Yawn.
Appeal to Authority (argumentum ad verecundiam)Definition: While sometimes it may be appropriate to cite an authority to support a point, often it is not. In particular, an appeal to authority is inappropriate if:
1. the person is not qualified to have an expert opinion on the subject,
2. experts in the field disagree on this issue.
3. the authority was making a joke, drunk, or otherwise not being seriousA variation of the fallacious appeal to authority is hearsay. An argument from hearsay is an argument which depends on second or third hand sources.
Source: http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/aa.php
It should be noted that you habitually employ both items #1 (i.e. citing a certain literature professor as a legal authority) and #2 (citing only the experts that support your view despite the existence of others that do not)
Five conditions for a legitimate argument from authoritySource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority1. The authority must have competence in an area, not just glamour, prestige, rank or popularity.
2. The judgement must be within the authority's field of competence.
3. The authority must be interpreted correctly.
4. Direct evidence must be available, at least in principle.
5. A technique is needed to adjudicate disagreements among equally qualified authorities.
It should also be noted that you habitually violate conditions 1 (pointing to an author's supposed "prestige" as a substitute to serious consideration and critique of his position's competence), 2 (citing authorities whose opinion is offered from outside their fields of competence), and 3 (correctly interpreting what the authority said - your most recent escapade violated this condition as you read your own extraneous material into the position you cited). Sadly, you have been corrected many times on each of these counts to no avail. Your positions are consistently flawed and consistently wrong yet you remain incorrigable. Every single post from you of late has that same old deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance.
"TOTALLY DISSOLVED."
Nothing in that marvelous display of learning changes the FACT that the states were formed at the behest of the Continental Congress, the embryo of the Nation.
1. the person is not qualified to have an expert opinion on the subject,
2. experts in the field disagree on this issue.
3. the authority was making a joke, drunk, or otherwise not being serious
Satisfying, or pointing out in argument the satisfaction of, one of these conditions is referred to as "subverted authority". I used it in pointing out that Gordon Wood is an author of markedly antirepublican and antidemocratic views who considers the American Revolution a failure and Hamilton as some sort of demiurge. You used it in dishing up the speckled career and deep-pink sympathies of Jack Rakove, and his lack of credentials in the field in which he was writing.