Technically, not true.
If I say, "The election was not rigged." That cannot be proven and there is no burden to prove that it wasn't. A negative statement is a counter to the affirmative statement, "The election was rigged." The person saying it was rigged has the burden of proof. If no one made thr affirmative statement, then the negative statement can be dismissed as a straw man because no one said it was.
If I say, "The election was not rigged." That cannot be proven and there is no burden to prove that it wasn't.
Not really.
If you categorically state something there must be evidence behind it for you to be certain. If you were to say, "The election was not rigged, as far as I can tell," there'd be no burden of proof on your part. For you to make what amounts to a factual claim, you need to be able to support it if you want to be taken seriously.
The same goes for the other side of the argument that the election was rigged / stolen. If you are going to make that claim you must have evidence to support it. (Looking at you, Rudy G.)
You aren't "categorically stating something". You are stating that the something, the affirmative claim, isn't true.
Dude, you can't prove that kind of negative. You simply can't. Does that mean that you can't state a negative? Of course not. The negative isn't the claim. The negative is the counter claim. The burden of proof is on the claim, not the counter claim.
Again, if no one made the actual claim, "The election was rigged," then the statement "The election was not rigged," is a straw man because you are refuting a claim that was never made. Straw man statements can be simply dismissed . However, if the actual claim "The election was rigged," was made, then the burden of proof lies with the actual claim. And failing to prove the claim, "The election was rigged," leads to the counter claim, "The election was not rigged," which can't be proven, even if true.
What would you consider proof for the alleged claim, "The election was not rigged"?
What would you consider proof for the alleged claim, "The election was not rigged"?
I would hope for a review of the data that allows someone ro confidently make that claim. As you point out, you can't prove a negative. In general that's true. In practice, depending upon the negative being claimed, you can. It's the monkey in the room argument.
In order to disprove the claim, "there's no monkey in that room " all you'd need to do is look in the room.
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