In political discourse, if-by-whiskey is a relativist fallacy where the response to a question is contingent on the questioner's opinions and use of words with strong positive or negative connotations (e.g., terrorist as negative and freedom fighter as positive). An if-by-whiskey argument implemented through doublespeak appears to affirm both sides of an issue, and agrees with whichever side the listener supports, in effect, taking a position wit...
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In political discourse, if-by-whiskey is a relativist fallacy where the response to a question is contingent on the questioner's opinions and use of words with strong positive or negative connotations (e.g., terrorist as negative and freedom fighter as positive). An if-by-whiskey argument implemented through doublespeak appears to affirm both sides of an issue, and agrees with whichever side the listener supports, in effect, taking a position without taking a position. A similar idiom is "all things to all people", which is often used as a negative term in politics.
The label if-by-whiskey refers to a 1952 speech by Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr., a young lawmaker from the U.S. state of Mississippi, on the subject of whether Mississippi should continue to prohibit (which it did until 1966) or finally legalize alcoholic beverages:
The American columnist William Safire popularized the term in his column in The New York Times, but wrongly attributed it to Florida Governor Fuller Warren. He...
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