Hey guys, I came across
this really disturbing article about Obama killing Jesus and Christians and making sure only homosexuals can raise children. I know they put out fake news sometimes, but maybe this time he really said this stuff? Can anyone disprove it for me? His words are in quotes and everything.
Interesting! You make a good point. I mean, yeah, the Onion is usually a parody site, but maybe this time they're telling the truth! You can't say they're not telling the truth based on all their past parody stuff because if you do you're just committing the genetic fallacy. We have to treat everything case by case, and can't use stuff like their prior articles to judge it. Can anyone actually disprove it? It has to be true, right?
Like... seriously, though. The genetic fallacy (or rather,
ad hominem, abusive subtype) is just talking about insulting the source, based on no actual context, or reasoning whatsoever. It's not a reason to disregard context. On the contrary--the whole reason it's a fallacy to begin with is precisely because it's an attack without any context or evidence or reasoning. If there's actual good evidence provided for why a claimmaker can't be trusted on a very particular topic, isn't an expert or a reliable source of information on a topic that's entirely different. That's the key between committing the fallacy and not: whether evidence is provided or not, and not just any evidence (such as showing a broad pattern of lying), but evidence regarding the pattern being discussed (e.g., the person shown not lying in general but lying in regards to the
particular topic being discussed and not being a reliable source of information about it).
In the case of O'Keefe, we have precisely that type of evidence in the form of his editing videos in the past to rob them of context to make them look like people are saying things they're not. That evidence being provided, establishing not just a general trend of lying, but rather being a consistent fraud on this particular topic. That being the case, no ad hominem or genetic fallacy is being committed and in fact the burden of proof is on him to prove that this is no longer the case and he's worthy of being trusted in ways he proved he couldn't before.
