The False Dilemma Fallacy: Mitt or Newt? The Devil or the Deep Blue Sea?
Posted on | January 24, 2012 | 49 Comments
Jeff Foxworthy says that, as a Southerner, the minute you open your mouth, people deduct 15 points from your IQ score.
It’s a joke that’s funny because it’s so true. People automatically associate Southern accents with stereotypical backwoods hicks, and so I’ve spent my whole life being underestimated by Yankee smart-asses who think they know everything.
Did you know that, in college, I aced a class called Principles of Logic? It was taught by a psychology professor, an elective to fulfill a graduation requirement. I took it during my second sophomore year – when I’d returned to Jax State after taking a year off after nearly partying my way out of school in 1979 — and for some reason Principles of Logic was just as easy as pie for me. Some of my fellow students struggled, but I cruised straight through to an A.
One of the things the class required was to memorize all the various fallacies, the invalid forms of argument which — if unrecognized as such — can easily persuade you to accept an unproven conclusion.
Like many other classic fallacies, the false dilemma is commonplace in political argument, and we’ve seen a lot of it in this year’s GOP primary campaign. Advocates of one particular candidate insist that theirs is the only Republican who can beat Obama, and ergo — that’s a fancy Latin word us rednecks aren’t supposed to know, although I studied Latin in high school — any Republican who doesn’t support their candidate is actually working to re-elect Obama.
After so many months of making these bullshit arguments, some people actually start to believe their own bogus rhetoric, which is the only possible explanation for this:
ANDREA MITCHELL: “I talked to a top Romney adviser tonight who said, ‘Look, if Mitt Romney can not win here in Florida then we’re going to have to try to reinvent the smoke-filled room which has been democratized by all these primaries. And we’re going to have try to come with someone as an alternative to Newt Gingrich who could be Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, someone.’ Because there is such a desperation by the so-called party elites, but that’s exactly what Gingrich is playing against.”
Dear “Top Romney Adviser”: Is it really an either-or choice between Mitt and Newt? Could it be that there’s someone out there you’ve forgotten about? Which is to say, BUY YOURSELF A SWEATER VEST — and stop pretending like you damned Yankee smart-asses have a monopoly on intelligence. You may fool Andrea Mitchell with that bogus rhetoric, but you sure as hell ain’t fooling me.
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