No. If you wanted to classify Obama as, say, a Kenyan, you would not need to evaluate his actions (but rather his heritage). However in order to classify him as a member of a political group you do. You are trying to associate with him a political movement that you have both a demonstrated animosity and ignorance towards.

Hence No True Scotsman does not apply. You can keep pretending otherwise but the fact of the matter is that it does not.

Not if you actually read my response. I know that is not part of your standard M.O. any more.

You're half right. The No True Scotsman fallacy indeed does not require a Scot. It does, however, require classifying someone based on something that does not relate to their actions. You are attempting to classify someone into a category that requires an understanding of their actions. The fact that you keep trying to shove that square peg into that round hole indicates you don't understand the actions of the said person, the category you are trying to place them into, or both.

Frankly, my money is on both.

In comparison to Obama, perhaps.

However if you want to champion that idea, then it leaves another question. If Reagan was not conservative, then we have never had a conservative president - why is that? Why is it that in 200+ years of our country we have never had a conservative president, and why would that be a good idea now?

We have certainly never had a socialist president in this country, and we cannot convince enough people that it would be a good idea to try it. Why would a conservative president be a good idea if none of the presidents who have met previously standing meanings of conservative were adequately conservative to meet the new meaning?

You are butchering the No True Scotsman fallacy with reckless abandon.

The original example of No True Scotsman is along the lines of "No true Scotsman would ever commit (heinous act)". The important thing to keep in mind is that being a Scotsman is not defined by (lack of) willingness to commit such an act, but rather it is a cultural / ethnic identifier that one is born with.

However a political affiliation is something that one chooses for oneself, and is based on your own beliefs (essentially the same as how one chooses a religion). Now in most cases the choice of political affiliation does not prevent one from doing any of a number of non-political acts, but it does indicate one's intent to pursue specified political acts that go with that affiliation. Hence if one is a Socialist, one is expected to pursue political acts that go with Socialism. Equally as much so, if one is a Socialist, one is expected to make effort to prevent the progress of political acts that are counter to Socialism.

Being as Obama has neither furthered Socialist political acts or prevented political acts that counter Socialism, he cannot be defined as a Socialist. Indeed if we compare his political acts to presidents who are generally viewed as Conservative (especially Reagan) we see that by actions Obama is indisputably in that league. Obama has signed multiple bills into law that have favored the highest income brackets and the largest businesses in this country. Those are aims that are directly counter to the interests of Socialism.

So again, this is absolutely 100% not a No True Scotsman fallacy. Similarly nobody who understands the No True Scotsman fallacy would try to claim otherwise.

Well, I would point to an example of the two of us having an actual discussion - rather than you dodging the topic when it becomes difficult for you - but I don't have the patience to dig that far back in my comment history. I was convinced that it had happened before, but you are causing me to doubt that.

Should I remind you that this JE is pointing out that your party bosses don't want you calling for impeachment anymore?

Hell, we almost managed to have a discussion here, until you torpedoed it a couple days ago.

No True Scotsman does not apply here, period.

No True Scotsman is along the lines of "a person of group X does not partake in specific non-group-defining activity Y". If we were saying that Obama was not an American because of his beliefs on wealth distribution, that would be a No True Scotsman argument. However you are trying to pigeonhole Obama as a socialist, which is a category that is defined by beliefs and actions. A socialist hence can be defined based on actions, and Obama has not partaken in those actions - at least, not as a president. Similarly if you were to claim that socialists cannot be left-handed and that Obama cannot be a socialist because he is left-handed, that would be a No True Scotsman argument.

So you want to claim that the last president of the USSR - who was the one to implement the final policy changes towards the market based economy that they have now - was somehow a closet socialist?

If you were a real conservative you would have at least picked a soviet leader who one could make even a marginal claim to be an actual socialist. Instead you picked the soviet leader whose economic policies were the least socialist of all. Of course, we both know you aren't a real conservative, rather here for the yucks and to generally make the conservative movement look silly.

To which I say bravo, sir. That was a nice cherry for the failure pie.

I happen to evaluate people by what they actually do rather than the labels that they - or others - apply to themselves. If you evaluate the actions of Yeltsin and the soviets you can only reach the conclusion that they abandoned anything resembling socialist ideals well before the rise to power of Stalin.

I've tried the free wifi at a number of Panera locations in different states over the years and generally found theirs to be amongst the worst of all free wifi setups. Half the time I couldn't even get a google search to work after logging in.

Boris Yeltsin was not a socialist. I'd say "nice try" but that really wasn't.

A week or so ago I recieved an email from microsoft telling me I needed to upgrade Skype on my smart phone; and that the version I was using would no longer be supported. I attempted to upgrade, only to find that the new version is too large to download and install on my phone as an upgrade. I then uninstalled the old version, and still didn't have enough space.

My solution at that point was to just stop using Skype.

That probably wasn't what Microsoft was aiming for, but it did change my behavior. Thanks, guys.

Tell me, oh wise one, what part of socialist philosophy embraces such lopsided distribution of wealth?

Here I thought you might actually try to defend your stance. Instead you are defending changing the topic away from it to avoid discussing it. Interesting play, there. Oh, how we both wish you had facts so that we could have an actual discussion.

Again, he is conserving the wealth distribution that was so proudly established under Reagan and two presidents named Bush. Funny how that happens, when all the bills that he signs in to law are written to extend the policies of the same.