When all else fails, rob the poor
Choose one of the editorials listed in
the Resources section above and analyze it for rhetorical fallacies.
Identify the fallacies in the article and explain how and why the writer uses
them and whether they undermine his/her overall argument.
1.
The title
2.
“Mug a janitor and you'll be lucky to
get bus fare to flee the crime scene.”
3.
“Attempts to collect from the already
poor are often not just punitive but self-defeating.”
The title right off the bat grabs your attention. This
article is supposedly defending the poor. But after reading through the article
several facts are incorrect, such as the right for the military to refuse
people who are in debt. The article offends minimum wage workers by dishing out
complete rudeness to janitor workers. The author practically defeats himself by
trying to defend people who are already in debt/ in jail. You don’t go to jail
for nothing, and you most certainly don’t start off owing ridiculous amount of
money for nothing either.
