Paul Burka, the senior executive editor for the Texas Monthly, wrote a piece on the Burka Blog about the impending Gun Rights demonstration in San Antonio. His commentary on the paranoid gun rights individuals was pretty good, considering he did not once refer to them as inferior to liberals or democrats. That is, he did not use many logical fallacies in his explanation about these gun-toting affairs.
His argument is apparently pointed at politicians using fear as a tool to manipulate conservatives, and that Jerry Patterson, a person that is currently running for Lieutenant Governor, is using that to his advantage. He cites that "[paranoid gun owners] are absolutely sure that a government agent will knock on their door at any moment..." to exemplify his stand that conservative politicians will use whatever they can to get an edge. As he writes, these gun advocates' wish is to "remind ordinary citizens ... that they are allowed in Texas to legally and openly carry what are known as 'long guns'." This is fine, but Burka goes on to a sort of slippery slope argument thereafter, claiming that he "suspects" that gun owners really want to support unconcealed-gun legislation. This speculation may or may not be true. What is true is that conservative politicians will use guns as a selling point because they have to. It's economics in politics - the firm that does not maximize profits does not succeed in the business, where the market and the government collide like physics and chemistry on the atomic scale. What Burka is really saying is that as long as the fear of losing one's weapon exists, politicians will use that against the people.
The gun culture and the drug culture have so much in common. People that depend on weapons for their hobbies will never vote for gun laws because people having weapons is the most important issue at this moment. Not whether the government just shut down and spent billions of dollars to b*tch about legislation that's already been ratified, or the fact that some people are not treated equally due to their preference of sexual activity. The truth is, people care about themselves and their immediate family - the ones they give a name to, who cook for them, clean for them, and love for them. And the hard cold truth of it all is that we have the Second Amendment so that ordinary citizens can create a militia - Against what? Against the biggest, most expensive, first-rate, and unrelenting force on the entire planet? Yeah, we call that the U.S. Military. I don't wish to admire our military, but rather bluntly explain that assault rifles don't win revolutions, especially hypothetical ones. My rant is over.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Monday, October 7, 2013
An Editor's Rhetoric
In the Austin Chronicle, I found an article under the Point Austin section about Obamacare. The arguments the author made were directed against the Republican party of Texas. Specifically, they were against the Texas governor Rick Perry, senator Ted Cruz (that senator who's apparently leading the whole government shutdown business), and the attorney general, Greg Abbot. It is true, this article was about an issue presiding in the United States legislature. But the focus was on the state level, where the governor and attorney general made their desires clear: that Obamacare would never be implemented in Texas.
The author, Michael King, is a writer and editor for the Austin Chronicle. The author does a fine job of appealing to a democratic ideals. The entire article is about how the governor and company would like nothing more than for Obamacare to burn. This is not to say the author has argued fairly - only that the author has argued with bias. Every word in the article was used against the Republicans in some way. For example, the Republicans were said to "leave many thousands of women and their families without access to basic health care services." One might say that's the reverse of sentimental appeals. It puts the Republicans in the bad guy's shoes, where we see them as leaving helpless women and children to fend for themselves. Could the author have not said, "leav[ing] many thousands of people without access to basic health care services"? The preceding text did mention Women's Health Care, but why bring this up? The author was explaining how Republicans aren't "actually improving or expanding health care for the more than six million Texans." Are men not included in these six million? When the author can just talk about the suffering, innocent, poor women, and how it's apparently the Republican's fault, then there's some logical fallacies.
Fortunately, the author does bring up a counter-argument of sorts. It's not so much that the author goes for the Republicans, but instead acknowledges that Obamacare may not be the best that in can be, and that a cooperation of both sides might be able to improve it. But he continues his intense bias with the last paragraph. He declares that once, opposing parties could come to agreements. But due to the Republicans, we can't. Therefore, Republicans are bad, or so one might be led to believe. The author even tosses in a number: 48 million Americans "without health insurance." Americans? Not just "individuals" or "people"? "By, God, these are our neighbors!" one might exclaim. And the sentence finally ends with the author saying that Republicans "offer only one, irresponsible answer: No." Surely, Republicans have some argument that consists of more than one syllable, so I would say a generalization is happening here.
The author, Michael King, is a writer and editor for the Austin Chronicle. The author does a fine job of appealing to a democratic ideals. The entire article is about how the governor and company would like nothing more than for Obamacare to burn. This is not to say the author has argued fairly - only that the author has argued with bias. Every word in the article was used against the Republicans in some way. For example, the Republicans were said to "leave many thousands of women and their families without access to basic health care services." One might say that's the reverse of sentimental appeals. It puts the Republicans in the bad guy's shoes, where we see them as leaving helpless women and children to fend for themselves. Could the author have not said, "leav[ing] many thousands of people without access to basic health care services"? The preceding text did mention Women's Health Care, but why bring this up? The author was explaining how Republicans aren't "actually improving or expanding health care for the more than six million Texans." Are men not included in these six million? When the author can just talk about the suffering, innocent, poor women, and how it's apparently the Republican's fault, then there's some logical fallacies.
Fortunately, the author does bring up a counter-argument of sorts. It's not so much that the author goes for the Republicans, but instead acknowledges that Obamacare may not be the best that in can be, and that a cooperation of both sides might be able to improve it. But he continues his intense bias with the last paragraph. He declares that once, opposing parties could come to agreements. But due to the Republicans, we can't. Therefore, Republicans are bad, or so one might be led to believe. The author even tosses in a number: 48 million Americans "without health insurance." Americans? Not just "individuals" or "people"? "By, God, these are our neighbors!" one might exclaim. And the sentence finally ends with the author saying that Republicans "offer only one, irresponsible answer: No." Surely, Republicans have some argument that consists of more than one syllable, so I would say a generalization is happening here.
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