I have nothing against Detroit. The only difference between Chicago and Detroit is that, rather than toiling in slaughterhouses and rock quarries, you twist nuts and bolts together on smokey, soot-encrusted assembly lines.

You see, I was originally born & raised in a hovel belonging to a grizzled old midwife in Flint, and my parents now live in Oakland County, not far from where you currently scratch out your meager, culturally-void existence.

Take heart, fellow prisoner of the vast, unforgiving wasteland between New York and California, for we are brothers in our misery.

Translation: Just keep disagreeing with me.

Will do.

Okay, I'll bite. My statement is ironic because I'm apparently a follower of Rush Limbaugh (this was the only definition of "dittohead" I was able to find using Google)?

As for the "pseudo-intellectual fallacy" part, I'm fairly certain that this just means "any viewpoint that contradicts my own". There's no point in arguing with me on this "static property", as I'm holding as firm to it as you are to yours regarding the boorish & unintelligent nature of everyone outside of the bubble in which you live.

First of all, I refute the idea that reductio ad absurdum (which is what I assume you're referring to when you say "argument ad absurditum") is a fallacious form of argument. It is in fact a valid form of argument, as long as one is careful to not allow it to become a strawman argument.

While Wikipedia isn't an academically citeable source, its article on this topic starts off with what I found to be an excellent summary, and seems to match up fairly well with the peer-reviewed source cited above:

"Reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to the absurd")...is a type of logical argument where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument and derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original claim must have been wrong as it led to an absurd result."

I am arguing that your original claim (Every city and county between new york and san francisco is filled to the ears with "adults" who never grew up. (that's not to say there aren't a fair share IN those cities, but the ratio is far higher in what is colloquially referred to as "middle america") is absurd, and am following your claim to its most extreme and ridiculous outcome to argue my viewpoint that your original claim is wrong.

Would it have helped if I'd ended my previous post with Q.E.A.?

Are you now saying that you were joking, or being sarcastic? Am I guilty of feeding the troll?

Your generalizations are absolutely correct. I speak from personal experience, as I live in Chicago. I guess you could say I live "downtown", if you could call it that, as it's basically a patch of hard-packed dirt that serves as a "town square" of sorts surrounded by the burnt-out & partially-collapsed shells of once-permanent structures intermingled with crude huts and flimsy market stands.

Our dialect here is a mangled, barely-literate system of monosyllabic grunts that is only vaguely recognizable as having once derived from English.

When we're not engaging in menial labor in deplorable slaughterhouses and rock quarries, we venture out of our rudimentary shelters to beat up minorities, wager our food stamps on cockfights, drink copious amounts of homemade liquor, and, when there are no minorities left to beat up, drunkenly brawl with each other.

On Sundays we all attend Latin mass. At least I think it's Latin...it could be English for all I know (we speak a primarily grunt-based dialect, if you'll recall).

In summary, everything between the coasts is just awful. We are a godforsaken group of sloping-browed heathens who will quite literally eat you alive if you attempt to venture near any of our Mad Max-like settlements. I would advise you and all like-minded coastal urbanites to stay in your cities and not attempt to make any contact with us, for your own safety of course.

I actually do sometimes take a boat to work when the weather is decent...well, walk 15 minutes to the Chicago river, hop on the Riverbus (privately-run, but cheaper than public transit!), then walk 5 minutes to the office.

There's nothing like a boat ride to work on a crisp, beautiful morning to prepare you for a day of IT b.s., and a boat ride home on a warm, sunny afternoon to de-stress you from the aforementioned IT b.s.

However, when it's 9 degrees & snowing (we're under a blizzard watch/warning for the next couple days), I take the bus, which is significantly less therapeutic.