The general case in reference to libertarianism has started to be referred to as “Reductio Ad Somalium.”
Specific cases may be instances of “Inconsistent Comparison,” “Mind Projection Fallacy,” or “Nirvana Fallacy,” depending on the case in question. As an example of each, from my personal experiences:
Inconsistent Comparison: This is -extremely- common in political arguments, particularly concerning gun control or healthcare; it’s basically a case of selectively picking statistics out for comparison with specific countries. Individual comparisons don’t qualify, incidentally, it’s when somebody picks and chooses comparisons to make, over the course of an argument, that it starts to qualify. Talking about gun crime in Australia, and then violent assault in Japan, and then… (etc)
Mind Projection Fallacy is hard to pin down to particular cases; it’s -too broad- a fallacy, and pervasive throughout every political argument. Functionally, however, anytime assumes their favored policies will work, and compare their working policies to your assumed-to-fail policies, that’s an example. (Evidence-based arguments are not the same. This is a tricky one, because the difference between projection and incorrect belief based on erroneous information is hard to pin down.) It’s most common in thing like social justice, where arguers assume society is the way they observe it. (This pertains to -both- sides of any such debate.) “Privilege” arguments are closely related to this fallacy, and tend to both point out cases of it and represent cases of it.
Nirvana Fallacy: Comparison to some perfect, yet generally unnamed alternative; or comparison to the perfect case. It’s common in political arguments for people to point out that libertarianism results in some people living in poverty; this is a case of Nirvana Fallacy, as -every- governmental form yet tested has -also- resulted in some people living in poverty; the Nirvana Fallacy is most common in cases where no specific alternative is offered.
The general case in reference to libertarianism has started to be referred to as “Reductio Ad Somalium.”
Specific cases may be instances of “Inconsistent Comparison,” “Mind Projection Fallacy,” or “Nirvana Fallacy,” depending on the case in question. As an example of each, from my personal experiences:
Inconsistent Comparison: This is -extremely- common in political arguments, particularly concerning gun control or healthcare; it’s basically a case of selectively picking statistics out for comparison with specific countries. Individual comparisons don’t qualify, incidentally, it’s when somebody picks and chooses comparisons to make, over the course of an argument, that it starts to qualify. Talking about gun crime in Australia, and then violent assault in Japan, and then… (etc)
Mind Projection Fallacy is hard to pin down to particular cases; it’s -too broad- a fallacy, and pervasive throughout every political argument. Functionally, however, anytime assumes their favored policies will work, and compare their working policies to your assumed-to-fail policies, that’s an example. (Evidence-based arguments are not the same. This is a tricky one, because the difference between projection and incorrect belief based on erroneous information is hard to pin down.) It’s most common in thing like social justice, where arguers assume society is the way they observe it. (This pertains to -both- sides of any such debate.) “Privilege” arguments are closely related to this fallacy, and tend to both point out cases of it and represent cases of it.
Nirvana Fallacy: Comparison to some perfect, yet generally unnamed alternative; or comparison to the perfect case. It’s common in political arguments for people to point out that libertarianism results in some people living in poverty; this is a case of Nirvana Fallacy, as -every- governmental form yet tested has -also- resulted in some people living in poverty; the Nirvana Fallacy is most common in cases where no specific alternative is offered.