The (il)logic of political rhetoric

The (il)logic of political rhetoric

President Obama’s speech on Friday has caused a stir. In a way similar to Elizabeth Warren’s provocative speech, Obama announced that no man is an island. And, similar to the criticism of Warren’s remarks, the president’s words have been considered myopic, anti-individual, and rather anti-American.

Here, we will find out just how anti-logical they are. So, without further ado, an excerpt from the speech with logical fallacies in red:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me [Appeal to Popularity] — because they want to give something back [Petitio Principii]. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there [Straw Man, Appeal to Emotion]. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help [Post Hoc]. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable [Does he not believe in it?] American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own [Straw Man]. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet [Questionable Cause, Appeal to Spite].

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own [False Dilemma]. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires [Petitio Principii].

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