Applying fallicy methodology is not very impressive. In fact, the only people who use that line of argument are attorney's who know their clients are guilty and can't present a factual argument so they must rely on systematically picking their opponent apart by arguing:
if (a) is this, then (b) must/must not be this. It's basically a technique, an exercise, that can be applied to any statement. It's used to sway opinion for a guilty/not guilty verdict but it speaks nothing about right or wrong, ethical or unethical, and does not go to the essence, the heart of the matter.
I was surprised to see your opinion on Ronald Reagan and for me, the reward, the (heart of the matter) was "where is this guy coming from". It was not to be in competition to win an argument. In fact, I thought to myself "this is the viewpoint of a child", my instincts were correct. Your viewpoint is the viewpoint of a child. Just as valid any 30 year old of that time period, but very unquestioned and naive. But then I thought, how could you question it without first hand knowledge as an adult ?
So if you won your argument, that's great because I got what I needed. I needed a context for your words. I needed to find the framework of your thoughts and I accomplished that. I have no doubt that you will try to come up with some sort of fallicy argument to invalidate what I've just said. But that's ok, because when you become fascinated by the process of questioning the world around you, that's when your intellectual curiosity takes you to whole new level of thinking without the rigid boundaries of semantics like fallacy methodology. I believe that's what your teacher was getting at.
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