Engaging with American Democracy » November 4th: In-Class Activity

November 4th: In-Class Activity

“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

Announcements

  • EXTRA CREDIT: A Braver Campus Dialogue–REGISTER
    Under what circumstances should the United States become involved in international conflict?
    • Monday, Nov. 17th, 4:00pm
    • Woodward 135
  • Student Debate Fellows {This is not associated with Charlotte Debate}
  • Next two weeks
    • Test #2 is Thursday, 11/06
    • Veteran’s Day Observed on Thursday, 11/11–No Class
  • No Discussion Post due this week
  • Eisenhower Readings moved to Thursday, 11/13

Plan for the Day

  • Finish Oct. 30th’s webpage: MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
  • In-Class Assignment
    • Logical Fallacies
  • Democracy/Liberty/Freedom/ETC. quotation:
    “Schemes to extend federal power into the nooks and crannies of local and private activities are never publicly advertised as expansions of federal power, much less erosions of the Tenth Amendment….freedom is unlikely to be lost all at once and openly. It is far more likely to be eroded away, bit by bit, amid glittering promises and expressions of noble ideals.”
    —Thomas Sowell. The Quest for Cosmic Justice. Simon and Schuster, 2001, p. 184.

Sowell was born in Gastonia, NC.

Logical Fallacies

We’ve covered some logical fallacies this semester, but I wanted to focus your attention on the ones below for the in-class assignment.

Reductio Ad Hitlerum (Withey, 168)

This doesn’t just have to involve Hitler. The fallacy is an extreme version of ad hominem (pp. 16-28), but instead of attacking the character of a person in an attempt to invalidate a claim, this fallacy uses a practice of someone considered vile (like Hitler) to discredit it. I mean, Hitler drank water…

Godwin’s Law

Sometimes Reductio Ad Hitlerum and Godwin’s Law are lumped together, but I’d like to separate them for our purposes. “Godwin’s Law….holds that the longer an argument drags on, the likelier someone will stoop to a Hitler or Nazi analogy” (Conniff, p. 128). While the one above follows this (il)logic,

  • Major Premise: Hitler/NAZIs/Fascists did X
  • Minor Premise: This group or person also does X
  • Conclusion: Therefore, this group or person is just like Hitler.

Godwin’s Law only has to be an association. For instance, the President isn’t listening to us because he’s a fascist dictator. Of course, if one is discussing Nazi Germany or other instances of genocidal atrocities, the comparison can be true.

Appeal to Anger

This next example could be a red herring (Withey, p. 162) or appeal to fear (Withey, p. 58), but I’ll present it here as an appeal to anger. These categories are for an academic exercise and not to claim that pure fallacies exist and are self-evident. Consider this practice.

While campaigning for U.S. Senate in 1964, papa Bush dodged the issue of rampant discrimination (red herring) and implied that he would look out for the white majority that wasn’t protected by the Act. In the context of his speech to an audience of white workers (Carter xiii), Bush was also trying to appeal to the anger of the workers, who might believe minorities would be getting so-called special rights from this act. Bush’s strategy is typical of those who claim an oppressed group is trying to gain “special rights”—rights that somehow supercede their rights. Sometimes people of a majority argue against civil rights by (fallaciously) claiming that they—people of the majority—aren’t being helped by a certain piece of legislation. A politician spotlights this supposed injustice and evokes anger from a group. Here’s the quote:

“The new civil rights act was passed to protect 14 percent of the people. I’m also worried about the other 86 percent.”–George H. W. Bush quoted in Carter

So that’s it. We have incontrovertible evidence that the 41st President of the US was an absolute racist…well, let’s offer another example that might mitigate that statement. During the 1991 Louisiana Governor’s race, George H.W. Bush came out against the Republican David Duke (a long-time KKK member) in favor of the Democrat Edwin Edwards. Bush also provided the following unequivocal statement about David Duke:

“When someone asserts the Holocaust never took place, then I don’t believe that person ever deserves one iota of public trust. When someone has so recently endorsed Nazism, it is inconceivable that someone can reasonably aspire to a leadership role in a free society.”–George H. W. Bush quoted in Suro

Here’s another political example. Jesse Helms was running for re-election to the Senate in 1990, and Charlotte’s own Harvey B. Gantt opposed him. Helms ran this infamous “White Hands” ad. Although North Carolinians may take some solace in the fact that Jesse Helms never won overwhelmingly against Gantt, but he never lost, and retired in 2003 having been in that Senate seat since 1973—30 years!

In-Class Assignment: Responding to Rhetorical Messages

Originally, this was going to be the Debate Showcase, but we need a new plan. If you’re interested in debate, check out the Debate Team webpage and the Charlotte Speech and Debate Team on NinerEngage. Today, I’m going to show some clips, and you’ll get on Canvas to respond during class. This is only an in-class assignment. I hope I’ve queued these clips up, so we can watch them without any ads disrupting the flow:

Time permitting:

Next Class

We won’t meet as a class on Thursday, 11/06, because you’ll do Test #2 on Canvas. Also, no class on Tuesday, 11/11, in observance of Veteran’s Day.

Remember, there’s no Weekly Discussion due this week, and we’ll cover Dwight D. Eisenhower’s News Conference (June 17, 1953) and Farewell Address (January 17, 1961) after Test #2.

Works Cited

Carter, Dan T. From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1996.

Conniff, Richard. “In the Name of the Law: How to Win Arguments without Really Trying.” Smithsonian, vol. 38, no. 7, Oct. 2007, p. 128.

Sowell, Thomas. The Quest for Cosmic Justice. Simon and Schuster, 2001.

Suro, Roberto. “THE 1991 ELECTION: Louisiana; Bush Denounces Duke As Racist and Charlatan.” The New York Times, 7 Nov. 1991, p. 18. https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/07/us/the-1991-election-louisiana-bush-denounces-duke-as-racist-and-charlatan.html

Withey, Michael. Mastering Logical Fallacies: The Definitive Guide to Flawless Rhetoric and Bulletproof Logic. Zephyros P, 2016.