Rhetorical (and visual) dishonesties, and their countermeasures

It's been kindof a slow week for the blog — I dunno, just nothing much catching my eye. But this piece is a great list of ways to lie — both words and pictures — as well as countermeasures.

Here's the sample (via Boing Boing) that caught my eye

(8) The argument that we should not make efforts against X which is admittedly evil because there is a worse evil Y against which our efforts should be directed (pp 50-52)

Dealt with by pointing out that this is a reason for making efforts to abolish Y, but no reason for not also making efforts to get rid of X.

(9) The recommendation of a position because it is a mean between two extremes (pp 52-54)

Dealt with by denying the usefulness of the principle as a method of discovering the truth. In practice, this can most easily be done by showing that our own view also can be represented as a mean between two extremes.