What? There's no ad-hominem there. And what straw man? Chomsky claimed in the quoted sentence that things like huge corporate profits were not reported, your parent post says that's incorrect and they're often reported. Maybe he's right, maybe you're right, but there's no straw man.
Sometimes I feel like people have browser plugins that randomly pluck sins from the Wikipedia page for logical fallacies.
I don't like Chomsky either, but "Oh boy, a Chomsky quote" and the implication that it's somehow less valid because of its provenance is pretty much the definition of an _ad hominem_.
"oh boy, a Chomsky quote"? That implies no connotation there to you? There is no ad hominem you notice then.
> Chomsky claimed in the quoted sentence that things like huge corporate profits were not reported, your parent post says that's incorrect and they're often reported
Does that address the central point, or does it take one sentence out of context, then takes it literally without seeing the woods for the trees? Call it a straw man, call it not getting the point and splitting irrelevant hairs, same difference. Yes, all sorts of things do get reported, nope, doesn't change anything about the gist of the quote.
Here's a random comment from you to explain it better:
> your remarks are no different than a 7 year old putting down somebody for throwing like a girl.
Does that mean that's what they are literally saying, saying word by word the exact same sentence any 7 year old would say? Is the discussion about throwing? You didn't say "similar to", you said "no difference", after all. It gets worse, notice that you said "7 year old", not "roughly 7 years old". So a person who is exact 7 years old, no day, no minute, not even a second, not even tenth of a second older... but hey, it would take too long for any child to say a few words while they are still exactly 7, we could even wonder if that exact moment can even be found. So that clearly makes no sense.
Imagine getting such a response of someone either acting dumb or not getting it, and when you call it out as such, you get MORE games and a downvote. You would notice the problem quite easily, why don't you notice it here? Maybe because you don't even feel forced to seriously think about it; the difference is not that the Chomsky quote has been dealt with even just one iota more seriously or more honestly, the difference is in where the status quo lies, and what power doesn't care about or even supports. When you are on its side, one can get away with "oh boy, a Chomsky quote" and other such nonsense. Just like you could accuse someone of throwing like a girl around jocks no questions asked. Nobody will ever take you to task for your response to me. It's not like you just called anyone a racial slur, you just supported someone dismissing words with utter sophistry. Nothing to even skip a beat over, right? And the interwebs is positively littered with that, that's kind of one of the reactions Chomsky evokes. You might call him a litmus test.
And you know, I said "ad-hominem and straw man" because I didn't want to insult anyone's intelligence with this rant. It's not that I can't back up what I say in however much detail you need, I just find it unproductive. Just like I tend to collect and re-post quotes that say things I agree with; which I could say in my own words, in more words and less elegantly. Why do that, when there is a "quote for the occasion"? When people interpret a quote as saying "this is true because X says it", that's their problem, I don't operate that way.
OK, well in my opinion if your complaint was that the original poster was misinterpreting or misrepresenting Chomsky, I think it would have been more helpful to say that, and maybe to reiterate the central point that you (through the Chomsky quote) were trying to convey.
To me, the "oh boy, a Chomsky quote" telegraphed the writer's bias against Chomsky, and the follow-on sentence showed what the writer read in your quote. Bias or dislike for a writer is not ad-hominem: it's bias and dislike. And the interpretation of the sentence was fair: a central theme of Chomsky is that the media acts to maintain the status quo, through selective reporting. And a fair criticism of Chomsky is that observation shows a fair bit of reporting on many sides of many issues.
That's quite a bit different then the comment you pulled from me (posted minutes after this one, and a pretty good indicator that I'm probably too cranky to be using the Internet this evening), since the throw-like-a-girl quote makes no sense outside of its context: you have to manufacture context for it to make sense. The Chomsky snippet you object to makes perfect sense to anyone who's read Chomsky, and even if not, the poster can hardly be accused of trying to sneak something past us when the full quote is right above it.
I like Chomsky: I think he's smart and observant and courageous. But that interpretation was what I got out of the quote as well, even though I'll bet we're pretty aligned on many issues. So if that wasn't what you meant I think you would have been better served with a response that actually said the point you were trying to make. Saying "ad hominem!" just because somebody doesn't like Chomsky doesn't serve you or your argument.
Sometimes I feel like people have browser plugins that randomly pluck sins from the Wikipedia page for logical fallacies.