My title referenced Erick’s subtitle, “Conservatives must now hang together or hang up their common cause.” Which I assume is an alluision to “we must all hang together or we will all hang separately.” His post raises the alarm. Oh my!

My post was a response to Erick. I see no reason for this alarm. I fail to see bright line distinctions between the candidates.** As you say, there is no RINO, liberal, or moderate in this race. This is not NY-23, UT-SEN, or FL-SEN.

The Indiana GOP will nominate a conservative. That conservative will likely be elected. Any candidate will do. I will not be sending a check to Marlin simply because Erick has an editorial preference.

Beware of crying wolf! And let loose the curds and weigh!

** I would probably vote for Hostetler if he showed me his Super Bowl ring.

Don’t hang me, bro was my first comment title. That was a response to Erick. The point of my post is that his post is over the top. The IN SEN primary is not Agincourt for conservatives or anything close.

I fully understood that your hanging comment was a joke. I was not offended in the least.

This post is not about the general election. It is clearly about the primary. The issue being, who can win the general?

Crying wolf means to sound the alarm for a threat which does not exist. It sounds like you and I agree that nobody seriously believes that any of the GOP candidates are moderates, liberals, or RINOS. Therefore, I conclude that the conservative coalition will unite around the victorious candidate. Consequently, I do not fear the Democrat wolf. Yet, Erick clearly does claiming that voting for Marlin is how we “Save Indiana from the Democrats.”

If you were to review my posts, you will see that I am a consistent critic of what I perceive as Erick’s anti-establishment bias. That is what I see here. He wants to nationalize this race to save conservatism and “the NRSC from itself.” That’s fine. Really. His preference. Vote Marlin. But let’s not exaggerate the importance of this primary race.

It doesn’t matter to me if you or Erick agree with me, but it does matter to me, that you claim that I erect strawmen and play games.

Please, tell me which of my assumptions are incorrect and what words you thought that I put in Erick’s mouth.

I see lots of people here on Redstate throwing around those terms as pejoratives. My comment dismisses such usage. RINO, in particular, is a loaded term. My clause should be read in connection with the awkwardly worded “can honestly be referred to.” It is possible, in all honesty, to call somebody a RINO, in sincere pejorative. I was not doing that.

That phrase was written to emphasize that, I, shadowtax, do not intend to use those words as a pejorative. I do not use said terms loosely. The many readers that do, should know that I don’t.

You assumed (or logically concluded) that clause was a smear against Erick. A logical error on your part. You are wrong.

If Erick feels that I was smearing him, I will gladly apologize to him. That was not my intent and I do not believe that he was offended. However, I am offended by your overly aggressive defense of Erick at the expense of my integrity.

And I can argue semantics with you all day if you like, or you could offer me the courtesy of an apology. The choice is yours.

so long as the charge not be strawmannery and slanderous ventriloquism.

Yes, Ace, there is a case to be made. I understand it, but I am unconvinced. I consider myself anti-anti-establishment. I view anti-establishment rhetoric with suspicion.

In my opinion it is Erick who is making the mountain out of the mole hill. I do not see this primary race as very important at all.
We are all free to respectfully disagree.

My opinion is that any of the candidates can win and do an adequate job. I have strong doubts that a Coats victory will “turn off” the electorate in the general election, or result in the hanging up of the common cause.

I know that Erick did not say anybody was a RINO! I did not mean to imply that he said so.

Again the two arguments:

Erick: It is critical to elect the most conservative candidate. Marlin is the most conservative. Marlin is the best candidate in the general ellection. Marlin must win for the sake of conservatism and Indiana.

Shadowtax: Any credible conservative candidate can win the general election in Indiana. In my opinion, all the contenders meet the threshold level of sufficiently conservative. Therefore it does not matter who wins. No need for alarm.

What is false about my argument? And don’t just tell me that Erick is right and I am wrong on the facts. Please pull at the straw. Tell me how I distorted and misrepresented Erick’s position in a way to make my argument look better?

So I won’t get an apology, but maybe you will learn to stop using “strawman” as a pejorative.

Call me Doo Doo Head. There is much that I do do, but I do not do straw men.

No need to address my last request. It was meant in the context of proving the strawman.

If you want to challenge my honesty, just do it. Call me a liar. Otherwise, demonstrate how I distorted Eric’s position.

Cutting and pasting sentences from my comments is not a substitute for argument. It is not even the best evidence. I am right here available to explain myself, answer charges, and offer explanations. I did so for each text you quoted.

You jumped to a conclusion about my statement. I tried to explain it to you. I failed to get my point across effectively. You continue to quote my explanations back to me as if the words have some sort of power out of context. You are playing gotcha with the transcript.

I have asked repeatedly for you to identify and explain how I have made a strawman argument. I do not believe that we are operating under the same definition.

Philosophy Dictionary:

To argue against a straw man is to interpret someone’s position in an unfairly weak way, and so argue against a position that nobody holds, or is likely to hold.

Wikipedia:

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.[1] To “attack a straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2]

Presenting and refuting a weakened form of an opponent’s argument can be a part of a valid argument. For example, one can argue that the opposing position implies that at least one other statement – being presumably easier to refute than the original position – must be true. If one refutes this weaker proposition, the refutation is valid and does not fit the above definition of a “straw man” argument.

I restated my argument several times. You identified my opinion as a straw man argument because you interpreted in my words a claim that Erick had accused other candidates of being RINOs. I repeatedly refuted that interpretation. My opinion argues for a different standard. Erick says A=B. I say A = B = C. The two of us assign different values. That is a substantive and authentic difference of opinion. Nevertheless, you persist in labeling my argument as a strawman. I would rather you dismiss me as an idiot.

Aaron, it is you who misrepresents my argument. You keep setting up the strawman strawman. I keep knocking it down.