Make that, strawmen.
I hereby commence to strike a match, with which I shall obliterate every known use of the term “strawman.” Ready? POOOOFFF!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!
Whew! Much better.
I don’t often vent this kind of frustration, but am sick to death of the abuse of this term. It is probably more misused than “evangelical” these days, if that’s possible. Witness the attempted strawman coup -- double-coup, even (on both, or multiple, sides) -- in which an argument is used against another, whether strawman or not, which is itself a strawman argument, for the purpose of discrediting the original argument, against which another strawman is then set up, or alongside, and so on, and so on, to the complete obfuscation of any truth whatsoever.
For such a lightweight, the strawman has a pretty broad facade. And a big shadow behind.
So I say, get rid of it. I am the Strawman Inquisition. Its appearance be rumored, and *scritch!* POOOOOFFF!
(You want to knock down a “strawman,” real or imagined? Simply say, “X is a specious [or foolish, or just plain wrong] argument” and then explain why.)
