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Comment by Perceval | Hacker News Reader

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument toward the person" or "argument against the person"), is an argument which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise.

http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

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Unfortunately in this case the attack was accurate. The article starts with a correct but not novel explanation of dumb political games, then veers abruptly into libertarian cheerleading. The author mentions things like "too big to fail" but ignores the fact that companies got this way through deregulation in the first place. All in all, a disappointingly shallow argument.

The argument against 'too big to fail' presumes that such a thing doesn't exist. I.e., it isn't government's role to prop up corporations, regardless of the effect their failure _might_ have on the economy. In that view, deregulation, even if it encourages companies to become large, isn't a 'problem', so there isn't any inconsistency.

Eh? Disagree? The author of that article +is+ associated with the Ayn Rand Center.

there is 0 new interesting factual information in that article. it's just usual pro-market anti-government libertarian mantra all over again.

"there is 0 new interesting factual information in that article."

I didn't submit it because it had new interesting factual information, but because of the new interesting analysis of the factual information.

"it's just usual pro-market anti-government"

It is anti-government in the same sense as exposing police corruption is anti-government. This article would be more accurately described as anti-government-stepping-outside-of-its-proper-bounds. You'll notice that the article states that the judgment of Toyota should be "left to the objective assessment of the police and courts." The police and courts are government entities.

Yaron Brook and Don Watkins, the authors of the article, are not a Libertarians. They work for the Ayn Rand Institute, which advocates Ayn Rand's ideas. She had this to say about Libertarians:

"Libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people: they plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose, and they denounce me in a more vicious manner than any communist publication, when that fits their purpose. They are lower than any pragmatists, and what they hold against Objectivism is morality. They’d like to have an amoral political program."

I totally agree with article's idea that politicians are not supposed to be lynching private companies - there's government regulator for this purpose. But it can be said in single sentence without needless hyperbole.

It doesn't matter whether autor is objectivist, libertarian, socialist, communist or whatever. Doesn't make article any more valuable.

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