Question: An example of a straw man fallacy? 

Answer: In an argument, one arguer may twist and distort his opponent's position until his position is grossly misrepresented.  He may then attack the distorted position (the straw man) which will be easy to attack.  However, since he has attacked a straw man rather than the real position of his opponent, his argument is fallacious.\n\nAn example would be as follows:\n\n"The Senator wants to abandon the new submarine programme.  I don't understand why he wants to leave the nation defenceless."\n\nHere, the Senator just wants to abandon one particular submarine programme.  Instead of exploring the Senator's reasons for being against this particular programme, the arguer pretends that he wants to "leave the nation defenceless".  This is a straw man which will be easy to attack but the argument is fallacious because the Senator never said that he wants to leave the nation defenceless.\n\nAnother example, from a domestic argument, would be:\n\nJill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy." \nBill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?" \nJill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."\n\nThere are two straw men here.  Jill never said that the closets should be cleaned every day and Bill never said that he wants to keep all his junk forever!
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