[rbetts]

Uh huh.

> U.S. State Department hire Darren Beattie wrote on X: "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-darren-beattie-state...

[freedomben]

Yes, to be clear I'm not suggesting they have pure motives, nor am I suggesting they don't deserve the criticism. You are reading into my statement things that aren't there.

What I'm saying is that's irrelevant to the claim they are making. It is an ad hominem, which is a formal logical fallacy and has been for a very long time (going back well over 2,000 years)[1]. It didn't used to be controversial to say that ad hominem was a fallacy.

Are you disagreeing with me that the above is ad hominem? Or that ad hominem is a fallacy?

Wouldn't it be much better to just refute the claim instead of attack the person's motives? I.e. I think it's pretty damn easy to demonstrate that non white men have been great leaders who have gotten things to work. Refuting that claim is the non-fallacious approach and may actually convince someone honest (likely some third-party who is reading it later, you'll probably never convince the original speaker).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

[rbetts]

The claim we are arguing is "anti-DEI stuff is predicated on the idea that civil rights are bad and that white (straight dude) rule is good.". You said this claim is an ad hominem fallacy. I quoted someone in the administration who is literally saying "competent white must be in charge," an exact example of what the claim is stating.

[currency]

> Wouldn't it be much better to just refute the claim instead of attack the person's motives?

No, at some point, and we have absolutely passed it in the US, you can be overwhelmed by the lies and bad faith arguments if you try to respond to them individually, and it's necessary to try to derail the source.

[Finnucane]

it’s okay to attack a person’s motives when those motives are just racist as fuck. The arguments put forth by the ‘anti-DEI’ crowd are what is known logically as ‘bullshit.’