
The If-by-whiskey fallacy - gizzlon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey
======
Adrock
If by "if-by-whiskey" you mean the fallacious, flip-flopping, cowardly
practice of pandering, then certainly I am against it. But, if when you say
"if-by-whiskey" you mean the circumspect, open-minded, responsive practice of
consideration, then I am certainly for it. This is my stand. I will not
retreat from it. I will not compromise.

~~~
hashmymustache
If by "if by 'if by whiskey'" you mean to circularly employ the same
manipulative tactic of deceptive self-promotion, then I am certainly against
it. But if by "if by 'if by whiskey'" you mean to strategically exercise the
same practice out of admiration of its effective and pacifying avail to
reason, then I am certainly for it. That is my position. I will not waver.

~~~
Shish2k
If by "If by \"if by 'if by whiskey'\"" you mean you're offering me some
whiskey to help with trying to comprehend this level of nesting, then yes
please :-)

~~~
InclinedPlane
What is the fixed point of this function? Is there one? Quick, someone apply
the y-combinator!

~~~
Martijn
For some reason this reminds me of Quine Central[1]. :-)

[1] <http://blog.sigfpe.com/2011/01/quine-central.html>

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jordan0day
Is this a fallacy? It seems that the speaker is clearly being satirical,
especially given that he prefaces his speech with

" On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of
how fraught with controversy it might be."

And then proceeds to argue for _both_ sides of the issue.

Perhaps politics in 1950's Mississippi were just as solidly partisan as our
national politics are today. In that case, perhaps Mr. Sweat's satire was
meant to try to influence the partisans to, at least somewhat, understand the
other side.

~~~
jonnathanson
I think this is a generous interpreation.

Seems more likely that he was simply pandering to both sides, and/or trying to
dodge responsibility for a position altogether. The history of political
speeches is pretty rife with this sort of tactic, although seldom as memorable
as in this case. Politicians and public figures who don't want to alienate
either side of an argument will often pay lip service to both sides.

~~~
nickkthequick
I find that more of a negative interpretation.

The easiest way to avoid responsibility is to not talk about the issue all
together. Here he managed to outline the positives and negatives of both
cases. If his view of whiskey's positives and negatives line up with yours,
perhaps he understands and feels about the issue the same way you do and might
make the decision that you would make in the same position. If not, you
actually don't like his stance on the issue.

I think it's more interesting to consider the concept he isolates, though, and
it's bothersome that we can so cleanly map the concept he considers to issues
we have today.

~~~
jonnathanson
_"The easiest way to avoid responsibility is to not talk about the issue all
together."_

Yes, but often politicians and public figures aren't given that choice. In
this case, the man in question was either a judge or a lawyer at the time, and
it seems likely that he was being asked or compelled to weigh in on the issue.
His speech was a way of satisfying the weigh-in requirement without taking a
controversial stance.

------
mathattack
"If by C programming, you mean writing unreadable code with memory leaks that
is impossible to support and violently breaks in unpredictable ways, then I am
against it.

If by C programming, you mean writing elegant code that dances with the
machine producing blazing code, optimized to the technology and problem at
hand, then I am for it.

This is my stand. I will not compromise."

I really hate to say it, but I haven't seen this if-by-whiskey technique so
formally named, but it does give me great insight into political double-speak.
And perhaps it'll give me a few outs from tough situations. :-)

~~~
Dylan16807
On the other hand you made an example that was accidentally valid. The axis of
good/bad code exists independent of language. But there is no such thing is
good/bad (morally) casks of whiskey.

Get to work strongly implying that C is the actual cause of all these things
with no externalities, and then you get toward the fallacy.

~~~
criley
>there is no such thing is good/bad (morally) casks of whiskey.

I disagree -- just as someone writing C can do it well or poorly, someone
drinking whiskey can behave well or poorly.

The spectrum of drunken behavior is a big one, and does include moral and
immoral activity...

~~~
Dylan16807
That is the drinkER, not the drink.

mathattack was focusing on the programming language. To parallel the whiskey
morals they need to focus on the act of programming, or on the programmer. Not
the language.

~~~
mathattack
I interpreted it as more of a longwinded way to take both sides of an issue to
not anger either side. C programming seemed less controversial than something
like guns or abortion, but perhaps not around here. :-)

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petercooper
This immediately made me think of abortion and the terms pro-life and pro-
choice. I am both pro-life and pro-choice by the literal meanings, but many in
the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" camps seem to use their terminology to paint
the other side as bad (i.e. the opposite side is "anti-life" or "anti-choice"
by default, even though that's not necessarily true).

~~~
superuser2
Is there a situation where the belief that abortion should be illegal does not
oppose a woman's ability to choose abortion? Of course the central premise of
opposition to abortion is not (usually) opposition to choice, but "anti-
choice" isn't technically an invalid characterization.

~~~
ctdonath
The central premise of opposition to abortion is whether the baby gets a
choice. It's not "anti-choice", it's insisting that everyone involved have a
fair say in the matter.

~~~
superuser2
That's clever, but I'm guessing (maybe wrongly) that you'd wan't that baby
raised in a belief system that says it will go to hell if it commits suicide.
There's still no choice of whether or not to live. That's probably a good
thing, but it's still technically opposed to choice.

~~~
ctdonath
Of course there's a choice then. Strongly influenced perhaps, but even the
most devout believer can choose to sin or not. If he's dead by another's
choice, he doesn't have any choice.

------
randallsquared
The given example is more clarification than fallacy. He's against bad things
and for good things? What could be clearer? :)

~~~
mikedmiked
Finally somebody I can get behind; we need to get this guy into office.

Does anyone know of any other examples of if-by-whiskey being used today?

Is it useful for politicians or would it completely backfire, where any
opposition would try to say "You are quoted as being pro-alcohol: calling it
the philosophic wine" or "anti-alcohol, calling it the devil's brew" and pick
the paragraph that suits their needs?

~~~
jerf
"Does anyone know of any other examples of if-by-whiskey being used today?"

The whole debt debate. If by spending you mean crippling debt being left to
our children, interest paid to furreiners, etc etc, it's bad and everyone who
supports it is bad. If by spending, you mean the concrete things that we are
spending money on, of course this specific thing is so wonderful that it's
worth it and anyone who says otherwise is bad, and in fact I may I just go out
on a limb and say that we need _more_ of this sort of spending.

(Lest you think I'm being partisan here, there's a very clear pattern in the
last 20 years on which party in the US wants to spend, and which party wants
to cut, and it's not D/R or liberal/conservative in either direction. The
pattern is that the majority party wants to spend, and the minority party
wants to cut. One can not help but cynically observe that what really bothers
the minority party is majority's successful ladling out of the pork for
patronage to the other guy's constituents, rather than any sort of real
offense about spending. And thus, to be clear, the reason I chose this as my
example is that you can find instances of the same individual giving both
halves of this speech, playing both sides of the argument, separated by about
a decade and one flip of the majority party.)

~~~
twoodfin
The minority party certainly did not want to cut from, say, 2002-2004. If
anything, the dynamic was just the opposite: Stimulus bills didn't have enough
"state aid". Medicare Part D had a miserly donut hole. Special education was
being woefully shortchanged if the Federal government didn't honor its
"promise" to pick up 100% of the cost. Oh, and don't forget that we weren't
spending enough on body armor and the VA.

I think your theory needs tuning.

~~~
jerf
Pity Google doesn't have a "please just let me search in 2003" mode. Democrats
got tons of mileage out of Bush-era deficit complaints, though. I'm pretty
comfortable with my general thesis.

~~~
prattmic
Try the "Custom range..." under "Time".

[https://www.google.com/search?q=special+education+spending&#...</a>

------
jessaustin
Perhaps it's a fallacy that you can be both in favor of a particular thing and
also against that same thing?

I have the feeling that if I heard that speech I would actually believe that
Soggy is both for and against whiskey. I don't think I'd vote for him, but I
would believe him.

~~~
Udo
That's not what he meant when he said it though. After characterizing the
supporters of prohibition as drooling religious fanatics, he made some pretty
good points about the judicious use of alcohol as a social and physiological
enhancer.

He was acknowledging that alcohol could be used for good or for bad things,
and he was (maybe from our perspective only) making a good point about the use
of polemic, misleading, and ridiculously overblown rhetorics. His was a
reasonable argument, a witty meta argument, and a biting satirical observation
all at the same time.

The point is, "Soggy" wasn't really undecided on the issue. Hell yeah, I'd
vote for that guy.

~~~
illuminate
"After characterizing the supporters of prohibition as drooling religious
fanatics"

But they wouldn't see that characterization as inapt, or insulting, so it's
not a very strong or brave position to take.

------
magoon
I was half expecting an alcoholic connotation of Paul Revere, e.g. two if-by-
whiskey, one if-by-beer.

------
galactus
Why is it considered a "fallacy"?

~~~
simias
I guess it could be considered very similar to the "no true scotsman" fallacy.

"If by scotsman you mean..."

Not sure what it has to do on the frontpage though.

~~~
acqq
Maybe this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806>

and this

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061140>

~~~
simias
Heh, interesting angle.

------
jiggy2011
This seems like a more schizophrenic version of the no-true-scotsman fallacy.
In that it can be used to show support for something (often some ideal) whilst
distancing oneself from any negative consequences of that.

------
superk
Highly recommend this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-
Edition/...](http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-
Edition/dp/0156482401)

Which talks in detail about the "informative" and "affective" connotations of
words (it's a lot more entertaining than it sounds). Only slightly related,
but I was just reading in the book how we have the terms "light meat" and
"dark meat": because ladies and gentleman in 19th century Britain couldn't
bring themselves to say "leg", "thigh" or "breast" – even of a chicken!

------
guessWhy
Seems to be related to the straw man:

The question is "Should whiskey be prohibited or not?" but he takes it to be
"Is there anything good or bad about whiskey?" or "Do I think whiskey is good
or bad?".

------
bjhoops1
They need to add this to <http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/>. And if you
haven't been there, you should check it out!

------
charlieok
If you follow the link to Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat Jr's wikipedia page...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_S._Sweat>

...you get a great audio recording of the speech (over 50 years later, and not
by Noah)

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obituary_latte
This is like Microsoft. It is great when it works and isn't causing troubles,
but a bottomless hell when forced to look at the event viewer...

------
if_by_whisky
I've heard of this!!!

------
hcarvalhoalves
Just politicians being politicians.

~~~
nealabq
If by politician you mean a tireless statesman, fighting the good fight, a
champion of worthy causes that benefit us all, then I enthusiastically concur.

But if by politician you mean a low, corrupt, power-mad petty puppet jerked
around by evil special interests, then sadly I have to agree.

------
funthree
He condones what is widely seen as good about whiskey and he condemns what is
widely seen as bad about whiskey. That is the stance he's getting across, and
it's one which is also sort of (unsurprisingly?) the sum total position of the
people he represents.

------
transitionality
He's against irresponsible drinking to the point where it will cause harm to
oneself and others, but for responsible drinking to the degree that it will
confer benefits.

I don't see a fallacy here.

------
martinced
I think the canonical example on Wikipedia is false in that it is historically
where the name comes from, but it's not itself a fallacy at all.

From the description of the fallacy the "if-by-whiskey" fallacy would be
someone taking either one side, or the other.

So the "canonical example" is not at all an example of the fallacy but simply
the roots of the name of the fallacy.

~~~
simonh
Not at all. When Mr Sweat asks "if by whiskey you mean..." he's making it
explicit that his opinion depends on that of the questioner.

------
wissler
A litmus test of moral cowardice.

