the prevailing public opinion doesn't matter. People seem to forget that pretty often.

[KingFlorez]

7. I've thought the same thing

It never fails for freeper-types to say that Bush won the election, so no one has the right to criticize him

[cantstandbush]

8. Lying is the favorite technique, though. n/t

[bluestateguy]

9. kick

:kick: