Comment by PhantomGremlin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PhantomGremlin | Hacker News Reader

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Joseph Nacchio who was run under the bus

Yeah, a link to one of Putin's propaganda sites. Stuff like that happens in Russia, but the following doesn't often happen here:

- Co-opt the SEC into bringing charges of financial fraud[1]

- convince a federal judge to go along with that, and convict him

- convince a majority of a US Appeals court to go along with that

Or, alternatively, and probably closer to the truth: Mr. Nacchio was convicted in 2007 on 19 counts of insider trading for illegally selling $52 million worth of stock six years earlier, after insiders warned him that Qwest could not meet its targets. [2]

Edit: even better than that was Nacchio's excuse. It's one for the ages: Nacchio claimed that he was not in a rightful state of mind when he sold his shares because of problems with his son, and the imminent announcement of a number of government contracts. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio#Insider_trading... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/business/26qwest.html

What people have been saying, is that if most CEOs do insider trading, and only a few have charges brought against them, then that might indicate an abuse of power.

Since the other CEOs (those whose companies wilfully broke the law), weren't investigated, it's a little difficult to be sure so long after the facts. As far as I know, none of them have been indited for helping the US government break the law - arguably a more serious crime than insider trading.

The argument is that it's an instance of: "You bring me the man, I'll find you the crime."[1]

Now, it could be that in the telecom industry at the time, in the US, there was little or no corruption and insider trading, and Nacchio was an exception. I certainly don't think he was framed. But there are at least some indications that it could have been a "tit for tat" that landed him in prison.

[1] (reportedly stated by Stalin's chief of secret police, Lavrentiy Beria -- but I've been able to find a source).

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu

> If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

A similar quote with disputed origins

isn't that a quote by Voltaire?

Any argument relying on RT is suspicious; if you can't find an anti-government piece anywhere but there, it probably didn't happen.

All news sites carry a bias - all of them. Often main stream media in the home country wants/has to tow the line and omit details or not carry stories that might upset local authority.

So, to say a story is bunk because it appears in RT as a source demonstrates a wilful ignorance, or incredible naiveté.

I trust/distrust all media sources in equal measure, but the fun thing is that by reading a lot of them at the same time across the globe, you can more easily see the biases, and get to the root of the stories.

So, to say "I trust/distrust all media sources in equal measure" demonstrates a wilful ignorance, or incredible naiveté.

    > to say a story is bunk because it appears in RT as a
    > source demonstrates a wilful ignorance, or incredible
    > naiveté

I didn't. I said an argument that relies upon RT due to the story not being carried elswhere is "bunk".

    > All news sites carry a bias

But few are sanctioned by Ofcom for regularly broadcasting "materially misleading" content, called out by all manner of former employees for being propaganda machines, or widely derided by virtually every other serious media outlet. Attempting to cover that with a general statement of all media bias - having substantially misrepresented (or just not properly read) the comment you're replying to - "demonstrates a wilful ignorance, or incredible naiveté".

    All news sites carry a bias - all of them.

A little off-topic, is there a name for this kind of rhetoric? I've seen it used a lot, for example:

- When pointed to government corruption they would reply "all the other governments have corruption too", implying there's no difference.

- When asked about low level of life, they would reply something like "15% of your own people are living below the poverty line", implying nothing out of normal is going on.

It's like, one guy has his boot covered in shit and the second is covered in it fully, the first says "you have problem of being in shit" and the second responds "you have that problem too (pointing to his boot) so it's ok".

This argument basically implies something like "we must not discriminate on the grounds of this problem because it is normal for everyone to have it", avoiding the possibly disadvantageous discussion of what is level of the problem and whether this level is normal.

It's called "Tu quoque"[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

When applied directly to the Soviet Union or Russia it's sometimes called whataboutism [1].

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

The phrase you're looking for is "toe the line", having the sense of standing with your toes behind a line on the ground.

You might want to look up the difference between reliability and truthfulness. While there, take a look at [Circumstantial ad-hominem](http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-h...) :-)

Because something is printed in RT doesn't make it untrue. That something - critical of Russia's enemies - is only reported in RT and not in any other major new source - is a strong contender for being untrue.

For something to an example of the ad-hominem fallacy, it has to be discarded purely on the basis of the claimant. If something is being rejected on the basis that the claimant is unreliable and contradicts generally reliable sources, that is something quite different.

Should I start discounting RTs weather report for NYC based on their political reporting feel free to call me out on fallacious thinking.

> something ... is only reported in RT and not in any other major new source

And this is an appeal to numbers (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularit...)...

You may be right, but your logic is fallacious. If there's only one news source and that news source is biased, then it doesn't follow that anything they say is untrue.

You are calling something false based on the source. This is simply illogical: a broken clock is right twice a day. Following your reasoning it would be wrong even when right.

Either the news is true or it isn't. Judge it based on its own merits, not from its source.

Objective truth, lol, good one.

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