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[purist]

Originally Posted by Messianic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

OMG GREED IS BAD B/C I SAY SO UR ALL HEATHENS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Straw man
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

Reasoning

The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially-similar position Y. Thus, Y is a resulting distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.[1]
2. Quoting an opponent's words out of context – i.e. choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[2]
3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments – thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.