The given example is more clarification than fallacy. He's against bad things and for good things? What could be clearer? :)
Does anyone know of any other examples of if-by-whiskey being used today?
Is it useful for politicians or would it completely backfire, where any opposition would try to say "You are quoted as being pro-alcohol: calling it the philosophic wine" or "anti-alcohol, calling it the devil's brew" and pick the paragraph that suits their needs?
The whole debt debate. If by spending you mean crippling debt being left to our children, interest paid to furreiners, etc etc, it's bad and everyone who supports it is bad. If by spending, you mean the concrete things that we are spending money on, of course this specific thing is so wonderful that it's worth it and anyone who says otherwise is bad, and in fact I may I just go out on a limb and say that we need more of this sort of spending.
(Lest you think I'm being partisan here, there's a very clear pattern in the last 20 years on which party in the US wants to spend, and which party wants to cut, and it's not D/R or liberal/conservative in either direction. The pattern is that the majority party wants to spend, and the minority party wants to cut. One can not help but cynically observe that what really bothers the minority party is majority's successful ladling out of the pork for patronage to the other guy's constituents, rather than any sort of real offense about spending. And thus, to be clear, the reason I chose this as my example is that you can find instances of the same individual giving both halves of this speech, playing both sides of the argument, separated by about a decade and one flip of the majority party.)
I think your theory needs tuning.
https://www.google.com/search?q=special+education+spending&#...
The arguments aren't always doublespeak I'd say. You can very well be for something, given a set of circumstances, but against the same thing, given a different set of circumstances.
The political problem I'd say, is figuring out how to separate, or even if you can separate, the "bad circumstances" from the "good circumstances"
Is it a terrorist or a freedom fighter? = Is it an assault weapon or a rifle?
A more apt analogy would be
Religious Conservative : Taliban :: Rifle : Assault Rifle
My point being that, in this case, it's not simply a matter of perspective. Now, if the debate were much more polarized, one could see something like
Terrorist : Freedom Fighter :: Murder Machine : 2nd Amendment Rights
It looks like the law is similar in DC. Possession of a magazine with >10 round capacity is a crime. Other firearm laws are irrelevant to the case you linked to.
The only real difference between an "assault rifle" and a "regular" rifle is the color/design. One is painted black and looks scary. The other is usually wood tone. They are equally dangerous. You can find high capacity clips/magazines for virtually any brand or style semi-automatic rifle (and handgun) made.
Though the second amendment is strictly about protecting this latter use.
Some people argue that this means:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of persons who belong to such a militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
This raises two questions:
1) Why did they not write that?
2) Did every person who fought against the British, and who had a weapon of their own, belong to a militia when they purchased the weapon?
Aftern considering these questions, it is clear that the second interpretation is not what they meant at all. What they meant was:
A) A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.
B) A well regulated militia cannot happen unless US Citizens have the right to bear arms. That there be a large element of the population who can rise up and form a militia, "officered by men chosen from among themselves"[1] is necessary for (A) to occur. Therefore, whether or not such a militia exists, and whether nor not a given person is a member of such a militia, all persons have the right to bear arms because one day they may be needed.
So when people say "Well we don't have an organized militia so you don't get to have guns", they have it exactly backwards. Instead of banning guns, we should be organizing militia. Not government militia. Not state militia. But organizations of free citizens getting together to organize and practice. This is exactly the opposite of what the federal government has been doing. Where these organizations exist, it has been shutting them down by force.
By all means argue that we have no need of a militia, and that we should therefore strike the second amendment. However, do not pretent that the second amendment means that only army reservists or state police should have guns, or that "regulated" implies that the very enemy it protects against (the state) should do the regulating.