F4F | Guilt by Association

Fighting for the Faith

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Hello, fellow internet user! If you're watching this, then I'm sorry to inform you that you've committed the illogical fallacy known as Guilt by Association.

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Now, before I inevitably take your poor excuse of an argument and metaphorically take it out behind the woodshed to give it the

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WWE -style beatdown it deserves, I will courteously give you a functioning definition.

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Hold on a moment there, Mr. Savage. We're not quite ready for you. Okay there, buddy. According to LegalDictionary .net,

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Guilt by Association is defined as the idea that an individual is guilty of a crime because he associates with the person who actually committed it.

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For those of you in the audience who have a functioning prefrontal cortex, you can end the video right here because you have a reading comprehension score above that of your average third grader undergoing a debilitating

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Halloween -induced sugar rush. Alternatively, if you happen to be a close -to -40 -year -old -ish troglodyte still living with his mom who thinks filming themself eat a microphone for eight hours is a valid form of discourse, then stick around.

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Just for that, I'm gonna make another eight hours. We don't care! So what exactly constitutes a Guilt by Association fallacy?

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To better illustrate this, we're gonna travel into the magical world of Make Believe, where...

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The characters and events depicted are entirely fictitious, and any similarity to names or incidents are entirely coincidental.

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Here we go! For today's logical fallacy demonstration,

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I'm gonna call upon our friend Mr. Troglodyte from earlier. I didn't consent to this! Now let's say that, uh,

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Mr. Troglodyte finds himself in a romantic relationship with a woman from across the ocean.

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Let's say she's from... South Africa! Nothing sounds bad so far.

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And let's say that Mr. Troglodyte, after courting said guiltless female, flies her to the States and conducts a wedding ceremony.

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Still sounds aboveboard to me. Without applying for, or signing, a legal marriage certificate.

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Uh -oh. Mr. Troglodyte then consummates the not -legally -recognized marriage. Uh, please stop.

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Then, when our guiltless female's work visa expires, Mr. Troglodyte dumps her onto the next available flight to South Africa and deports her.

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Upon said dumpage, he then severs all forms of communication. I - I - Look, look, look, look.

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You don't understand, I can explain. All of these things are clearly heinous and wrong. Anyone who would treat another human being this way has some serious soul -searching to do.

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But this has nothing to do with your bi -association. I'm getting that part, Mr. Troglodyte.

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Now let's say that Mr. Troglodyte is asked to perform his amazing microphone mastication skills at a convention being put on by his friends.

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Remember, in the land of make -believe, anything is possible. Up to and including Mr. Troglodyte having friends. Hey! It is time to get in the pod and eat the bugs.

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I mean, microphones. Following the twisted standards of guilt by association, it is now possible to conclude that all of Mr.

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Troglodyte's friends, and any other individual who spoke at the microphone consumption convention, are guilty of marital abandonment.

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Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. But I'm not. Such conclusions are of course insane and slanderous.

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Mr. Troglodyte isn't off the hook for his crimes against his abandoned wife, but to insinuate that merely speaking at the same conference as someone who has committed a horrendous sin, thereby makes you guilty of said sin, is a leap of logic.

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Evil Knievel couldn't jump. Aaaaaaaah! Stop applying my own standards against me!

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That's not fair! I'm gonna - Oh, Mr. Simons! Ooh, yeah! Isn't the land of make -believe a glorious place?

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So now we know what guilt by association looks like. For contrast, let's discuss an example of someone voluntarily destroying their own credibility by openly endorsing someone else's malfeasance.

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Oh, this ought to be good. We're still not listening to you.

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Our prime example for today comes to us in the form of our good pal Doc Obbs, whose greatest hits include believing that owning and operating a private jet is more frugal than flying

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Goatch, ardently defending the fictitious sneaky squid spirit, denying the existence of the new apostolic reformation when people are clearly running around claiming to be active leaders of it.

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We hit it to the east, we hit it to the east, and command it, you go to the east.

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And who could forget, never dealing with the arguments of his detractors, but rather hiding behind the ad hominem attack of labeling them

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Hypercritics. We get it! In any case, known peddler of heretical teachings

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Kevin Zadai recently wrote a New York Times best coffee table paperweight book called

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Mystery of the Power of Words, a volume where Kevin Zadai makes the oh -so -heretical assertion that Jesus Christ's work was not completed on the cross, but rather he had extra work to do while residing in hell.

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He really wrote that? Even by my non -existent standards, that's totally whack.

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On this, we can agree. So how does this tie back to Dr. Michael Brown, or Doc Obbs for short?

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Well, it turns out, he wrote the foreword to the book! What does that even mean?

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Well, my socially maladjusted miscreants, it means that Doc Obbs boldly endorsed the book filled with objective heresy.

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We over at Pirate like to call this guilt by participation. So unlike being found guilty of a crime you didn't commit simply for breathing the same air as another person,

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Doc Obbs demonstrates how to tarnish your own name by loudly endorsing the heinous writings of another person.

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So why did Zadai still have a ministry? Because when asked about the endorsement, he stated that he wasn't very familiar with Zadai's teachings.

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So I didn't, not aware of what Kevin had claimed or not claimed, et cetera, aside from the one time we spent a couple hours together talking face to face.

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And to top it all off, to his own son -in -law under the bus for introducing him to Zadai in the first place.

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If not for my son -in -law, Ryan, recommending Kevin to me and mentioning that I really liked the book, then

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I wouldn't have done it just because we get asked to do this all the time. Wow! Yeah, it's pretty messed up.

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So just remember, if you commit the illogical fallacy of guilt by association, I'll personally send the ghost of Macho Man Randy Savage after you.

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And after I'm feeling extra ornery, I'll send Care Bear Jesus instead.

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That's all folks! Well, Kevin also claimed that Jesus took him up to heaven in a space elevator.

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Do you believe that? I'm not aware of that. Lydia, oh Lydia, say have you met

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Lydia? Lydia the tattooed lady. She has eyes that folks adore so, and a torso even more so.

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Lydia, oh Lydia. That encyclopedia. Oh Lydia, the queen of tattoo.

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On her back is the battle of Waterloo. Beside it, the wreck of the

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Hesperus II. And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue. You can learn a lot from Lydia.