I have posted numerous times before about Obama’s penchant for creating false choices in his speeches, invariably some non-existent supposedly conservative position versus his position. This enables Obama to knock down the conservative straw man and make his own position seem reasonable by contrast. He’s a classic shorter.
It’s a cheap rhetorical trick, but he can’t seem to shake the habit.
Obama’s speech yesterday in Kansas presented yet another example, as Obama set up his call for more government regulation and redistribution of wealth against opponents who supposedly want everyone to fend for themselves and play by their own rules (emphasis mine):
Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.
I am here to say they are wrong.
Yes, that’s the only choice, the anarchy of everyone playing by their own rules or whatever plan Obama has for us. Let me see, which will I choose ….
He just can’t help himself. It’s not in his nature to grow anything other than shorter.
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Obama will say or do anything to further his Socialist agenda and embolden other Socialists.
Classic “Rules for Radicals”. God help us if the United States of America does not remove this progressive socialist back in his box. Sadly, this p.o.s. will collect his pension and pay until he kicks and goes to his last reward – 72 virgins?
A classically small man. If he gets any smaller he’ll disappear. Here’s to that!
Obama tried to hide it all, when confronted by “Joe the Plumber” but now he has embraced it.
At least in 2012, America will have a choice, a very clear choice.
It is this kind of rhetorical fraud that the Republican nominee needs to attack. Gingrich would be excellent at such attacks. I’m not sure about Romney.
[…] UPDATE: Obama Grows Shorter. […]
Some clever politician/patriot needs to make a YouTube video AND commercial out of of Obama’s straw man tactic…….
“There are some who…” = a straw man; show the numerous time he does this and then expose this for what it is – a pathetic fallacy the weak, feckless, loser-who-can’t-lead Obama needs to try to build himself up, to look like a viable contender.
I am sure some creative person could do that. TEA Party patriots have done similar things; Bill Whittle and his various Declaration Entertainment power-packed videos has done much in this genre to inform, revealing leftist tactics and failed policies.
To make it go viral, go national…..that would be a blow to Obama of epic proportions, since he indeed “…just can’t help himself….”!! He can’t run on his record, so he has to slay the strawman, tilt at windmills, to make himself look acceptable.
Expose the fraud!!
@DINORightMarie: that’s a great idea! Pattern it after an educational video. Announcer: “What is the False Choice Fallacy?”. Clip of Obama decrying “false choices.”. Announcer: “the false choice fallacy is a debate trick used to support one option by asserting that there is only one other, inevitably awful option. Here’s a common variation:” Clip of child: “if you don’t buy me a pony then you don’t love me!!!!!”. Announcer: “how is this trick used in politics?”. Then clip after clip of Obama presenting false choices. Maybe with a graphic fading in after each, explaining the presumed awful choice and then listing other options; then a stamp “false choice.”. Announcer: “now you know what a false choice fallacy is! See if you can spot every time Candidate Obama use one on your own!!!”
Good idea. The problem is that most liberals can not count past 2, hence there is the strawman choice or the alternative. 1. 2.
Even better, an updated version of the Reagan rejoinder “There you go again” that clues listeners in to Obama’s game. Something that captures Obama’s hypocrisy in moral preening versus his promise to be post-political like “If only you spent all that creative energy solving our problems [instead of creating bogeymen].”
Today is Pearl Harbor plus 70.
I like to think of Newt as a one-man Manhattan Project that will put an end to what Obama calls “… suffering from a kind of collective amnesia.”
That “collective amnesia” forgets what made America great.
LukeHandCool (who, nonetheless, thinks President Obama is a pillar of “The Gratingest Generation.”)
I stopped listening to Obama’s speeches a long time ago, but I often read snippets of them from blogs I visit or see short video clips on TV programs I watch.
And, invariably, I am always reminded of the William F. Buckley line (which many others have used, but I think Buckley was the first):
“He’s a pyromaniac in a field of straw men”.
Reliance on fallacies of logic like straw man argumentation and the false dichotomy is a sure sign one has no argument.
Obama’s view that massive oppressive government is necessary for the greater good of the people stands in stark contrast to the view held by our founders. Thomas Jefferson for example clearly saw things very differently:
“The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.”
“I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.”
Jefferson also foresaw the root of our current problems: “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
A telling fact is that Obama and most of his ilk don’t even have the guts to state their beliefs clearly: That massive, controlling government (vs. the true freedom and true liberty that we were founded upon) is necessary and even desirable.
As Ben Franklin said: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
The Democrat-Left wants to be those ‘masters’.. and if nothing else, they certainly are vicious…
@ CenterRight
Pretty nice.
End with:
“Don’t waste your vote on the Straw Candidate. Vote for Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness — it is the American Way.”
Judges 21:25, ff.
[…] Are Obama’s Natural Constituency Posted on December 7, 2011 7:30 pm by Bill Quick » Obama grows shorter – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion I have posted numerous times before about Obama’s penchant for creating false choices in his […]
[…] Legal Insurrection: Obama grows shorter I have posted numerous times before about Obama’s penchant for creating false choices in his speeches, invariably some non-existent supposedly conservative position versus his position. This enables Obama to knock down the conservative straw man and make his own position seem reasonable by contrast. He’s a classic shorter. […]