The Straw Man
The Straw Man
The Pro-EU argument often relies heavily on recognised methods of rhetoric, If we take the Euromyth this is an argument that is best described as the Straw Man its is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than one’s opponents actually offer. To “set up a straw man” or “set up a straw-man argument” is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to your opponent.
The argument advanced by the Euroscptics about Britain`s aversion to joining the Euro is based on the fact that by so doing we are giving power to the Union to set our interest rates and thereby removing the power from our government to react to world wide financial occurance to the best benefit of Britain or to internal pressures on housing for instance that to give up the power of control of our currency is to give up all power.
The straw man argument is to claim the Eurosceptics are against the loss of their currency because we will loose the Queens head on our notes and coins, they have set up the straw man and they have attributed the argument to the Eurosceptics, and are now going to knock it down, by saying that of course we will be able to keep the Queens head in fact we may design any note we wish. By so doing they have produced a win for Pro-Euro side and undermined the Eurosceptic argument. Of course they have done nothing of the kind because they have not even addressed the real argument.
The straw man of logic does not scare anyone. No self-respecting crow would even rustle a feather at him; he is too easy to knock down. Precisely. The straw man is made incredibly easy to knock down so that when you are unable to refute your opponent’s argument, you can topple the straw man instead. The straw man is, in short, a misrepresentation of your opponent’s position, created by you for the express purpose of being knocked down. Dr Madsen Pirie
One can set up a straw man in several different ways:
Present only a portion of the opponent’s arguments (often a weak one), refute it, and pretend that all of their arguments have been refuted.
Present the opponent’s argument in weakened form, refute it, and pretend that the original has been refuted.
Present a misrepresentation of the opponent’s position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent’s actual position has been refuted.
Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute their arguments, and pretend that every argument for that position has been refuted.
Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticised, and pretend that that person represents a group that the speaker is critical of.
Lumping a strong opposition argument together with one or many weak ones, to create a simplistic weak argument that can easily be refuted
In the sport of rodeo, the straw man is a dummy made of a shirt and pants stuffed with straw, traditionally propped up with a broom. The straw man is placed in the arena during bullriding events as a safety measure. It is intended to distract the bull after the rider has dismounted (or has been thrown), with the idea that the bull will attack the straw man rather than attack its former rider. Two so-called rodeo clowns–people dressed in bright colours whose job it is to distract the bull if the rider is injured–are in the ring as well and are usually far more effective than the straw man.
Which brings us to distraction.
Ad hominem, is where you attack the person and not the argument and is a form of distraction argument, which can be extended to include countries. The method is to discredit arguments coming from other States by appealing to nationalistic pride or memory of past accomplishments, or appealing to fear or dislike of a specific country, or of foreigners in general. It can be very powerful as it discredits foreign journalists.
In fact the EU practices an inverted distraction argument, but their attacks on those news papers which do not propergate their view of the EU, is based on standard distraction apealing to nationalistic tendencies by naming those as forign owned news papers with some sort of secret agenda.
But at the same time nationalism is itself being used to make us feel guilty about feeling British, we should not be nationalistic, to harp back to the past glories of the British empire, is recaonary we must all join togeather for the greater good etc.
The one argument is superimposed on the other almost seemlesley suggesting that forign means not EU, and nationalism means little England, this builds on the concept that the EU is the natural government, that we are all one, and that to dispute this is to go against the tide and hanker for the past, the only ones who are against the EU are over 60 etc.
The process of media manipulation is the way in which individuals or groups use various tricks in dealing with the media in order to create an image of their side of an argument that is most favourable to the receiver.
Such tricks are based on the use of logical fallacies and propaganda techniques, and are often used by suppressing information or points of view by crowding them out, by inducing other people or groups of people to stop listening to certain arguments, or simply by drawing their attention elsewhere.
There are various techniques the EU uses for propaganda generation.
The Appeal to fear;
Seeks to build support by instilling fear in the general population; if we vote no, we will have to leave the Union, or be thrown out into the cold dark world or on the edges of the Union, and if we leave the union we will loose three million jobs. Or more subtly as seen this week from the Ex president of the Commision Prodi and EU foreign Minister designate Javier Solana “if we vote no we will open up the question of the relationship with other members of the EU.†Both on the BBC radio 4 Today Program, which is looking very much like the Eu propaganda platform.
Join the crowd: reinforces people’s natural desire to be on the winning side. This technique is used to convince the audience that a program is an expression of an irresistible mass movement and that it is in their best interest to join; This is seen in the constant reiterating of poll results showing that most people are for this or that policy the spuriousness of this argument is that it is based on polls of often very small numbers of people done a the behest of the Government or the EU, was noted by Neil Herron this week when he wrote an Article for the Conservative Way Forward
People’s No Campaign’s activities, we saw behind, and also exposed the spin and deceit.
The BBC Poll in 2002 which said that 72% of the people in the North East were in favour of an elected assembly was contemptible and a mass distortion.
The White Paper brought 38 responses from the North East…hardly the will of the people. Yet Prescott`s agenda continued regardless.
He then conducted ‘Soundings Exercises’ to determine the level of interest in the regions not for an elected assembly, but to see whether we wanted a referendum! Less than a thousand people out of 2,600,000 in the North East responded, despite massive efforts and consultations by the local authorities and other bodies, but Prescott still drove the agenda on regardless.
The deceit continued and the public money continued to be spent on the propaganda campaign, billed as ‘information.‘
Obtain disapproval: is used to persuade a target audience to disapprove of an action or idea by suggesting that the idea is popular with groups hated, feared, or held in contempt by the target audience. Such as attempting to conjoin Eusceptics with racists, the BNP or Dennis MacShane accusations of xenophobic tendencies.
Transfer: projecting positive or negative qualities from one group to another in order to make the second more acceptable or to discredit it. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has proudly announced that “the European Union and its member states have so far pledged a total of €436 million for the south Asian disaster.” Actually, the commission has pledged €23 million from what it calls “its own funds” (i.e., our money) while all the rest came from the 25 EU member countries. Of course, this is not European Union aid, but if Barosso says it quickly enough, some gullible hacks may be fooled by it and give the commission president the headlines. Eureferendum
Virtue words: These are words in the value system of the target audience which tend to produce a positive image when attached to a person or issue. Peace, happiness, security, wise leadership, freedom, etc. are virtue words. The Constitution Preamble and Art 1, freedom, respect for reason, progress and prosperity culture, learning, and social progress; peace, justice and solidarity human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights. society of pluralism, tolerance, justice, solidarity and non-discrimination.
Then there is Marginalization This one is widespread and subtle: Simply giving credence only to “mainstream” sources of information, which are also the easiest to manipulate by corporate or political interests, since they can be owned or sponsored by them. Information, arguments, and objections that come from other sources are simply considered “fringe” and ignored, or their proponents permanently discredited usually because they have their own agenda not tempered by the input of public opinion.
We do not have to look to far for evedence of this, our very own BBC is guilty of ignoring at least 40% of the people of this country who would want to leave the Union, and how often do we see or hear that voice expressed on our national media. And of course there is the new kind of EU democracy, Participatory democracy, in which the Commission EU takes soundings from NGO`s which it just so happens are in receipt of large donations from the very same EU, so they are not very likely to offer an alternative view. But it has the effect of marginalizing an opposing voice because it cannot be heard and will not show.
Demonisation of the opposition: Speaks for itself, Little Englander, Xenophobic, Racist, frightened of change, the list goes on.
In all we are faced with a massive EU propaganda campaign to make us feel less British less proud of our nation and more European and more involved with the EU, this has been going on for many years and has been ably assisted by our own government’s as we approach the referendum we can expect to see more and more propaganda, more and more deceit from all the interested EU parties all of which will be paid for out of our taxes, we are paying for our own re-education.
I leaned heavily on Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia
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Straw Man, Euromyth, distraction, The Appeal to fear
[...] would suggest that Commissioner Wallstrom is trying a very old trick she is using one called the straw man argument, in which she is attempting to deny press reports about decisions being taken in secret meetings [...]