RIGHT WING WATCH AND BRAVE NEW FILMS WOULD LIKE TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING VIDEO of recent remarks from the "spiritual advisor" to The Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang of Indecision 2008 (otherwise known as John McCain) as invoke His Name to discredit those on welfare, as well as imply that "no Good Christian would go on welfare," let alone put themselves @ risk of moral lapse if they went on welfare:

Which, methinks, is up there with a popular illogical fallacy of equivocation and begging the question commonly known as the "No True Scotsman" such, the workings of which Wikipedia thus explains:

Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."

—Antony Flew, Thinking about Thinking, 1975

Flew's original example may be softened into the following:

Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

Reply: "But my uncle Angus, who is a Scotsman, likes sugar with his porridge."

Rebuttal: "Aye, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

In putting forward the above rebuttal one would be employing an ad hoc shift in argument. The proposer initially treats the definition of "Scotsman" as fixed, and says that there exists no predicated case that fall inside. When one such case is found, the proposer shifts to treat the case as fixed, and rather treats the boundary as debatable. The proposer could therefore be seen prejudicially not to desire an exact agreement on either the scope of the definition or the position of the case, but solely to keep the definition and case separate. One reason to do this would be to avoid giving the positive connotations of the definition ("Scotsman") to the negative case ("sex offender") or vice versa.

Formally the argument is an informal fallacy if the predicate ("puts sugar on porridge") is not contradictory to the previously accepted definition of the subject ("Scotsman"), or if the definition of the subject is silently adjusted after the fact to make the rebuttal work.

As another example, a layman may be debating the merits of different video camcorders. He might assert that: "Any video engineer will tell you that the Matsushiba KYX300 format is vastly superior to the Magnasonic VBX2000." If someone points out, many engineers are on record as saying that the VBX2000 is actually the superior system, the original speaker may modify his premise to state: "Any video engineer who knows what they are talking about."

This is really another form of begging the question. His assertion is essentially self-nullifying, in that, not being an engineer, he is hardly in any position to judge the credentials of people who are.

This is connected to the widespread attempt in debate to assert that positive terms (good, decent) imply, naturally or by definition, the characteristics argued for (opposition to capital punishment, pornography, smoking in public), rather than actually making an argument why they are connected. "No decent Scotsman" can be considered the moral (practical) equivalent of the theoretical "No true Scotsman".

For example, it may be asserted that "No decent person would support hanging", "watch pornography", or "smoke in public". This is an abbreviated form of the fallacy: compare "he may take salt in his porridge, but no true Scotsman would" and "(some people may support smoking in public), but no decent person would." Often the speaker seems unaware that he is, in fact, coercively (re)defining the meaning of the phrase "decent person" to gain tactical advantage in the argument. The use of this technique shifts the debate away from the merits of hanging, pornography, or smoking (or whatever controversial subject that may be at issue) by attempting to establish, without basis in logic, that anyone disagreeing with the speaker is, in fact, "indecent".

The word "real" may be substituted for "true" and still commit the same fallacy in different plumes. For example, when General George Patton said, "All real Americans love the sting of battle" to his soldiers, he was implying that they were un-American if they shrank from combat.

Which is enough to wonder if John McCain's attutude towards the Lower Classes is nothing but one of contempt and revulsion, preferably as objects of sick humour. And enough to start thinking about pushing mutual self-help initiatives as one towards helping these same Lower Classes help themselves against such a shift in welfare policy.

Unless, however, such can be shown as "perpetuating dependency" as opposed to "industry, self-reliance, personal responsibility, thrift based on cash economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life."