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:	post by ShadowSD at 2006-04-25 12:56:21

PatMeebles said:

Every time, I have to post this...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

A thorough article, but I'm surprised at how badly they devalued their own arguments with a clear bias in the introduction:

"As outlandish as these claims may sound, they are increasingly accepted abroad and among extremists here in the United States."

Words like 'outlandish' and 'extremist' marginalize the viewpoint, and before any evidence is even presented. Believing such a viewpoint is inherantly extreme relies on the assumption that the administration is obviously too trustworthy for any rational person to consider such a thing, but the problem is that that trust is itself based on the conspiracy viewpoint not being true in the first place. It's circular logic, and circular logic, used to marginalize opposing viewpoints, is one of the administration's favorite tools. Applying it here is not the way to suggest that this time the administration is telling the truth.

The above sentence also simultaneously accomplishes two other things that reactionary conservatives in the Bush administration love to do. First, it suggests that only extremists in the US agree with viewpoints abroad; this simultaneously puts all American critics in the same boat with foreign critics and puts them both in the same boat with enemies of the US, while at the same time suggesting the administration view is in the mainstream. Second, it invokes a climate of fear by suggesting that outlandish claims are "increasingly accepted abroad and among extremists here in the United States"; in otherwords, by the enemy, and the threat from them is mounting.

"Others are the byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate. Only by confronting such poisonous claims..."

This implies that an American with a cynical imagination would be intentionally aimed towards injecting suspiction and animosity, which is just ludicrous. This discussion board has plenty of Americans who are cynics, and we will all tell you, we are cynical when we can't find legitimate reason to be more hopeful. We do not "aim" to do anything; there is no agenda inherent to a lesser degree of optimism. To suggest that being cynical implies a conscious intent to poison the debate with unnecessary suspicion and animosity is ridiculous; it implies that everyone who is not cheering the adminstration at all times is intentionally putting anti-American propaganda in the debate. Such a way of thinking allows no room for dissent, and is antithetical to democracy. It's just more of the same climate of fear stuff that the administration has used to stifle all criticism in the last five years.

One has to wonder, did the article have to use such politically loaded language for what is supposed to come off as an objective debunking, one with hopes of changing opposing viewpoints?

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