Home > Michigan Death Records > I need help with my homework. Does anyone know anything about fallacies?

I need help with my homework. Does anyone know anything about fallacies?

Identify any examples of fallacies in the following passages. Tell why you think these are fallacies, and identify which category they belong in, if they fit any category we’ve described.

1. Letter to the editor: “I would like to express my feelings on the recent conflict between county supervisor Blanche Wilder and Murdock County Sheriff Al Peters over the county budget.
“I have listened to sheriffs’ radio broadcasts. Many times there have
been dangerous and life-threatening situations when the sheriff’s deputies’ quickest possible arrival time is 20 to 30 minutes. This is to me very frightening. “Now supervisor Wilder wants to cut two officers from the Sheriff’s Department. This proposal I find ridiculous. Does she really think that Sheriff Peters can run his department with no officers? How anyone can think that a county as large as Murdock can get by with no police is beyond me. I feel this proposal would be very detrimental to the safety and protection of this county’s residents.”

2. Letter to the editor: “Andrea Keene’s selective morality is once again
showing through in her July 15 letter. This time she expresses her abhorrence of abortion. But how we see only what we choose to see! I wonder if any of the anti-abortionists have considered the widespread use of fertility drugs as the moral equivalent of abortion, and, if they have, why they haven’t come out against them, too. The use of these drugs frequently results in multiple births, which leads to the death of one of the infants, often after an agonizing struggle for survival. According to the rules of the pro-lifers, isn’t this murder?”
— North-State Record

3. In one of her columns, Abigail Van Buren printed the letter of “I’d rather be a widow.” The letter writer, a divorcée, complained about widows who said they had a hard time coping. Far better, she wrote, to be a widow than to be a divorcée, who are all “rejects” who have been “publicly dumped” and are avoided “like they have leprosy.” Abby recognized the pseudoreasoning for what it was, though she did not call it by our name. What is our name for it?

5. Letter to the editor: “Once again the Park Commission is considering closing North Park Drive for the sake of a few joggers and bicyclists. These so-called fitness enthusiasts would evidently have us give up to them for their own private use every last square inch of Walnut Grove. Then anytime anyone wanted a picnic, he would have to park at the edge of the park and carry everything in—ice chests, chairs, maybe even grandma. I certainly hope the Commission keeps the entire park open for everyone to use.”

6. “Some Christian—and other—groups are protesting against the placing, on federal property near the White House, of a set of plastic figurines representing a devout Jewish family in ancient Judaea. The protestors would of course deny that they are driven by any anti-Semitic motivation. Still, we wonder: Would they raise the same objections (of unconstitutionality, etc.) if the scene depicted a modern, secularized Gentile family?”
— National Review

8. From a letter to the editor: “The counties of Michigan clearly need the ability to raise additional sources of revenue, not only to meet the
demands of growth but also to maintain existing levels of service. For
without these sources those demands will not be met, and it will be impossible to maintain services even at present levels.”

9. In February 1992, a representative of the Catholic Church in Puerto Rico gave a radio interview (broadcast on National Public Radio) in which he said that the Church was against the use of condoms. Even though the rate of AIDS infection in Puerto Rico is much higher than on the U.S. mainland, the spokesman said that the Church could not support the use of condoms because they are not absolutely reliable in preventing the spread of the disease. “If you could prove that condoms were absolutely dependable in preventing a person from contracting AIDS, then the Church could support their use.”

Try: http://www.fallacyfiles.org

With love in Christ.

  1. imacatholic2
    March 2nd, 2010 at 22:53 | #1

    Try: http://www.fallacyfiles.org

    With love in Christ.
    References :

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