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Oscar_Cunningham comments on Rationality Quotes February 2014 - Less Wrong
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That's like saying that the best argument against capitalism is a five minute conversation with the average person about how he decides to buy things.
Or, in other words, Fallacy of composition .
Just because individual voters vote poorly (or because individual purchasers only buy things based on how cheap they are) doesn't mean that democracy (or the market) don't work.
Also, remember that Churchill was a colonialist and opposed the independence of India.
Isn't it sort of embarrassing to use an ad hominem against a quote which is so obviously misattributed?
You can use an ad hominem against an argument from authority. It's fighting fire with fire by showing that the authority isn't such a good authority. Sure, that has no bearing on the truth of the statement, but the appeal to authority never did in the first place.
The point is that Churchill opposed democracy in a situation where the verdict of history is that opposing democracy was absolutely the wrong thing to do. A quote which shows Churchill being elitist and against democracy completely fits with that. That isn't obviously a case of misattribution at all, it's just Churchill being Churchill.
Of course, Churchill was known for speaking out in favor of democracy in the context of Britain, but don't confuse that with wanting democracy for everyone.
What point would that be? True opposing independence for India turned out to be wrong, then again independence for the African colonies has been mostly a disaster.