Deck 5: Planning and Forecasting

Question 1

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
We clearly can't trust the television networks, not when they've just spent two days interviewing young children on their feelings about the recent shootings at the elementary school. This attempt to wring every drop of human interest from the tragedy is either frighteningly cynical or criminally thoughtless regarding the damage that can be done both to the children interviewed and to children who see the interviews.

Answer 1

"We clearly can't" acts as a potential proof surrogate. "Wring every drop" is an exaggeration; the adverbs "frighteningly" and "criminally" approach hyperbole, especially the latter.

Question 2

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Perhaps the "religious leaders" who testified at the state board of education's public hearing on textbooks think they speak for all Christians, but they do not.

Answer 2

Note especially how quotation marks around "religious leaders" serves to question the credentials of those individuals.

Question 3

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Within the context of total ignorance, you are absolutely correct."
-Caption in a National Review cartoon

Answer 3

This is the height of downplaying, as it were; although the remark is clearly designed more to amuse than to persuade.

Question 4

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"To Chico's wholesalers and retailers of pornography: do you honestly believe that pornography has no effect on the behavior of people?"
-From an ad in the Chico Enterprise-Record

Question 5

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Would you want to appoint my opponent as president of your company?"
-The late Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, speaking to a group of Philippine businessmen about his 1986 election opponent, Corazon Aquino

Question 6

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Chewing tobacco is not only messy but also unhealthy (just check the latest statistics).

Question 7

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
If the governor is so dedicated to civil rights, why is it that the black citizens of this state are worse off now than when he took office?

Question 8

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
It is, of course, conceivable that the Qaddafi regime has nothing to do with terrorist attacks on Israeli airports, but...

Question 9

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Sam Goldwyn once said that an oral agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. We wonder what he would have said about the Pennzoil-Texaco case."
-The Worcester, Mass., Evening Gazette

Question 10

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Handguns are made only for the purpose of killing people.

Question 11

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Jimmy Fallon? Yeah, he's about as funny as a terminal illness.

Question 12

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"If we stop the shuttle program now, there are seven astronauts who will have died for nothing."
-An unidentified U.S. congressman, after the space shuttle disaster of January 1986

Question 13

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
The antigun people think that just as soon as guns are outlawed, crime will disappear, and we'll all live together as one big, happy family.

Question 14

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
The United States will not have an effective antiterrorist force until the army and the air force quit bickering about equipment and responsibilities.

Question 15

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Not everyone thinks that [former] Senator Jesse Helms is the least admired American public figure (as some opinion polls show). Even now, one or two southern Republicans lust after a Helms endorsement.

Question 16

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"The Soviet regime [once] promulgated a law providing fines for motorists who alter their lights or grills or otherwise make their cars distinguishable. A regime that makes it a crime to personalize a car is apt to make it a crime to transmit a cultural heritage."
-George Will

Question 17

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Maybe it's possible, after all, to sympathize with the Internal Revenue Service. The woes that have piled up in its Philadelphia office make the IRS look almost human.

Question 18

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
From a letter to the editor: "In Sacramento, money talks, which is why our politicians kowtow to the local developers. So much for voting for honest people whose primary concern should be people, not money."
-Sacramento Bee

Question 19

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Early in the third phase of the Vietnam War, the U.S. command recognized that the term 'search and destroy' had unfortunately become associated with 'aimless searches in the jungle and the destruction of property.' In April 1968, General Westmoreland therefore directed that the use of the term be discontinued. Thereafter, operations were defined and discussed in basic military terms which described the type of operation, for example, reconnaissance in force."
-Lieutenant General John H. Hay, Jr., Vietnam Studies

Question 20

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Robert may be a pretty good gardener, all right, but you'll notice he lost nearly everything to the bugs this year.

Question 21

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Voting is the method for obtaining legal power to coerce others.
-From a commentary on a grocery bag urging citizens not to vote and thus not to encourage the majority to take away the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the minority.

Question 22

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Trivial pursuit" is the name of a game played by the California Supreme Court, which will seek any nit-picking excuse preventing murderers from receiving justice.

Question 23

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Any person who thinks that Libya is not involved in terrorism has the same kind of mentality as people who think that Hitler was not involved in persecuting Jews."
-Robert Oakley, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism, in an interview on National Public Radio's All Things Considered

Question 24

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Can [former Representative Jack] Kemp or anyone believe that $27 million in 'humanitarian' aid would replace all that South Africa has done [to support Angolan rebels]?"
-Anthony Lewis, New York Times

Question 25

... A total of 743 firearm-related deaths occurred during this six-year period, 398 of which (54%) occurred in the residence where the firearm was kept. Only 2 of these 398 deaths (0.5%) involved an intruder shot during attempted entry. Seven persons (1.8%) were killed in self-defense. For every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides.... Handguns were used in 70.5% of these deaths.

Question 26

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"If it ain't country, it ain't music."
-Bumper sticker

Question 27

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"The people who [fought] the Soviet-backed government in Nicaragua [were] freedom fighters, just as George Washington was in our country."
-Ronald Reagan

Question 28

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Who is to blame for this lackluster political campaign?"
-Television network anchor

Question 29

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Although you were not selected to receive the award, I congratulate you for your achievements at
California State University, Chico."
-Excerpt from a letter written by a university president and sent to an unsuccessful contender for a campus award.

Question 30

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
A political endorsement by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, the high priest of holier-than-thou and "let's hear it for apartheid," would help a political candidate as much as an endorsement from the Ayatollah
Khomeini.

Question 31

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"... despite the idealist yearnings in the body politic that this [the baby boom] generation supposedly epitomizes, the darker side of the lust for power is still present. Just witness the saga of the collapse of the once-promising career of Mayor Roger Hedgecock [former mayor of San Diego]."
-Larry Remer and Gregory Dennis

Question 32

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"To those who say that the analogy of Hitler is extremist and inflammatory in reference to abortion, I would contend that the comparison is legitimate.... The Supreme Court, by refusing to acknowledge their personhood, has relegated the entire class of unborn children to a subhuman legal status without protection under the law-the same accorded to Jews under the Third Reich."
-Jerry Nims, writing in the Moral Majority's Liberty Report

Question 33

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Professor Jones, who normally confines his remarks to his own subject, ventured out on a high wire to comment on the commission's findings.

Question 34

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels... justified the attack on thousands of Jews as a step toward removing an 'infection' contaminating Germany. 'It is impossible that, in a National Socialist state, which is anti-Jewish in its outlook, those streets should continue to be occupied by Jewish shops.'"
-Reuters report in the Sacramento Bee

Question 35

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Notre Dame people like to point out that, unlike other [college football] powerhouses, their players must face tough admissions standards, shoulder the regular course load, and forget about being red-shirted to gain additional playing years. And, of course, it's a lot more fun to point out those things if your guys are out there stomping on 24-year-old golf-course management majors every Saturday, the way they used to."
-Newsweek

Question 36

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Libya's strongman Colonel Muammar Qaddafi is the kingpin of Mideast terrorism, as Israeli and Western intelligence sources assert. Qaddafi's "who, me?" denials are as believable as would be his announcing conversion to Judaism.

Question 37

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:

Question 38

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Once you've made our Day Planner a part of your business life, there's a good chance you'll never miss or be late for another appointment.

Question 39

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
I simply won't go into those cowboy bars; they're full of guys who disguise their insecurities with cowboy boots and hats.

Question 40

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
As if they alone were concerned with clean air and pure water, these self-anointed environmentalists question whether there will be nitrate pollution from the new subdivision and whether Madrone Creek can accommodate storm runoff from the development. Their no-growth ideas are familiar to everyone in the community.

Question 41

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Orlando is a little town with friendly and helpful residents. Still, you might not want to live there. In the summer it's hotter than the Sahara Desert.

Question 42

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"All men are rapists."
-Marilyn French

Question 43

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Soon after the mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California, Ted Turner-owner of the Atlanta Braves and vice chairman of Time Warner-said that he thought the suicides were "a nice way to get rid of a few nuts."

Question 44

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Perhaps we shouldn't serve this cheese to the guests, dear. It seems to be a bit, uh, mature.

Question 45

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Some feminists edge nervously away from Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, who are the Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan of feminism...."
-Time

Question 46

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Moore and Parker are both getting a little thin on top.

Question 47

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
All that effort spent giving Kuwait back to the Kuwaitis was like taking a crime syndicate away from one Mafia boss and handing it to another. The Kuwaitis already own half the civilized world, and we've put them back in the driver's seat. Their so-called "justice" system is handing out cruel punishments to alleged collaborators, many of whom were simply trying to stay alive during the Iraqi occupation.

Question 48

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Miracle X-K3 battery additive extends the life of your battery by up to five years.

Question 49

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
After the owner and the head coach of the Houston Oilers football team had met for more than two hours, the owner announced that the two had "mutually decided" that the coach "would not return as head coach."

Question 50

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
The statistics Dr. Swain trotted out to prove that bicycle helmets save lives miss the point that a helmet law for bicyclists infringes on individual rights.

Question 51

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"[The CIA] instructed security forces in Uruguay, demonstrating torture techniques on beggars taken off the street. These activities, and many hundreds more like them, have been thoroughly documented by government investigations, by the press, and by the testimony of former CIA employees."
-Progressive Student Union

Question 52

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
In March 1997, thirty-nine members of the so-called Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The event was connected with the Hale-Bopp comet, which was at that time making its brightest appearance to observers on earth. The cultists believed a spaceship following the comet would "take them away" from earthly matters, provided they had undergone sufficient "spiritual metamorphosis."

Question 53

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Surely you can't say that the American people have ever been behind Bill Clinton. After all, he got a mere 43 million votes in 1992, which is five million fewer than what George Bush got when he beat Dukakis in
1988.

Question 54

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"Smokers unite! The reason the antismoking crowd doesn't want you to smoke can be summed up in a single word: dictatorship."
-From a newspaper call-in column

Question 55

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
The Best Way to Clean Up Congress
-Title of article by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak

Question 56

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
Yes, of course, we must protect the rights of innocent people-up to a point. The main thing is to make the streets safe again. Something must be done to reduce crime.

Question 57

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
A "provost" is the head academic officer in a university, whose chief function is to dream up work for faculty committees to do.

Question 58

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
With her keen instinct for political survival on full alert, Governor Whitman suddenly saw the wisdom of the proposal that she had opposed for so many years.

Question 59

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"I was amazed when I read that frog licking has become a major preoccupation in Colorado. How could this possibly get started? It had to be this way. An environmentalist is out in the woods communing with nature. Probably some overgrown Boy Scout in little green shorts, a backpack filled with wheat nut mix. He's wearing his Walkman, skipping along some nature trail... maybe even humming. Ommmmm-Ommmmm-Ommmmm. He looks at a tree and maybe he says, 'Hi Greg.' Maybe he hugs the tree. 'Oh, I am at one with this tree.' Then he spies a frog and suddenly stops. 'Oh, look at that frog. Maybe I should pick it up and lick it.' And gets high as a result. You see, the Colorado spotted toad secretes a hallucinogenic substance that can get you high if you lick it near the back of its head."
-Rush Limbaugh

Question 60

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"... the basic right to life of an animal-which is the source of energy for many animal rights wackos-must be inferred from the anticruelty laws humans have written."
-Rush Limbaugh

Question 61

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.) B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"The executives responsible for the recent corporate catastrophes popularly known as Agent Orange, asbestos, and the Dalkon Shield are not in jail and will not go to jail. With the exception of informed victims, few of us describe these cases in the language of crime, even though in each case there is a wealth of evidence that victims were put at unacceptably high levels of risk of severe injury and death and that corporate executives knew of the risks, yet failed to take appropriate preventive action. Even Morton Mintz, the award-winning Washington Post investigative reporter and author of At Any Cost: Corporate Greed, Women, and the Dalkon Shield, a powerful indictment of the
A.H.Robins pharmaceutical company, does not use the word 'crime' in telling the sordid tale of the Dalkon Shield."
-From Russell Mokhiber's "Criminals By Any Other Name," The Washington Monthly

Question 62

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"I see that Mr. [Clint] Eastwood is up to his expansionist tricks again. Last time, when he couldn't get his way with the Carmel [California] Planning Commission, he got himself elected mayor and fired the members of the commission. That'll teach 'em to cross Dirty Harry! And now he wants to build a development of huge estates for his rich and fancy friends up in the hills, complete with a private and oh-so-exclusive golf course and all the other luxury amenities that we non-movie stars can hardly imagine. Since Mr. Eastwood already owns about half of Northern California, I hope somebody stops him before he turns the bulk of his property into encampments for the rich."
-Paraphrase of the remarks heard on a talk radio station

Question 63

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"Some of the ill will [at Dartmouth College] has been provoked by a student-run newspaper called The Dartmouth Review. Ten of the dirty dozen who destroyed the shanties [built on the Dartmouth campus as an antiapartheid protest] reportedly work for the six-year-old weekly, a New Right mouthpiece that is run independently of the college and has the support of such leading off-campus conservatives as William
F.Buckley, Jr.Considered troublemakers by the administration and many faculty members, and disowned by former supporters such as Rep.Jack Kemp, the Review's editors traffic in outrage and offense."
-Newsweek

Question 64

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"The arms buildup that President Reagan gave us is an albatross around our necks. We spent a trillion dollars on it. Do you realize how much a trillion dollars is? That's a one with 12 zeros after it. That's $4,000 for (or rather from) every man, woman, and child in the United States. And what was it all for? bAre we any safer now for having spent all this treasure? Do you feel any safer now than you did before? Our children, who will eventually have to pay for all this because of the national debt, will look back on us as a generation of lunatics."
-Letter to the editor of the Bellevue (Ind.) Star-Reporter

Question 65

Gary Hart followed the pattern when he 'declared his "interest" in the presidency' (as the Washington Post chastely put it) by announcing that he won't run for reelection to the Senate this year.
Good luck to Hart. I voted for him once before and wouldn't mind voting for him again. But really. Is this necessary?"
-"TRB from Washington," in The New Republic

Question 66

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.) B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"It [the feminist movement] was crazy. The lunacy, unfortunately, wasn't confined to sex. Male reviewers abased themselves before Miss [Susan] Brownmiller's book Against Our Will, and the male editors of Time magazine, in a spasm of liberal gallantry, named her as one of its 12 Women of the Year, thereby atoning for five decades of Men of the Year."
-Joseph Sobran, "The End of Feminism"

Question 67

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
I'm not among those who wonder why the senator hasn't made a full disclosure of his financial dealings prior to taking office.

Question 68

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"The U.S. government (that's you and me, by the way) is about to give away a resource that's worth more than any national park or national monument in the land. If the public were to hear that Yosemite or Yellowstone National Park were to be handed over, at no cost, to a major corporation, what do you think would happen? There'd be howls of protest, of course. But an even bigger giveaway is in the works: the awarding of large segments of the broadcast spectrum to the broadcasting systems. They'll be able to turn huge profits from the new resources. And how much comes back to the public? Not one dime. Handouts like this raise the level of corporate welfare to mind-stretching new heights!"
-Letter to a local newspaper

Question 69

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
That the proposal before us is a good one is, surely, obvious.

Question 70

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
What explains the mad dash to distribute free condoms in our public schools? The misguided and ridiculous notion that kids are going to have sex no matter what.

Question 71

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.)
B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"Citizens for a Clean Community caused quite a commotion the other day when it announced its campaign to end the sale or rent of so-called adult and X-rated videos and movies."
"There immediately came the usual charges of censorship and free speech violations-as could have been predicted."
"We certainly would be the first to defend someone's right to read or view whatever they please. But make no mistake, those who are offended by this smut have every right to express their frustration by protesting its distribution.... And this kind of material is completely debasing and has no redeeming value whatsoever...."
-Cascade News

Question 72

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"Britain has done all it can to sabotage the development of the European Community. For a while it was Margaret Thatcher, and after that her equally right-wing successor, John Major, who served as mouthpiece for the isolationist camp in Britain. It's clear to any intelligent listener that the people they're really speaking for are not the average people in the street, who would benefit from joining the rest of Europe, but a small number of the English super-rich who don't want to rock the boat. As long as Britain remains independent, they get to pull the strings-and make the profits. These money types are joined by a few nineteenth-century throwbacks who are arrogant enough to think that England has an empire to protect and exploit."
-Editorial, Athens Courier

Question 73

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.) B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
Well, it looks like the wimps are coming out of the woodwork all over the place. If you're a man, the fashionable thing to be these days is "sensitive." Articles with titles like "Babies and Men," "The Divorced Father," and-can you believe it?-"Men Cry Too" are cropping up all over the place. You'd think today's males were unleashing the bottled-up agonies of a couple of thousand generations from the way they like to step into the spotlight and bare their sensitive souls to anybody who'll listen. They say there are more divorces today, and maybe because of the safety of numbers, a divorce is an excuse for a guy to become a softhead; the summons server may as well deliver a license to cry in public.
If a kid wants his modern daddy to come out and toss a ball around, he'll have to drag him out of the kitchen first. After making him take off the apron, of course, so he won't embarrass his kid in front of his buddies.
It's a good thing the women are getting out there and learning to run the world. Today's men are busily forgetting how to do it.

Question 74

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
"A feminazi is a woman to whom the most important thing in life is seeing to it that as many abortions as possible are performed."
-Rush Limbaugh

Question 75

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.) B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.

Question 76

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"[S]o frantic is the education industry for raw material (students), institutions are not only lowering standards (requiring only 'a pulse in one hand, a check in the other'), they are discounting tuitions and advertising sushi and waffle bars in the students unions and prime cable service in the dorms where, [author Anne] Matthews says, some students hibernate for days 'eating red licorice and channel surfing.' Some institutions send bounty hunters abroad in search of wealthy foreigners."
-George Will

Question 77

Isolate and discuss the rhetorical devices that appear in the following passage:
The conservative mind is rigid and inflexible, like an orange peel that's dried out in the sun.

Question 78

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.) B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"It's past time that you and I and every other American asked some cold, hard questions."
"Who lost Iran?"
"Who lost Afghanistan?"
"Who lost Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia?"
"Who crippled the FBI and the CIA?"
"Who sold the Russians computers and other sophisticated equipment, which have been used to stamp out freedom?"
"Who is keeping our kids from praying in school?"
"Who lets hardened criminals out on the street to kill, rape, and rob again before their victims are buried or out of the hospital?"
"Who says that America should do little if anything to help human beings who are daily being killed and beaten up by Marxist dictators?"
"The answer in every case is LIBERALS."
"But America is waking up to what the liberals have been doing to it."
"To quote Michigan professor Stephen Tonsor, 'New Deal liberals are as dead as a dodo. The only problem is they don't know it.'"
-Richard Viguerie, The New Right

Question 79

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. (We'll comment on features we find obscure, unusual, or tricky.) B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
Members of the baby boom generation, the generation that is now becoming yuppies instead of growing up, refuse to see the light. After being the center of the universe during the sixties and seventies, they expected to own it by the mid-eighties. They grew up believing they would have tremendous jobs, wonderful houses, exotic travel, great marriages, and beautiful children as well as European "personal" cars, fancy music systems, high-tech kitchens, and wine in the cellar. But it isn't turning out that way for most of them. Having glutted the professional marketplace, they live on depressed salaries; their dependence on immediate gratification causes them to spend like sailors-on the right stuff-driving prices of their playthings through the roof.
But they are addicted to their ways. Those who moved to Manhattan can't bear the thought of living anywhere else but can't afford to live there. According to the New York Times, single-room-occupancy hotels that used to house the poor now contain tenants who cart in their stereos and tape decks, their button-down shirts, and their Adidas running shoes. One young woman says her bathroom is so filthy she showers with shoes on.
This insistence on doing it right bespeaks a refusal to grow up disguised as a commitment to-what?-"quality of life?" One no-longer-really-young professional says, "It used to be you moved to the suburbs for the children. But on some level we still think of ourselves as children." Peter Pan, call your office.
-Very freely adapted from George Will, "Reality Says You Can't Have It All," Newsweek

Question 80

A) Discuss any instances of nonargumentative persuasion or pseudoreasoning and explain any slanting techniques you find in the following passage. B) Rewrite the passage in language that is as emotively neutral as possible but still retains the same informational content.
"Must the NFL-fat, sassy, the General Motors of professional sports-meet a similar crisis [to the one the National Basketball Association went through in the eighties] before it tries to solve its own plague of drugs?
For years, since Don Reese's personal revelation and charges of league-wide drug involvement, the NFL has lived under a cloud of suspicion. Initially, it seemed the front offices, deeply concerned that their image remain pristine, chose to look the other way. Now they've acknowledged the problem, and have chosen to push for testing; this year, eight franchises asked their players to undergo post-season analysis, but each was refused."
-Tom Jackson, Sacramento Bee