Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Its a bad law - FLAME ABOUT MANIPULATIVE RHETORIC Message-ID: <362@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 8-Jan-85 16:10:45 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.362 Posted: Tue Jan 8 16:10:45 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 9-Jan-85 06:22:10 EST References: <727@loral.UUCP> Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J. Lines: 59 > This country is really screwed up. I love this country. Its the best > on earth, but in some cases we are really NUTS! > It takes about 10 years to execute a 'convicted' killer and only 10 > minutes to execute a baby human through abortion. At the rate we're > going we are going to pass up the Nazis. These abortion clinics are > about the same as Hitler's execution camps. Hitler atleast put his > execution camps in the remote country. We put ours in the city. > Trivia question: How many babies we executed through abortion in > the good 'ol US in 1984. > Answer:. Estimated about 1 million. The Nazi's don't have > anything over us. We don't pollute the air when we > do it. Actual answer: None, if you use the definition of baby to mean a fetus brought to term and born; i.e., brought out of the mother's womb and beginning its life as a human being---of course, the whole abortion issue requires the answer to the question "Is it life if it's inside the womb and not an independent organism?" and/or "When IS IT life?" Does this person have the answer or just an opinion? > You know I've always wondered. What do they do with the baby's body > when they take it from the mother. I guess throw it in the trash can. > But what if it is alive!. Then I guess they make it un-alive before they > throw it in the trash can (or do they)? What about the poor guy that > has to empty that trash can! > If all this is making you sick it was intended to do so. Precisely. Because what has been stated here does not constitute objective fact, but rather nothing but the old INFLAMMATORY RHETORIC---wording specifically intended to engender a desired emotional response by a manipulative speaker. (For prime examples, see the work of Ken Arndt on this network.) The inability of many people to distinguish between fact and rhetoric is one of the prime reasons for poor government and poor society. > The whole thought > of abortion is SICK!. The people that bombed those abortion clinics should > be brought to trial. They broke the law. We as a people ought to put > pressure on our congress to change the law. Its a sick law. You're entitled to your opinion. That's what freedom is all about. Like freedom of speech that allows you to publicly state your opinion. And like the same freedom of speech that allows other people to point out that what you've said amounts to little more than pedagogic manipulative rhetoric. (Are you in politics? Sorry, I shouldn't lower this to the level of insult.) (By the way, are you saying that it shouldn't be against the law to bomb abortion clinics? That's what the gist of your paragraph was.) What's "funny" about this is that when people agreeing with the author of this article (loral!rfs - NAME WITHHELD) stand outside abortion clinics and harrass those who enter by calling them whores, baby-killers, pigs, etc. (often leaving emotional scars on their victims), use of the same tactic on THEM would not work. You see, for some reason, people who get erroneously and maliciously called whores/baby-killers feel the emotional pain of the verbal attacks. But calling the harrassers and name-callers (and building bombers) fascists (not at all erroneously) wouldn't have any effect. Perhaps they don't even realize that it's intended as an insult. -- "Those without forms must appear, however briefly, at the Bureau's Astral Offices on Nooker Street..." Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr