Fallacy of Argument Post

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bljonstewartcrossfire.htm

During this episode, Jon Stewart berates Crossfire’s Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on their lack of moral responsibility to the political discourse in the United States. His argument, that television programs such as Crossfire need to be more debate oriented, rather than political theater, is accomplished using his own particular style. I am going to “disprove” his argument using as many fallacies of argument as I possibly can.
Jon Stewart’s assertion that Crossfire is hurting the American public is inherently wrong. First and foremost, Jon Stewart is clearly a liberal. He is a Jew from New Jersey. It is well known that liberal Jews have a history of Communist leanings. One need look no further than the case of the Rosenbergs in order to see the Jewish people’s long tradition of siding with Communists. Given Stewart’s ethnic background, is it not fair to say that he too would have influenced by the same people as the Rosenbergs? How can a man who so clearly is predisposed to Communism, the natural enemy of a free democracy be trusted to lecture true Americans on political discourse?
Secondly, Jon Stewart is attempting to undermine the country’s trust in cable news. This could possibly be only the first step in his plan. This is clear by looking at his arguments. If we are to accept Stewart’s argument on this, what is to stop the country from agreeing with him the next time he says something utterly ridiculous. By taking away the public’s faith in CNN’s representatives as fair and honest, Stewart is setting the stage to make more and more grandiose claims. One by one, he can simply use his unique humor to discredit anyone. At one point during the discussion, Stewart notes that he admires Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president. However, if President Lincoln were subjected to same sort of humorous ridicule that Jon Stewart so deftly hands out, he too would have been viewed as an ineffective president. So, by allowing Stewart to make fun of Crossfire, we are essentially giving him the credibility to discredit anyone, no matter how deserving or undeserving they are.
Lastly, Jon Stewart is, in his heart of hearts, a big dick. His life is worthless and he is both lazy and unintelligent. Thus, it naturally follows that any argument he makes is unworthy of actual discussion. Rather, anything he says should be ignored unless someone who isn’t Jon Stewart agrees with it. Unfortunately, the point would still be unworthy because anyone who associates with Jon Stewart can’t be trusted. Merely talking to Jon Stewart makes a person’s argument that much less worthy.
As you an see, Jon Stewart is a Communist Jew attempting to undermine our country’s entire political process through humor. His personal faults make it impossible to believe anything he says and what little sense we can make of his remarks must be looked at as extremely dangerous. Truly, Jon Stewart should be feared.

Harold and Kumar Watch a PSA

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mN3u2tE9tEQ

This is a clip from the movie, “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.” For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, the premise is that two pot-smoking recent college graduates have a wild crazy adventure while trying to get to the fast food chain, White Castle, because they have the munchies. This particular clip from the movie was absolutely hilarious.
First, there are two realms of humor going on in this clip. There is the actual public service announcement that Harold and Kumar are watching on television and there are the camera shots of Harold and Kumar reacting to it while sitting on their loveseat. (Two grown men sitting together on a loveseat being funny in-and-of itself.) Having seen the movie, I don’t think there is an overarching message to the movie as a whole. However, this small tidbit makes a complete mockery of public service announcements and is incredibly humorous.
With the two realms of humor, there are two separate arguments. On the one hand, the actual public service announcement is reminiscent of public service announcements from the ‘80’s, which are inadvertently hilarious. Typically they are way over-the-top and basically lie about the severity of subjects while attempting in vain to appeal to children. An actual example I can think of is the series of Smokey the Bear public service announcements about forest fires. They were about the danger of playing with matches and featured a bear named Smokey wearing a forest ranger uniform whose catch-phrase was “only you can prevent forest fires.” In other words, it was too absurd to be taken seriously.
In the “Harold and Kumar” public service announcement, they set up a spoof of the unrealistic DARE commercials from the late ‘80’s/early ‘90’s. The line, “Don’t you want to be cool,” is classic peer pressure hyperbole and its use in the made-up commercial makes it all the more funny. The final hilarity of someone shooting themselves in the head because they have smoked a joint combined with the over-the-top “Nooooo!” from his friend makes for great ridicule for the genre of public service announcements. (This would be an example of ridicule humor.)
Secondly, there are the shots of Harold and Kumar, which attempt to show them as fun-loving guys who think that the public service announcement is as ridiculous as the audience of the film does. The argument here has more to do with the film’s plot, but it essentially is meant to endear Harold and Kumar to the movie’s audience so that they feel like they are in the adventure as well. By showing Harold and Kumar completely stoned, watching this ridiculous over-the-top public service announcement, it almost makes the viewer feel high too and thus the rest of the plot becomes at least slightly more plausible. Whereas one might normally think an entire movie about two potheads trying to get fast food was boring, this scene makes it a worthwhile journey.

Response to Drewe's Post #1

I think that Drewe clearly has an understanding of what Carlin is doing in his act. Pointing out the audience’s own insecurities with language is a way of making the audience both extremely tense because of the taboo nature of the discussion and also extremely relieved that someone is pointing out an obvious flaw with the fact that this is in fact taboo. While Drewe has summarized Carlin’s argument well, Drewe has failed to explain the type of humor used and why it is so effective. My own argument as to why Carlin is so effective is that his entire act releases societal tension. Imagine a stereotypical sixty year-old librarian with her hair in a tight bun spontaneously laughing at the release offered by Carlin’s act. The reason this act is so successful is because it takes our social contract (as it pertains to language) and throws it completely out the window. It allows people to experience unbridled language, without having to deal with societal norms. The argument here is that this type of restriction is useless. By making fun of it and using naughty language, Carlin desensitizes the audience, joke by joke. This continued assault, done properly, plays directly into the Freudian theory of humor being the mention of the taboo. Where other comedians often use humor without argument, Carlin clearly has an argument. The interesting part about this entry and Carlin’s routine is that while the audience laughs and realizes the fallacy of euphemisms, as soon as the audience members return to a different environment they revert to the old social contract to behave in an appropriate manner, Thus, Carlin’s argument is unsuccessful as an argument. Still, as a piece of humor, it is hilarious.

Do We Need Guns to Protect the Third Amendment?

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/third_amendment_rights_group

This piece from the Onion addresses the political issue of Second Amendment rights through parody. By using the Third Amendment, an amendment of which nobody has had anything controversial to say about in two hundred years, the author is poking fun at the ferocity with which people fight over the Second Amendment.
The similarities between the rhetoric of the “NAQA” and the “NRA” is immediately striking. Firstly, the NAQA group holds an annual gala, with a president and a keynote address. This level of organization and pomp is something the NRA is known for. In a play on the slogan, “hands off of our guns,” the article quotes NAQA’s president as saying, “Hands off our cottages, livery stables, and haylofts. The article also notes that the groups slogan, “Keep the fat hands of soldiers out of America’s larders,” as well as the grassroots movements to protect the Third Amendment. This once again bears a striking resemblance to the efforts and slogans of gun proponents.
Additionally, the article makes a number of logical leaps, which support NAQA’s platform, but are a stretch to the average Joe. The article makes allusion to the Engblom v. Carey case, which is an actual case from 1982. The court held in that case that indeed, Engblom’s Third Amendment rights were violated. Nonetheless, nobody outside of the legal field or perhaps even constitutional scholars would have even heard of this case. By highlighting it as “a chilling reminder of how even an established 200-year-old right hangs by a slender thread,” the author is continuing to make a complete an utter mockery of the seriousness with which people take the gun debate.
The end of the article loses its appearance as even remotely serious when protesters stand vigil outside of the house of a Navy seaman’s family gathering and it is noted that the former president of NAQA left to head a different and equally useless organization.
The point of this article seems to be to amuse, but to amuse along a political line that most everybody would recognize. By using the Second Amendment debate as the framework for its parody, the article can simply substitute ridiculous Third Amendment examples to get cheap, but somewhat clever laughs. I don’t think the author is taking a stance on either side of the Second Amendment debate, but rather using it just to make people laugh. It creates an unusual humor, one that is quite interesting when an author takes a topic people have very strong opinions on and parodies it with a topic that nobody cares about. The fact that the parodied issue is an uncomfortable one makes the reader a little uncomfortable throughout the article but as usual with Onion articles, the realization that no serious political point is being made releases tension and makes us laugh – or at least according to the tension-release theory of humor.

Watch Twins Baseball

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hE5TkHCtlYI

This has to be one of the single funniest commercials that I have ever seen. Furthermore, its hilarity can be explained almost entirely by its use of low humor: funny faces and incongruity. At the beginning of the commercial, you see a normal birthday party for children who look to be about five or six years old. Some of them are wearing birthday hats and looking extremely excited. In fact, they are looking much more excited than you would expect. Thus, within the first seconds of the commercial, a tension in built up and you know something strange is going to happen. When it is announced that Torii Hunter of the twins has arrived at this otherwise ordinary birthday celebration, the children go absolutely wild. Incongruity theory combined with the release of tension built up in the opening explains why this is so hilarious. It could hardly be expected that the centerfielder for the Minnesota Twins would randomly show up to an otherwise ordinary birthday party. What makes this even funnier is Hunter’s entrance onto the set. He opens the door ever so slightly, peeks into the room and makes a ridiculously excited look. It is completely unexpected that Torii Hunter would be even close to as excited as the children over this event, but it appears he is. Our expectations of the situation were so much lower than the outcome, thus it is funny. Adding to the excitement and hilarity of the moment is the fact that the birthday boy makes the most surprised/happy face you could ever think of and Torii Hunter continues to make funny faces while pointing at him. If you were to asked what you would expect in this situation, I don’t think you would expect a highly choreographed entrance by Torii Hunter involving music, funny faces and an otherwise normal birthday. Despite this initial surprise incongruity, the commercial then begins to set a pattern of equally outrageous behavior including Torii Hunter dancing around a chair and bobbing for apples. In the final scene, Torii Hunter hits a piñata apparently breaking a window and hitting a car. The reactions of the children are all abnormal. Rather than surprise, they all look unhappy. This is also highly surprising, as you would not expect five year olds to be that unhappy about a fairly funny occurrence.
While not even considering the argument of this commercial, it’s obviously really funny. However, the commercial is also implicitly arguing that going to Twins games is fun. By showing Torii Hunter as a fun-loving guy involved in an experience that involves surprise and incongruity, the makers of the commercial are making an analogy to the fun that can be involved in a baseball game. After all, a baseball game involves surprises, tension and sometimes-unexpected results. By using humor to make viewers enjoy this commercial, the creators are giving them an experience that is meant to make them want to go to Twins games.

My Apologies to The Onion

It has come to my attention that the post that I have recently written was based upon an article written by an Onion author in 2000. I assumed that it was contemporary becuase I take for granted that links on the homepage might not be recent. Thus, my argument is the false one. My apologies to The Onion.

The Onion's Fallacy of Argument

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28209

The Onion is a satirical newspaper that makes fun of otherwise serious political content in the present day world. In this article, the author uses the readers assumed knowledge of world events to argue that sovereign nations act for their own benefit and that the reasoning behind international action is often an excuse.
By using Russia as an example of a country gone wrong, the author manages to deflect attention from his real subject, which must be America considering the audience of the Onion. The author’s use of fake quotations from political figures from around the world serves to illustrate a self-centered argument that runs throughout the fake story. Thus, the author is mocking the reasoning given to the public for international action. Rather than admitting that they act in selfish ways, countries often make up reasoning such as the reasoning in the article. A specific example of this that the author is no doubt alluding to is American action in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Much of the rhetoric that comes out of the White House has been very similar to the reasoning given by the author of this article for invading Russia. A main example of this is humanitarian reasons. The main difference between invading Russia and invading Iraq or Afghanistan is that it would clearly not be in the United States’ national interest to invade Russia given their military might. The author banks on the reader realizing this and through comparison, realizing that that the Iraq war is ridiculous and based on selfish self-interest.
The author makes a serious fallacy of argument, however, in this article. He seeks to make an analogy between the obvious ridiculous situation in the article and current US domestic policy. However, the premises of the analogy are false. The author is using a faulty enthymeme to persuade his audience. Essentially, he is say that countries who say that they are using military might to help another country are acting in self interest, thus the US is acting in self-interest in Iraq and Afghanistan. The implied term is that the US is acting in self-interest in Iraq and Afghanistan. This may or may not be true but the author has not proven it in the article. Rather, he has assumed that the readers would make the connection and take it for granted. This type of humorous rhetoric is very common in The Onion. While it is without doubt funny, if one takes the political message to heart without further examination, one will fall prey to a fallacy of logic.