Strawman Arguments

Strawman Arguments (I call them Stickman Arguments, sometimes) are arguments in which someone who you are debating takes your points and twists them to get ground on you in order to form a refutation in which they are correct.

Person A: *Signs on to start a topic saying:* For anyone out there who questions God because God doesn't always answer your prayers, the truth is: God doesn't help us because we have free will.

Person B: That's an unsound argument because it has no ground to stand on and it is overused. It's like saying, "What if I'm right and you're wrong and you go to Hell?" to an atheist.

Person A: We're not talking about Hell, therefore your refutation has no grounds.

Person B: Please take your strawman arguments somewhere else

Person A: You're going to burn in Hell for not believing in God!

Person A signs off.

Person B facepalms.

by Life's Outcast Of Death April 3, 2009

Recursive Strawman

A strawman by which you incorrectly characterise your opponent's argument as a strawman.

A: Trump has repeatedly demonstrated racially insensitive behavior

B: "Everyone I disagree with is Hitler."

A: That is a recursive strawman.

by ovusar December 7, 2020

Strawman Fallacy

What 99% of the definitions and examples on Urban Dictionary articles that have even the smallest relationship with religion and/or politics.

Strawman Fallacy:
From UD's humanist entry: "Ha, you believe in God? We humanists are smarter than you because we think we are just going to rot in a hole in the ground and that the universe just appeared on it's own one day."

"And that is smart because...?"

"Uh... gay pride?"

"God have mercy on these morons..."

Strawman Fallacy: From UD's entry on liberal: 2. "I hate liberals. Stupid pinko liberals are ruining America."
"Yeah, damn liberals and their...their...liberty. Psht, this is America, we don't need liberty. God bless America."
"Hey, wait..."

by Flambe December 18, 2009

Strawman Of Unusual Size

A strawman argument so ridiculous, it's inconceivable.

Acronym: S.O.U.S.

“Why don’t Republicans want kids to know how to not be racist?”

"A Strawman Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist"

by FTJM October 20, 2022

strawman

An exaggerated/stereotypical view of someone's beliefs.

Person 1: I'm a (insert ideology here)
Person 2: That means that you hate black people and eat babies!
Person 1: What? I dont mean that, I just think that illegal immigrants are bad.
Person 2: Look guys, he's a racist transphobe who thinks that women shouldn't have rights!

Person 3: Im a (insert ideology here) and I think that they should add compartments in landing gear to crush immigrants trying to leave their countries for a better life.
Person 4: Hey! Thats racist!
Person 3: OMG STRAWMAN!!!!

(rewind time)
Person 4: Hey! That's racist!
Person 3: Welp, guess you support terrorism. Betchu cheered when Al-Qaeda did 9/11?
Person 4: What the fuck?
Person 3: Fucking Commies trying to bring down America. Fucking hate them.

by buddy retard July 31, 2021

Strawman

No. You're saying that about me because I said it about the retard. But the retard has been anointed by a priestess and is, therefore, one of the chosen and I am not. But 2 year olds don't make identity claims and if they did you would humor them. What they DO is throw temper tantrums over trivial things (like not being about to eat cereal for every meal and cry and are legally incompetent. Which is what the retard does and is. But you don't care about that. You're not on his side your against mine. Because you're ThE oPpOsItE oF aN aNtINaTaLiSt. The truth of my proposition is irrelevant to you because you refuse to cede to me an identity that is better than molested cripple. And the bitch that fucked the 13 year old did it voluntarily and is not compelling him to pay child support. I mean it takes (on average) 70 attempts so conceive. How many times did she fuck a child and FOR WHAT REASON? Doesn't matter that it was voluntary. Does it? She was wrong to do it and deserves to be punished. It seems like a sub-optimal relationship. Seems like the optimal relationship between a man and a woman is one where neither of them are legally incompetent.

Hym "There is also this insistence that poor people 'caring more' about climate change somehow affects climate change. But I don't see how. If the 'global poor' had as much money as I do (which is not a lot) they would likely have just as little control over climate change as I do. But no you're right. People are just 'envious of your success and ambition'... And your insulation from failure through government programs, subsidies, or bailouts or rich parents... And peoples willingness to lie to protect you or hold water for you... And the fact that you don't necessarily need to be all that competent or honest to accrue a radically disproportionate amount of success. Success that you were only able to accrue by outsourcing the logistics (Which is what I did and I wrote the HIGHEST GROSSING R RATED MOVIE OF ALL TIME! HIGHER THAN DEADPOOL!) to people whose quality of life for which you abdicate responsibility in spite of the direct causal link between their quality of life and the conditions of your business and the wage they are paid... You're right! It can't possibly be that your success is undeserved and comes to the detriment of the broader community the you purport to care so much about. What you've done here is latch on to 2 strawman arguments and then deduce propositions from there. What happened to the Steelman? Oh, right, you just pull shut out of your ass and feed it to you followers. You don't need to be consistent."

by Hym Iam March 22, 2023

Strawman

A word used to describe Redditors who are being stupid.

Redditor: You can't hate modern pop music? You know Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo is better than Katy Perry and Rihanna! r/lewronggeneration amirite???

Normal person: I think I've found a strawman argument. Respect my opinion.

by Raspberry Necessary 35 March 1, 2022