In my final semester of college, I sat in a business rhetoric communications class in Craig Hall. Ms. Dudash had just moved here from Pennsylvania, and had already become active in the Greene County Democrats. She would give us extra credit for participating in the election, and she never held it against me that I always brought back proof that I worked in the Republican headquarters. Dudash was a Democrat I liked.

During her class, we had a discussion about how the hysteria of pathos often blinds us of the logos. Before I get too far in that let’s review basic Aristotle rhetorical terminology. Pathos is an emotional based argument and logos would be a logical based argument. Usually pathos is the weaker of the two. The third argument is ethos and it deals with ethics and self identity.

What was to come out of this Democrat’s mouth was about to shock me. She began discussing one of the most successful rhetorical campaigns we have seen in our country–the fight to ban McDonald’s clamshell Styrofoam boxes. The belief in the late 80s and early 90s was the Styrofoam and aerosols were creating the hole in the ozone that was leading to global warming. The proponents of banning clamshells, which included members of the United States government, used emotional arguments to get people behind the fight until McDonald’s caved in and replaced the clamshells with paper. (I remember this well. I hated going to the paper when I worked at McDonald’s during my freshman year in college.)

The thousands and thousands of people who joined the charge never looked at the logic involved. They never questioned the hole in the ozone. They just went along. You see, there has never been a hole in the ozone above any of the thousands and thousands of golden arches around the globe. There has never been a hole in the ozone above the bathroom of my childhood home, where my sister Robyn would sit on the bathroom counter and spray her hair with an aerosol projected hair spray each morning. Above cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Denver, notorious for their air quality, there has never been a hole in the ozone in modern times. Few stopped to consider this when they were arguing for McDonald’s to rid the planet of the evil clamshells.

Dudash pointed out the hole in the ozone was over Antarctica. Penguins don’t have McDonald’s, don’t use aerosol hairspray, and hardly ever see a combustible engine. How could this be?

She explained that during this same period, Washington was working with other countries to ban testing of nuclear weapons in the waters around Antarctica. The weapons testing was obviously top secret. So her questioned us, was the Styrofoam battle a battle divert our attention from other issues going on in the world? It makes sense a power of a nuke would wreak havoc on the atmosphere, but it doesn’t make sense that a Styrofoam box would have that much power.

I wanted to stand up and give her the standing ovation she deserved. This made a lot more sense to me than the McDonald’s clamshell theory. I kept thinking, she’s a Democrat? She just placed a hole over the ozone of Democratic environmental rhetoric!

Obviously, the reason I bring this up is there are two issues right now that our leaders might wish to divert our minds away from–the Obama birth certificate controversy and the increasing size of the bailout. How many trillions now?

Keep the masses divided and fighting over gay marriage in California, so we don’t pay attention to what the real stories are. Keep us the masses fat and stupid on fast food and Dancing with the Stars so they don’t ask tough questions. Isn’t it worth your time to look around, ask questions, and seek truth?
 Print This Post

Powered by Stumble! for WordPress