Mirjana Kentera
Professor Mullikan
English Comp 1
Morrill Hall, Room 208
3 November 2011
Rhetoric, Fallacies and Other Bologna
“Team Obama's Magic Act -- Rise of Deportations Hides Drop in Immigration Enforcement” by Bob Dane and, “Deportation by Numbers” by Paul Berdard, both tackle the pressing issue of illegal immigrants from Mexico who are crossing into our country more and more by the day and how we have and should go about dealing with them and deporting them. Dane creates quite a controversial stand point in his article, regarding “who is at fault” politically, whereas Berdard keeps his article relatively factual all the way through playing and catering to both sides of the political spectrum. Throughout his article, Dane gets help from more ethos and pathos rhetorical appeals as opposed to Berdard, who is prone to using more of the logical rhetoric. Disregarding their differences, in both articles it is unfortunately easy to find quite a few instances where the two authors commit a couple of logical fallacies in trying to prove their overall points to their readers. There points being, that President Obama is not doing everything in his power to keep the illegal aliens in their own country. This topic appeals to more of the right wing audience, as opposed to the left, because of the fact that it does not side with President Obama, but rather, criticizes him.
Neither Berdard nor Dane talk about their qualifications for writing their articles in the body of their actual article, Dane however has a note that follows his article which gives a quick statement about his qualifications. It merely states that he is a Communications Director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform. For those of us who do not know off-hand what that is, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, often referred to as FAIR, is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization comprised of concerned American citizens who share the common belief that the US’s immigration policies have to be reformed to better serve the interest of the nation. Having been given this information by this third party the reader may now assume through this ethos that Dane is in fact a qualified author for this topic. Berdard on the other hand gives his reader no indication of his qualifications in the body of the article or in a footnote as does Dane. We may then identify that his ethos has not been made apparent to the reader. Which does not mean he has committed the logical fallacy of False ethos because he has not given false information about himself, he has merely failed to give any information. The author is giving no information regarding obvious pertinent experience desired when writing an article of this magnitude. However, to play the sleuth for the moment, quite a bit of what would otherwise be called subtle evidence comes to light on behalf Berdard. This evidence is as follows: Berdard’s article was published in US News and World Report, which is an online news service highly acclaimed across the globe that is updated daily. Through further exploration of their website one may find that one “Paul Berdard” is the main writer for the section entitled “politics and policies”, the section where this article can be found. The reader can now assume that Berdard may be somewhat credible in terms of him writing this article but there is no obvious ethos which supports or states that he is otherwise qualified. The reader ends up having the choice to believe what this author is writing about or to drop this article and find one that clearly defines weather or no the author has the proper qualifications for this topic.
In the two articles Berdard and Dane make use of simple logic in several occasions to help get their points across to their audiences in a way that they will hopefully comprehend. However, it is apparent on reading Berdard’s article that the majority of his claims rely on a logical backing of evidence, whereas Dane makes use of logic but does not make it a necessity in supporting his claims. Berdard uses logic at its simplest in the following statements: “Since late 2007, the Customs and Border Protection workforce has jumped 32 percent; Border Patrol agents have surged from 14,923 to 21,370; and the share of miles on the southwest border under "operational control" has increased since 2006 to 44 percent, or 873 miles. And since then our country has been all the more safe.” Here he uses facts to lead into the logic of “if we do all this to make it safe, then it is now safer”. This type of logic is commonly referred to as false cause. Since “a” occurred before “b”, “a” is the cause of “b”. So, because our efforts at keeping the illegal immigrants were successful, we are safer as a result of it. Dane on the other hand, committed a fallacy of his own. He committed what is called a “slippery slope” logical fallacy. This is where a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another event without having any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. The quote that follows is the example that can be found in Dane’s article: “Unfortunately these new priorities [for dealing with illegal aliens] transmit a global message for all those thinking about coming to the United States illegally; get in by whatever means, don’t rape, rob, murder, or blow things up and you’ve got nothing to worry about. And if you do get caught, you’ll be released and given work authorization. The new priorities have created the ultimate incentive to attract more illegal immigration.” Here Dane is stating that because of these new priorities for dealing with illegal immigrants, then all an illegal immigrant has to do is not become a felon, and as a result they will be handed a work authorization. Then, to go one more step further: once they are handed a work authorization, it will give others a large incentive to come over the border and do the same. Then in the end, these new illegal immigrants will get the reward of a work authorization. And so continues the slippery slope of illegal aliens “slipping” under our border patrol’s noses.
In an attempt to appeal to the reader’s pathos, Dane begins the crux of his article with the following statement: “The famous magician Harry Houdini would be proud of President Obama’s efforts to fool Americans into believing that immigration enforcement has increased.” In this one statement alone the audience is meant to receive a number of points. First off, by mentioning Harry Houdini, Dane requires his readers to remember this sensational escape artist, illusionist and magician in order for them to truly understand the analogy he has made between the two men. Secondly, by comparing President Obama to Harry Houdini, Dane sets it up so that his readers get the feeling of betrayal by President Obama. This is betrayal in the sense that: President Obama promised to be so much to the people and now he has been “uncovered” by Dane as being nothing more than a magician and escape artist. When the President of the United States is comparable to an illusionist, the first thing anyone should be thinking is this is not right. After realizing this, the reader should want to know why the President is being compared to someone like Houdini and so they keep reading. In continuing on the reader sees that Dane continues by saying “President Obama’s efforts to fool Americans [into believing something]” leaves the reader wondering if he himself had been fooled by this, which then gives the reader a feeling of self-consciousness. In a sense, this could be called guilt by association; where one associates the opposition with something that is negative even if that something is wrong or illogical. So by associating President Obama with the magician Houdini Dane is committing this logical fallacy. An upstanding President should not expect to do well in upcoming elections after having been associated with a magician and illusionist.
We find also, that Berdard has committed the same fallacy of “guilt by association” In the following statement: “There's a new "decider" in town. Former President Bush first declared that "I'm the decider," and now President Obama is taking that title over.” In this statement, Berdard associates President Obama with the former President George W. Bush. Former President Bush is of an opposite party, and associating one with the other does not bode well for future elections for President Obama; considering former President Bush was as Berdard put it: “little better than laughed out of office”. This then makes the reader in league with former President Bush, feel stupid for having helped to support such a “ridiculous” candidate. It also makes the reader in league with President Obama feel insulted for having been compared to such an unworthy opponent. In both articles, each author made use of the same claim by President Obama, in order to support some argument. The study being: “[President] Obama claims that his nearly 400,000 annual deportations of illegal aliens are higher than yearly deportations under [former] President Bush.” Though they both make use of the same “quote” so to speak, they both ended up using it for different purpose. Berdard uses it in order to support the claim that the country is all the more safe because of all the deportations President Obama has seen to. Using it in this fashion, Berdard makes his readers feel content, that: A- they are safe, and B- their President is finally doing something when really he is not, here Berdard is being sarcastic. Dane on the other hand immediately follows this statement with the following one: “The claim is true – sort of, but so what?” With this one short, concise and “to the point” statement Dane is able to take the reader from being unsure of if the author is being sarcastic to sure of it. The readers of Berdard’s article are somewhat left in the realm of uncertainty, if they are not astute enough to pick up on the sarcasm, whereas Dane somewhat coddles his readers and makes sure he tells his readers exactly what he means and from this the emotions that they should be feeling. So to patch it up with his readers, Dane tacks this statement to the end of his point: “The previous president never adequately addressed the escalating cost and impact of illegal immigration so using his deportation numbers as a benchmark sets the bar very low.” Now the reader begins to see the logic behind Dane’s claim and they do not only have to trust the sarcasm, and his nonchalant air. In giving a bit of extra information Dane further continues to coddle his readers, by expounding a bit more on his idea, and his point that he made.
Throughout these two articles Berdard and Dane both successfully demonstrate the uses of rhetoric and logical fallacies in “backing up” their many claims to their audiences. Dane and Berdard play to the emotions and logical understandings of their audiences in order to convince them of the extent and importance of the issue of Border Control. They committed some logical fallacies and Rhetorical appeals into their articles, very subtly, using other’s quotes, many statistics and different hypothetical examples about how the illegal trafficking of these aliens is now and how it can be either stopped or potentially made worse.
Works Cited
Bedard, Paul. "Deportation By Numbers." U.S. News Digital Weekly 3.35 (2011): 3. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.
Dane, Bob. “Team Obama's Magic Act -- Rise of Deportations Hides Drop in Immigration Enforcement.” Fox News.com. (2011). WEB. 27 Oct. 2011.
