The Rhetorica Network offers analysis and commentary about the rhetoric of journalism, politics, and our culture. This site features the Rhetorica web log, a rhetoric primer, a primer of critical techniques, and information for citizens. The character of Rhetorica represents the purposes and canons of classical rhetoric. --Andrew R. Cline, Ph.D.
The President could have some fun with this. So I think he ought to do it — not because Trump has any ground to stand on, but because it would be funny to watch Trump try to wiggle out of giving $5 million to charity 
Aristotle pointed it out oh so many years ago: Humans are moved by emotion more than logic or facts. So using pathos as your primary appeal is an entirely legitimate rhetorical strategy. But pathos does not give one ethical permission to take a Machiavellian route to one’s political ends. For example:
Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the “B.L.S. truthers” was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obama’s re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.
It was nonsense, of course. Job numbers are prepared by professional civil servants, at an agency that currently hasno political appointees. But then maybe Mr. Welch — under whose leadership G.E. reported remarkably smooth earnings growth, with none of the short-term fluctuations you might have expected (fluctuations that reappeared under his successor) — doesn’t know how hard it would be to cook the jobs data.
Pointing out that this is nonsense is, of course, a form of nonsense in itself given human nature cited above. But it’s a form of nonsense I’ve engaged in myself and will continue to engage in until the end of civilization — sometime around 2020 I think.
After reading this item in HuffPo and this news article, I thought it possible that the press was getting scammed (similar to the blonds-going-extinct joke that suckered the press in 2002). But I did a (very) little checking with Google and Whois and discovered Children of Mary may be a real, if a bit obscure, organization. So here’s the video:
Call this the rhetoric of nonsense made possible by the ease of amateur video production and publication. And if you’re just crazy enough, well, you’ll get a bit of attention in the press because novelty is a news value — especially in its online iteration.
I feel no need to point out why this is nonsense.
Oh, and if it turns out to be a joke, then … bravo!
This will be a short post because there’s really not much to analyze. In a post-fact world, argument can be as simple as crossing your arms and refusing to budge after making a post-fact claim. One can also stick one’s fingers in one’s ears and screech “I don’t hear you” a dozen times, but that doesn’t play well on TV.
So, yeah, there’s just not enough evidence of President Obama’s natural-born-citizeniness to suit three “top elected Republicans” in Kansas:
The State Objections Board comprised of Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer postponed until Monday action on a complaint filed by a Manhattan resident pending review of a copy of Obama’s birth certificate from Hawaii.
“I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection,” Kobach said. “I do think the factual record could be supplemented.”
Requests were to be sent to officials in Hawaii, Arizona and Mississippi in an attempt to secure copies of the president’s birth records. Obama released a copy of his birth certificate last year, but detractors persist in advancing “birther” arguments that the Democrat lacked standing.
In a culture in which facts have meaning as facts, because, well, they’re facts, this kind of nonsense would be hooted off the civic stage by the people and the press.
So here’s what South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said about South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley:
Harpootlian made the comments in question in addressing Haley holding apress conference in a basement studio at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C. amid the Democratic National Convention.
“She was down in the bunker a la Eva Braun,” Harpootlian said, according to The State.
I think we’d all be better off if we let the conservatives own the Nazi invective (or their singular, and idiotic, combination of Nazi-socialist invective re: Obama). We’d be better off because such language would be easier to isolate and hoot off the civic stage if only one side were doing it. When everyone does it, well, it starts to sound normal.
Comparisons to Nazis — and any allusion to anything Nazi equals a comparison — is only appropriate if the person in question is 1) a fascist, and 2) engaged in an active program of ethic marginalization or cleansing. If those two things do not obtain, then using any kind of Nazi rhetoric ought to be out of bounds.
Haley may be a lot of things, but a Nazi is not one of them. Nothing she does is remotely Nazi like.
So shut up.
If it were not so indicative of our age of willful ignorance…
It didn’t take long for the Internet to start buzzing with conspiracy theories after the Social Security Administration posted a notice that it was purchasing 174,000 hollow-point bullets.
Why is the agency that provides benefits to retirees, disabled workers, widows and children stockpiling ammunition?
“It’s not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest,” the website Infowars.com said.
Another site, The Daily Caller, said the bullets must be for use against American citizens, “since the SSA has never been used overseas to help foreign countries maintain control of their citizens.”
A few years ago my first thought would have been: Why is this news?
Today one could make a beat out of covering the crazy.
On a cheery side note, as of this posting, no one has commented on the article, which means no one has given it a good ol’ “hell yeah!”
This is just stupid; there’s no other word for it:
In a move blasted by rights groups, a 3-year-old-deaf boy has been told by his Nebraska school district to change the way he signs his name because the gesture resembles shooting a gun.
I’m not talking about the gross inappropriateness of treating a 3-year-old child this way, although that’s less-than-smart, too. I’m talking about the general loss of understanding (or willful misunderstanding) of human intention in communication. At its simplest, one could understand being annoyed (and no more than that) by a young child who meant to signify a gun with a hand gesture. We can understand this as similar to the finger slash across the throat — long understood to mean, among other things, “you’re dead.” But it is clear the child has no such intention. He’s “saying” his name. He’s signifying himself. And, in a move of stunning callousness by education professionals, he’s being asked not to indicate himself. He’s being asked to negate himself.
That’s a tough lesson for a kid that age.
If we are unable or unwilling to understand intention, then we are unable or unwilling to understand much of anything.
The death of intention is something I’ll be following because it leads to exactly this kind of nonsense.
The Doom Files is a blog I started a few months ago on WordPress.com because I was feeling grumpy. I have now imported that content to Rhetorica. The blog portion of The Rhetorica Network will now be The Doom Files. Here’s the original “about” column:
—–
1. fate or destiny, especially adverse fate; unavoidable ill fortune: In exile and poverty, he met his doom.
2. ruin; death: to fall to one’s doom.
3. a judgment, decision, or sentence, especially an unfavorable one: The judge pronounced the defendant’s doom.
4. the Last Judgment, at the end of the world.
The problem: We do not learn from our mistakes. We show very little capasity for avoiding mistakes that we know we are about to make. We do not think in the long term. We prefer short-term profit over long-term gain. We treat each other as objects. We allow corporations to be people as we stand in the way of letting real people live their lives. We drive too fast. We eat too much. We burn too much oil. We pollute our only home. We allow nearly half the population on the planet to live on $2 per day or less. We let children go to bed hungry. We grumble about paying for education. We prefer our children to be ignorant rather than challenge our assumptions and ideologies. We believe politicians over scientists in matters of science. We have lost sight of the fact that our tax dollars pay for a civilization. We know freedom is not free, but we have forgotten that it also costs money.
And we think technology will save us.
I’ll also mention good things I come across, especially if it involves individuals or small groups working outside the system to make life better. I don’t want this blog to be a complete downer 
—–
Here’s what I wrote in a blog post earlier today when I announced the change:
I’ll be importing posts from The Doom Files and continuing that work here with commentary on the rhetoric of a people, culture, and country in decline.
Sounds like a real downer, right? Well, that’s where my head is right now, and I’m very excited about it
I will still discuss issues familiar to this blog over the past ten years because, frankly, our dysfunctional politics and dysfunctional news media contribute to our doom. So a few things will remain the same. I will also branch into other areas of concern, but the one constant will be the rhetoric of a culture that refuses to save it itself.
I’ll also be changing the sidebars and other features. The whole process will take a few days.
So, if you need to add a little dark cloud to your day, please drop in often. It’ll be painful.
And so the changes have begun.
I am not a pessimistic person. I see our doom, ultimately, as a good thing because it will require us to change much of that sorry list above. The collapse of an empire or a culture is always painful and ugly. But something wonderful can spring from the ashes. I’m looking forward to it.
UPDATE: The new focus of this blog will also require my updating the blogging policy. Much will stay the same, but the biggest difference will be my acknowledgement that The Doom Files will more overtly favor certain political/social/cultural/economic positions over others.
The flagship blog of The Rhetorica Network will return soon with a new mission.
I’ll be importing posts from The Doom Files and continuing that work here with commentary on the rhetoric of a people, culture, and country in decline.
Sounds like a real downer, right? Well, that’s where my head is right now, and I’m very excited about it
I will still discuss issues familiar to this blog over the past ten years because, frankly, our dysfunctional politics and dysfunctional news media contribute to our doom. So a few things will remain the same. I will also branch into other areas of concern, but the one constant will be the rhetoric of a culture that refuses to save it itself.
I’ll also be changing the sidebars and other features. The whole process will take a few days.
So, if you need to add a little dark cloud to your day, please drop in often. It’ll be painful.
Let’s all just sit quietly for the next 50 minutes.
A top administrator at the University of Colorado says if a professor doesn’t like his students legally bringing guns to class, he’ll have to holster his emotions.
Jerry Peterson, a professor and chair of the CU-Boulder Faculty Assembly, told colleagues he’d cancel his class if a student brought a gun there.
“My own personal policy in my classes is if I am aware that there is a firearm in the class — registered or unregistered, concealed or unconcealed — the class session is immediately canceled,” Peterson said. “I want my students to feel unconstrained in their discussions.”
Shortly after Peterson’s comments were reported, CU-Boulder Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano said he can’t do that.
“I have the utmost respect for Professor Peterson, who is an old friend and valued colleague, but I want to make clear that if the student carrying the weapon has a concealed-carry permit, the position implied by Professor Peterson’s comments directly violates Colorado law and the operating principles of the campus,” DiStefano wrote in the email to faculty.
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Dr. Andrew R. Cline
Assistant Professor of Journalism
Missouri State University
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