"Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity."
Anti-war activists have popularized the above statement (mostly in college-age demonstrations) since the protests during the Vietnam War. The phrase makes its point quickly and effectively. It is also emotionally compelling and carries a succinct bite. Unfortunately, it suffers from a logical fallacy: that of the false analogy.
The analogy is that fighting destroys peace and fucking destroys virginity. Thus, fighting for peace makes just as little sense as fucking for virginity (which is obviously pointless.) This seems to make sense. Where does the analogy fail? The analogy between virginity and peace is extremely weak. Virginity is something with which a person begins life. When a person willing participates in coitus they relinquish that status forever—it cannot be reclaimed. Conversely, peace, once removed, can be reinstated. If two nations are at peace, then declare war, and then end the war with a treaty, they are again at peace (however uneasy.) An obvious example is Japan or Germany and the Allied Powers of World War II. Peace is never permanently eliminated—it can always be restored by the elimination or surrender of one of the aggressive parties. Hence, in this context virginity is clearly not analogous to peace.
Thus the analogy is false, and so the statement has no value as a logical statement to objectively convey a point of view. If you desire to use logical fallacies to convince others of political standpoints, however, feel free to use this statement—it is very effective.
The above does not represent any political views of the author save his constant desire to expound the facts. The author does not wish to discuss politics with you. If the author has made a logical error of his own, please inform him post-haste.