Whatever you do, please don’t change the title to “Guilt by Association”. That phrase is a tired cliché, completely devoid of any rhetorical force it may once have possessed. Saying “you’re just arguing guilt by association!” will never produce gasps and whispers in the audience, the way that
Even worse, this proposed usage would actually be different from the common meaning of “guilt by association”—and subtly different, which is the worst kind of different. The common usage has to more to do with people than ideas. To use a terrible, political example: consider an opponent of Obama claiming that Obama is a terrorist, because he hangs around with people like William Ayers, and an Obama supporter replying “You’re just arguing guilt by association!”
Whatever you do, please don’t change the title to “Guilt by Association”. That phrase is a tired cliché, completely devoid of any rhetorical force it may once have possessed. Saying “you’re just arguing guilt by association!” will never produce gasps and whispers in the audience, the way that
(complete with link to dedicated domain) will.
Even worse, this proposed usage would actually be different from the common meaning of “guilt by association”—and subtly different, which is the worst kind of different. The common usage has to more to do with people than ideas. To use a terrible, political example: consider an opponent of Obama claiming that Obama is a terrorist, because he hangs around with people like William Ayers, and an Obama supporter replying “You’re just arguing guilt by association!”