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'How many children do you have?' | 751 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
'How many children do you have?'
Authored by: stegu on Thursday, October 04 2012 @ 11:40 AM EDT
I think you are splitting hairs in trying to
defend your opinion. I still do not agree, and
the distinction between my analogy and yours is
really null for the purpose of this argument.
Please do not call a strawman unless there is
one. I do not play those games.

Yes, "do you have children" and "have you ever had
any children" are semantically different questions,
but the relevant structure of the phrase is the same:
a question is asked about something related to
someone's personal history, and the answer reveals
only one portion of the obviously relevant information
that was asked for.

Your argument is about formal logic: that Hogan did
not technically say anything that was provably false.
Not telling anything that is provably false is not
equivalent to "telling the truth" in the common sense
meaning of the term, as is demonstrated by the term
"lie by omission" (which I just learned).
A jury selection interview has an obvious purpose
to shine light on any possible problems or
conflicts of interest among potential jurors.
Subjects should not only answer logically true
(i.e. "not false"), but should also answer
truthfully, making sure all relevant information
is disseminated and presented in enough context
for the judge and the counsel to make a decision
about whether something could prevent the potential
juror from fulfilling the duty at hand.

This is not contract law, and even if it were,
the interpretation of a contract is supposed to
be the expected interpretation from the plain
wording, not a twisted interpretation artificially
designed to dodge the very purpose of the contract
and make it null and void. (You may call that a
strawman argument as well, but I disagree.)

And while I agree that the questioning was a bit
sloppy, I do not agree that the person who asked
the question (Judge Koh) is an idiot. You would
be wise not to assume that either.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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