A Politician’s Best Friend: Fallacies Fallacies are claims used to support an argument without proper logic or evidence. They occur in a multitude of fashions such as broad, or “sweeping,” generalizations and using a lack of evidence to support claims (appeal to ignorance.) While it is true that fallacies weaken the validity of an argument, their use is not necessarily ineffective. Politicians, journalists, even academics, at times, are subject to use fallacies to persuade an audience, often without the audience being aware of the fallacy. The morality of using a fallacy is dubious at best, as it orchestrates a statement that appears true at a surface level, but is often used to mislead and push an agenda. An example of this is the ad hominem
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In order for a free and open democratic society to function, citizens must be intelligent and skilled enough in rhetoric to be able to formulate opinions derived from facts and accurate representations of current events and issues. The inability of citizens to see past an influential demagogue’s fallacious argument can result in an ill-informed public that is susceptible to manipulation. This agenda of fallacious arguments is often designed to consolidate power, influence, and liberty away from the citizens. Consequently, passage of legislation under the sensationalism of fallacies exemplifies the manipulation of politics and journalism. The passage of the Patriot Act would fall under the fallacious definition of post hoc. Politicians passed the act under the grounds that government surveillance, through the oppression of civil liberties, is the key to fighting terrorism. While there is no evidence that religious extremist terrorism is a result of the United States’ civil liberties, the grounds of the Patriot Act suggested so. The illogical assumption that terrorism occurs as a result of civil liberties existing without restraint defines the bill’s passage as post hoc. The Patriot Act distracted citizens, causing focus on the moral ground of liberties v. protection, rather than the best legislation to move forward in foreign
In order for a free and open democratic society to function, citizens must be intelligent and skilled enough in rhetoric to be able to formulate opinions derived from facts and accurate representations of current events and issues. The inability of citizens to see past an influential demagogue’s fallacious argument can result in an ill-informed public that is susceptible to manipulation. This agenda of fallacious arguments is often designed to consolidate power, influence, and liberty away from the citizens. Consequently, passage of legislation under the sensationalism of fallacies exemplifies the manipulation of politics and journalism. The passage of the Patriot Act would fall under the fallacious definition of post hoc. Politicians passed the act under the grounds that government surveillance, through the oppression of civil liberties, is the key to fighting terrorism. While there is no evidence that religious extremist terrorism is a result of the United States’ civil liberties, the grounds of the Patriot Act suggested so. The illogical assumption that terrorism occurs as a result of civil liberties existing without restraint defines the bill’s passage as post hoc. The Patriot Act distracted citizens, causing focus on the moral ground of liberties v. protection, rather than the best legislation to move forward in foreign