Lily Allen: Broken Records, Broken Laws

> possessor of a third nipple and alleged pop icon

Jesus, ad hominem much? Are you trying to be taken seriously as a political party or do you just want to attack people you happen not to like?

I also think she's in the wrong here but any serious political reader is going to think this article is a joke.

I was attempting humour, so you are right that this is a serious topic that can also lend itself to a joke. I don't believe Allen's arguments deserve serious analysis. The point is how she uses her celebrity to exert an unhealthy influence on our democracy. I illustrated that Allen's qualification for talking about copyright is not based on any knowledge of the subject, something which is overlooked by the mainstream media. She gets disproportionate coverage because she is a celebrity. Part of the way she has attained and sustained her popularity is by utilizing personal contacts in the industry and by stunts like revealing her third nipple on television. Any argument about her credibility must be ad hominem by definition. I don't think it is that unusual for political debate to involve attacks on specific individuals when their behaviour is clearly hypocritical, as was the case here. The only sensible way to respond is to be irreverent.

Humour is fine but generally, and I don't make the rules, if you are making a statement under the banner of a "proper" political party then mocking your target's physical deformities (the third nipple thing) is not a great idea.

I'm not mocking Allen for being 'deformed'. If you read the sentence, it is a tongue-in-cheek list of Allen's claims to fame - actor dad, third nipple, sings pop songs. Most people would not show their third nipple on TV. Allen does, so she can't be precious about it. She uses fame to influence the world and pushes a political agenda that is fundamentally opposed to that of PPUK.

As for Allen's arguments deserving serious analysis, judge for yourself. I saw them and I don't believe they do, so I did not analyse them. I analysed her actions. She brazenly infringed copyright whilst pouring scorn on others who do the same. My argument is not about her beliefs in isolation, but about whether her beliefs are consistent with her actions. Any argument of this type is essentially ad hominem but not a fallacy. To rule out all ad hominem argument is to rule out identifying hypocrisy; to identify hypocrisy you must judge a person's actions as well as their words.

To not get too hung up on what words mean, the satirical nature of your post just does. This text box is not big enough for a discussion of the word "mock". I think if you're pointing me to the rest of the sentence, I'll have to point you to the rest of the post. You're mocking Lily Allen as outdated, media hungry, ignorant etc. Having three nipples is a deformity and it's irrelevant to copyright.

Ad hominem means against the person, not about the person. The two are different. You can highlight hypocrisy in a person's actions without writing 540 words on how bad Lily Allen is, which is really what you've got there. All you need to do is write "Lily Allen lifted a copyrighted post for her pro-copyright blog" - that's all the hypocrisy in 10 words and it's not ad hominem. Your post, nearly all of it, is.

My point boils down to: Lily Allen's not running for election on nearly the one issue of copyright- you are. Please talk more about copyright and less about how bad Lily Allen is.

"I don't believe Allen's arguments deserve serious analysis"

Ah. Right, that's really not great to hear actually. The last best hope for political freedom in the UK is dismissing opposing viewpoints out of hand now? Awesome. Lily Allen has made a bad attempt at entering the debate but she's in it and you shouldn't dismiss because she exerts "an unhealthy influence on our democracy" and she gets "disproportionate coverage." Maybe, but does that mean you won't talk to anyone who's not a copyright law professor and lives in a cave?

The reason that ad hominem attacks are fallacies is that they deal with the person making the point and don't deal with the point that's being debated. This means you end up looking like a name caller while the other side makes on topic points which, rightly or wrongly, are more relevant to the audience than your attacks. It doesn't matter how credible Lily Allen is at least she's talking about copyright and not the PPUK's nipples.

There's a phrase that is quite useful for arguments like Allen's: "Not even wrong". They are so far off-base, so wildly inaccurate, that discussing them gives them far more coverage than they deserve. It is not necessary to provide a structured argument against, say, someone who claims that aliens are stealing their money by mind-controlling woodland animals so forests must be depopulated to save the economy. Why give any sort of credence to similar outlandish claims? These two articles by Phil Plait offer another example: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/08/the-mainstreaming-of-evil/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/10/speech-impediment/

I don't agree with you there. Lily Allen claims that illegal file sharing is causing people to lose their jobs. That's not nearly as outlandish as alien conspiracies. It's a well known argument that a lot of people believe and that's why her point needs rebutted, it's not outlandish.

The unbelievable irony of the blog doesn't mean that her points become "not even wrong," it just makes her look silly. Her points remain, no matter how much you laugh at her.

There's a phrase that is quite useful for arguments like Allen's: "Not even wrong". They are so far off-base, so wildly inaccurate, that discussing them gives them far more coverage than they deserve. It is not necessary to provide a structured argument against, say, someone who claims that aliens are stealing their money by mind-controlling woodland animals so forests must be depopulated to save the economy. Why give any sort of credence to similar outlandish claims? These two articles by Phil Plait offer another example: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/08/the-mainstreaming-of-evil/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/10/speech-impediment/

There's a phrase that is quite useful for arguments like Allen's: "Not even wrong". They are so far off-base, so wildly inaccurate, that discussing them gives them far more coverage than they deserve. It is not necessary to provide a structured argument against, say, someone who claims that aliens are stealing their money by mind-controlling woodland animals so forests must be depopulated to save the economy. Why give any sort of credence to similar outlandish claims? These two articles by Phil Plait offer another example: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/08/the-mainstreaming-of-evil/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/10/speech-impediment/

There's a phrase that is quite useful for arguments like Allen's: "Not even wrong". They are so far off-base, so wildly inaccurate, that discussing them gives them far more coverage than they deserve. It is not necessary to provide a structured argument against, say, someone who claims that aliens are stealing their money by mind-controlling woodland animals so forests must be depopulated to save the economy. Why give any sort of credence to similar outlandish claims? These two articles by Phil Plait offer another example: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/08/the-mainstreaming-of-evil/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/10/speech-impediment/

There's a phrase that is quite useful for arguments like Allen's: "Not even wrong". They are so far off-base, so wildly inaccurate, that discussing them gives them far more coverage than they deserve. It is not necessary to provide a structured argument against, say, someone who claims that aliens are stealing their money by mind-controlling woodland animals so forests must be depopulated to save the economy. Why give any sort of credence to similar outlandish claims? These two articles by Phil Plait offer another example: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/08/the-mainstreaming-of-evil/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/10/speech-impediment/

Whoops, some odd Javascript useage here. Sorry about the post flood.

Whoops, some odd Javascript usage here. Sorry about the post flood.

> The only sensible way to respond is to be irreverent.

Perhaps. Depends on who you are aiming at. Do you think the BBC would report on the issue like this?

Is PPUK attempting to be a "fun" organisation or a serious political party?

In response to your question I am not trying to be the BBC, nor emulate their style of reporting - why would I? A better analogy would be the party political propaganda produced by other parties, which varies from very low-brow to exceedingly high-brow, as befits a democracy where everybody has a right to vote. For examples of how 'serious' politicians use humour, consider the following: all the party leaders will be telling jokes in their conference speeches, many of which will be personal jibes aimed at their rivals; politicians often appear on television comedy shows; and many of the points made at PM's Questions are designed to make fun of the opponent across the dispatch box. So I don't really believe in your assessment that making fun of Lily Allen on the party blog is inconsistent with PPUK being a serious political party.

> all the party leaders will be telling jokes in their > conference speeches, many of which will be personal jibes > aimed at their rivals

Indeed. When they start using phrases like "possessor of a third nipple" we'll know that you're talking the same language...

Thanks for pwoning Lily Allen's war against freedom.

Suporting with this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTXQFEdXTiQ

Long Live Pirate Party UK.

This is probably the reason it's impossible to add her as a friend on myspace. I wanted to respond to her blog but to do so you must be a friend, making it also impossible to comment on it.

It's pretty easy to win an argument when the people you argue against aren't allowed to make their voice heard.

Lily Allen pisses me off so much.

You can leave comments on her blog if you can verify your identity someway e.g. an openid or google account. I think it might help Lily if she got some more direct feedback on what people think of her - not that she probably reads it anyway, but somebody will summarize and tell her if she's risking doing harm to her popularity and sales. There are now 68 comments in response to her 'apology' (http://idontwanttochangetheworld.blogspot.com/2009/09/50-cent-post.html) and most of them very critical.

meh, the comments on here are an absolute joke.

FACT: SHE HAS A THIRD NIPPLE

FACT: Francisco Scaramanga also had a third nipple

FACT: Everybody i know with a third nipple is some kind of villain, fictional or NOT.

Ms Allen has NO problem getting involved with politics when it suits her. She leeches onto Anti-BNP fervour to gain popularity.

Personally, i find her "music" distressing.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090923/1409046297.shtml

Maybe it's time to join the Pirate Party and campaign for the right to do what you've just been caught doing, Lily?