Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Rhetorical Fallacies

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ehrenreich-stealing-from-the-poor-20120517,0,7201749.story
"When all else fails, rob the poor"


  In Barbara Ehrenreich's article on the L.A. Times, she talks about what the government and businesses do to the poor. The fallacies start from the beginning of Barbara's article with some for example, "Mug a janitor and you'll be lucky to get bus fare to flee the crime scene." she is making a generalization that all janitors are poor, not all janitors are poor. She uses this as a way to get her opinion out that organizations tend to steal from the "poor" people to make a "quick buck". Ehrenreich's fallacy helps enrich her story and bring readers into what she believes to a huge cause in America. She is willing to get the reader to feel sorry for the poor and help support her cause so that she can accomplish her goal. The biggest falacy that Ehrenreich uses is the appeal to pity, which she wants you to feel bad for the "poor" people which will promote her argument furthermore. Though not the most notable method of persuasion it works with her argument because of her evidence she provides to support her claim. 

2 comments:

  1. That ago old saying of, “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer”, may just have gotten started as just a jest. After reading Barbara Ehrenreich article, “When all else fails, rob the poor”, makes one’s view of that term seem a little closer to the truth then just a jest.
    Sad but true, in the way our society would rather place value on the, “all mighty dollar”, than in each other. The need to be on top, the need to control, and the hunger for power appear to be all that our society believes in.

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  2. Sarah I really agree with your statement. Instead of society working together as one, people are competing against each other for a dollar bill. And because in the world today, more money equals more power, the poor are getting poorer and weaker. The people that are starving for more money even when they have more than enough to feed their own family plus one hundred more have landed our whole world in an unforgiveable crisis. In the editorial Barbara writes she addresses this thought process. That because the poor are weak (have less money) they are easy to steal from, and that because the rich are powerful (have more money) they are much harder to compromise with

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