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Dealing with O'Reilly

This video is best viewed after looking at the Glick/O'Reilly interview in a previous post.

Notice that at 4:35 O'Reilly uses a Strawman to characterize Glick's position in a rather blatant manner.

Observation and Conclusion

Does a video like this bring into question the reliability of eye-witness testimony?

Argument from Anger/Strawman

The issue here is whether or not illegal immigrants should be deported once law enforcement official identify them as such. Of course, no matter what one's stand is on this issue one should offer good reasons for one's position.

Though one can cull out something like arguments on both sides the escalation to yelling as if that is supposed to show something is an example of 'argument from anger.' This really heats up at 2:20. The point here is that some individuals may think that O'Reilly is winning his argument (or that Rivera is successfully counter-attacking [though he does ask O'Reilly at one point to "cool your jets"]) merely because they are getting loud.

A more clear example of a fallacy that occurs is a strawman (possibly a rhetorical explanation/circumstantial ad-hominem as well) at 2:55 where O'Reilly accuses Rivera of wanting "open boarder anarchy."

This could have very well been staged and to a certain segment of the population this kind of stuff is probably entertaining. Nevertheless, the rhetorical techniques mentioned above are documented.

There are at least two other fallacies in clip above. Can you spot them?

Obedience to Authority Experiment 2009

Being a natural skeptic I'm not sure that I buy that the experiment depicted in this film had the right controls, etc. (unlike Milgram's). It very well might have but I need to investigate and confirm this.

On the other hand, if we can safely assume that the footage we watched in 'Obedience' is accurate, this film gives us *at least* a dramatic appraisal of a plausible assessment of what is happening to the subjects from a psychological perspective in the well documented Milgram Experiment.

In particular, requests by the "teacher" to end the experiment were met by the following schedule:

1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

One final note: even if the reports in this account are true the sample set seems too small to draw broad conclusions.

Wishful Thinking--BS!!!

Why might people *desire* to believe in the super-natural to such an extent that the mere belief over-rides rational scrutiny?

The Amazing Randy has had a several decade challenge to anyone who can conclusively demonstrate para-normal (i.e., non-scientific) phenomena to the tune of 1 million dollars.

Begin at 5:46.

Wishful Thinking--OMG!

It is a shame that certain evil people will use their knowledge of human psychological weakness to prey on their fellow man.

Similar examples to this can be found by exploiting people who are trying to connect with some dead friend, relative, etc. The technique they use is "cold reading."

Stereotype--"Hip Hop Culture"

This one speaks for itself!

I think this is a fairly good example of how "leaping to conclusions" or more technically 'Hasty Generalizations' can underlie Stereotypes.

Can you spot any rhetorical devices used by the host of the program?

[Submitted by previous student Jonathan Lopez.]

Linguistic Spin: Plausible Deniability (also; Euphemisms and Dysphemisms)

Ok, this is a little dry, but notice that Pinker provides a reasonable explanation as to *how* politicians utilize plausible deniabilty to avoid saying anything with substance and *why* they do so.

FLAK-Rhetorical Explanation-Circumstantial Ad Hominem

In Richard Clarke's book 'Against All Enemies' Clarke claims that the Bush Administration turned a blind eye to warnings that could have helped prevent the attack on 9-11. He served as Bush I's, Clinton's and Bush II's Counter-Terrorism Adviser until his retirement in 2003.

Needless to say this claim did not sit well with the Bush Administration. In this clip we see an apparently orchestrated attack on Clarke's integrity ("Flack") through the use of the technique of Rhetorical Explanation/Circumstantial Ad Hominem.

In particular it is asserted that the reason that Clarke made this claim is because (1.) he is "auditioning" for a role in the Kerry administration and (2.) he just wants to sell books. Of course, this is essentially a Red Herring that distracts away from the real issue: What is the evidence for or against the claim that the Bush Administration was negligent?

[Note: In this clip from the documentary 'Outfoxed' the additional charge is made the Clarke contradicts himself in his book. It may be the case that the editors of this film (which is of course biased and thus subject to all of the normal suspicion one would cast upon an interested party) eliminated these more substantive charges. Nevertheless, the use of the rhetorical devices cited above is well documented.]

Peer Pressure/Group Think

Here is an example of Left Wing indoctrination. Notice that the key point for the Resident Advisor program is to get people to accept a pre-established conclusion. This is nothing less than fascist/communistic/Stalinist/anti-democratic rhetoric.

Even if you agree with their conclusions the point is that they should be arrived at by each individual freely and open-mindedly coming to this. Otherwise, it is just an example of scare tactics/appeal to force/PEER PRESSURE=GROUP THINK.

Rhetorical Explanations/Circumstantial Ad Hominem

When certain political parties are in power, or are striving to be in power, they tend to abandon their rationality. Most of my previous posts have been about the powerless at the time. They were generally more rational and from the left.

Now that the "left" are in power-- WHOA! Here is a great example of a two left-wingers just off the charts insane in terms of rational discourse. Shame on Olbermann who until recently had been as "hot-headed" as his opponents but has also presented real arguments.

This whole clip is a mish-mash of of a massive dose of rhetorical explanations/ circumstantial ad hominems (these people are just saying what they are saying since they are racists, are over-ridden by the limbic brain, stockholm syndrome controls them, just looking for a reason to yell at a black president, etc.--take your pick of left-wing targets) and dysphemisms ("tea bagging red necks" "white power activists")... ughhh. This is absolutely awful.

Line-Drawing Fallacy

Horse Laugh--Ridicule

At 2:50 Peter Schiff accurately predicts the collapse of the housing market.

At 3:42 we have a clear example of an embarrassingly unsophisticated manner of rejecting a claim--sanctimonious laughter.

False Dilemmas

I don't really think much needs to be said here except to point out that if this were true then the definition for being a terrorist would be: not to be (or have been) "with" the Bush Administration.

Straw Man

At 1:39 Ron Paul begins to respond to the question of whether or not the advisability of non-interventionist foreign policies changed after 9-11.

In a nutshell, he says that non-intervention is still advisable since foreign intervention was one of the major causes of the 9-11 attack. At 2:05 Paul introduces the principle of non-hypocrisy and asks, "What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico [building a massive embassy and a swarm of military bases]? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us."

The commentator then asks: "Are you suggesting that we invited the 9-11 attacks sir?"

This question is a very clever loaded question that insinuates that Paul was saying something very different from what he actually said. Notice that the insinuation that Paul was, in effect, suggesting that "we deserved it" confuses explanation with justification--and passivity ("blow back") with activity ("invitation").

The insinuated position is then used to characterize Paul's actual position (2:41) [and the crowd falls for it!]. This, of course, is a classic example of a straw man.

At 3:20 Paul should have simply said, "I never said that."

Why do straw man's work? Like red herrings, a slight tweak does the trick...

Red Herring

Here is an example of Hilary Clinton using a red herring to get out of responding to a question. She is asked whether it is problematic for Politicians to take money from special interest groups since this would seem to be likely to create a conflict of interest where such Politicians will then look out for the interests of the lobby groups rather than the American people. At 1:36 she says, "I don't think based on my thirty-five years of fighting for what I believe in anybody seriously believes I'm going to be influenced by a lobbyist for a particular interest group."

Notice that she has, ever so slightly, changed the issue. That, by the way, is an excellent tactic. If you gently tweak an issue your chances are better that it will fly under the radar.

[Submitted by former student Adam Gent.]

Group Think--Nationalism

In a Rose Garden press conference Bush displays a crystal clear example of nationalistic group think where he claims that making a comparison is between the "compassion and decency of the American people" and the "terrorist tactics of extremists" is "flawed logic" (2:27) and that this particular comparison is "unacceptable to think"(2:32).

Of course, in order to reject the comparison presumably one who have to make it to see that it is not accurate. Just who is guilty of flawed logic here? In any event this seems to be a clear example of shutting down one's critical faculties based on pride in membership in a group.

Scare Tactics

At 5:42 O'Reilly says that he thinks Bush should put the FBI on two 911 Truth researchers in a classic scare tactic. Along the way are a selection of circumstantial ad hominem attacks (rhetorical explanations), personal ad hominem attacks, rhetorical comparisons, dysphemisms and proof surrogates.

Argument from Anger/Outrage

Argument from Anger At 3:15 O'Reilly exlaims "See I'm more angry about it then you are!" in a classic appeal to anger. O'Reilly is acting as if the mere fact that he is angry constitutes a reason for thinking that his conclusion is better supported than Glick's conclusion. Put differently, he is acting as if he anger serves as evidence of something (i.e., that he [O'Reilly] is correct). Further analysis: At 1:35 O'Reilly engages in a reverse argument from popularity (i.e., your view is unpopular therefore it is false) calling Glick's position "far left." In the full clip he goes on to call Glick's position "a marginal position in this society." Also notice the blatant red herring at 1:50. At 1:18 Glick says "our current President now inherited a legacy from his father and inherited a political legacy that's responsible for training militarily, economically and situating geo-politically the parties involved in the alleged assassination and murder of my father and countless of others..." In case you doubt this you may want to read this interview with one of Obama's current advisors and Carter's previous National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski where he discusses how the CIA trained radical Muslims in Afghanistan in order to lure the Russians into "the Afghan trap" to give "the USSR its Vietnam war." At the end of the interview he is asked; "do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?" To which he replies: "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" Stirred-up Moslems... Needless to say this interview was conducted prior to 9-11.