F. Freddie. I've got to say that in a weird way my respect for conservatives has increased during the present crisis. I've talked to a lot of conservatives about the present situation and most of them present a very reasonable case for their own side. They are not a bunch of bloodthirsty warmongers, or knee-jerk jingoists who support any military action no matter how ill-advised. Rather, the overwhelming majority of the ones I've talked to are extremely upset by what they see as the necessity for military action, and although I firmly disagree with their reasoning, I have to say that most of them have taken a great deal of time and effort to think through the issues. Let's face it, there's plenty of intelligent conservatives out there.
Martina. I don't know how you can say that there are plenty of intelligent conservatives out there. I've listened to A.M. radio dozens of times and every Conservative talk show host I've ever heard has been an ignorant, irrational blowhard who does nothing but disparage liberals without ever bothering to find out what any actual liberals are actually saying about anything! Yes, there's a lot of variety in these talk show hosts. There are loud blustery idiots, and quiet vicious idiots, and pedantic boring idiots, and self-important patronizing idiots. But there's nobody who's willing to even begin to talk about the real issues and arguments!

Freddie       1. Freddie has talked to a lot of conservatives
                   2. None of Freddie's conservatives is a bloodthirsty warmonger, or a knee-jerk jingoist
                   3.Most of Freddie's conservatives have taken a great deal of time and effort to think through the issues
                   C. There are plenty of intelligent conservatives out there                                               DIRECT

Martina     1. Every Conservative talk show host on A.M. radio is an ignorant, irrational blowhard
                 C. There's no intelligent conservatives out there                                       DIRECT

Freddie gives a direct argument
Martina gives a direct argument [because she does not attack the logic of Freddie's argument.]

Martina bears the burden of proof here because she is making a broad generalization that goes beyond what we would expect, given what we know about human groups and institutions. History shows that it is very unusual for any group of people to be such that it contains no intelligent members. If Martina wants us to believe that no conservatives are intelligent, she is going to have to give a strong argument to that effect. In the absence of such an argument, the null hypothesis would be that conservatives are like any other human group, and have some intelligent and some moronic members. This is Freddie's conclusion, so he does not bear the burden of proof.  [However, if you were to say that Freddie bears the burden of proof because he's trying to prove that something exists, that wouldn't be too bad.]

Freddie:    Explanation Argument.                                          Martina          Generalization Argument.
                 Thing: Freddie knows some smart conservatives                         Population: conservatives
                 Explanation: Not all conservatives are idiots                                Sample: A.M. radio talk jockeys  
                                                                                                                   Age: current
                                                                                                                   Size: dozens

Evaluation: The key to this exercise is to look at the difference between the two conclusions. Both samples are recent, both are small, and neither is randomly chosen from the population. So the two arguments are just about equal in terms of their premises. Now look at the difference in their conclusions. Freddie argues that there are "plenty" of intelligent conservatives, while Martina argues that there are no intelligent conservatives. Freddie's conclusion could be true, and Martina's conclusion false, even if AM radio is populated by idiots, since only a few conservatives have radio shows. However, Martina's conclusion is that no intelligent conservatives exist, which would imply that the intelligent conservatives that Freddie is talking about do not exist. Since they do exist, Martina's conclusion must be wrong, and her argument is a hasty generalization from a small sample. Since Freddie's conclusion is much weaker than Martina's, his argument is much stronger

Fallacy: Martina: hasty generalization

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