Thursday, January 28, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Pros and Cons
Manali Oak wrote an article on The Pros and Cons of Immigration. The premise of this article seems like it would be a detailed article taking the two sides of an immigration argument and pointing out the pros and cons of both. Instead, Manali Oak takes each issue and sums it up in one paragraph before moving on to the next issue. He just states his opinion without even giving any examples or details of why he thinks that way. For example the article says, “Immigration leads to an exchange of cultural values” (par. 3). After he states this belief, he goes right on talk about how immigration allows for new career options without explaining why he thinks that way. The entire article is just Manali Oak stating all of his opinions without giving the reader any reason to believe him. After he tells us what he believes are all the pros and cons of immigration he ends with, “Thus we see that while immigration can lead to an opportunity for a blend of cultures, it can also lead to an imbalance in the natural wealth” (par. 12). By instantly assuming that his readers will agree with him, Manali Oak assumes that most people will be just willing to trust everything he says. He doesn’t think that most readers are intelligent enough to want proof for why they should believe. He doesn’t even allow for the thought that he might be wrong.
Strike Gold or Hit the Road
U.S.A. Today's article is used to justify the "tsunami" of illegal immigrants by an emotional appeal to the olympics, which according to the commenter-citizensrevolt, is about to break out on the U.S. U.S.A today tries to play to people's emotions in regard to the Olympics. The Olympics are a time when every American is bound to be become more nationalistic. It is a time when Americans' hearts become knit together in unison as they watch with bated breath, hoping that their world-class athletes will put on a display of American superiority and outclass the rest of the world. U.S.A. today would wish to persuade their audience that immigrants benefit their country extremely because they win gold medals for them in the Olympics. They would have Americans release this frantic flood in the vain hope that these illegal immigrants can one day bring home a gold medal. In this battle of pathos the writer-citizensrevolt strikes back with his own skillful use of pathos. "U.S.A. today has a long record of being open border harlots"(3rd comment, par. 1) says the author. He starts out by attacking U.S.A. today's faithfulness to the United States border patrol. Pointing out that they have "fawned" over many of the immigration bills in the past. Then he gets to the bread and butter of his pathos. He says this-
"No dice. When the Olympics are long over, citizens still get to suffer waiting in line behind illegal aliens in the emergency room and pay for services that the illegals will receive at taxpayer expense. Citizens get to pay for insurance premiums and deductables for our childrens' birth while at the same time paying for 300,000 anchor babies annually, as native birthrates are below replacement levels and theirs are thriving, again at taxpayer expense.
We get to watch our childrens education suffer cuts in sports, music, field trips, etc. while (ESL) English Secondary Language expenditures explode."(par. 3-4)
First he invokes the imagery of hobbling, injured, into a hospital wing only to find he has to wait in line behind a bunch of illegals, that use of pathos definitely would get his audience moving. Next he pulls on their heart strings again by telling them that their kids will not even benefit from the taxes they are paying because instead it will be going to a bunch of kids that they don't know and whom they probably don't even want in their country. Finally he finishes by helping his audience recall how much fun they had doing sports, going on field trips, and playing music, and he points out that their kids will not have that luxury because illegal immigrants are pilfering their schools' coffers, and instead the audience's children will learn how to speak Spanish.
Then he closes by attacking USA today-
"US Citizens must grapple with these treacheries and much more 365 days of every year. Yet, USA Today editors have the gall to invoke a two-week event that occurs once every four years attempting to justify it all."(par. 4)
Citizensrevolt chooses his words very carefully to further his argument. Words such as "grapple", "treachery", "tsunami", "open border harlots", and "fawned" work very well to persuade his audience to believe that not only is U.S.A. Today's article deceiving, but it could also be downright wrong.
Would the audience agree with him? Do these hard working Americans work 365 days a year only to see their money lost to illegals? The author does an amazing job at emotionally equalizing U.S.A Today's use of pathos. He puts the article in perspective for his audience. He helps them realize that U.S.A. Today cleverly uses emotion to further their viewpoint. Perhaps a viewer, after reading both article and post, would come to realize that 365 days is a lot longer than a 4 week period. And after the dust clears from the Olympics, they will be the ones left to live with the remainder of the immigrants.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
"Our View on Legal Immigration: Congratulations, graduate. Now Leave the USA."
I would like to talk about the Kairos of this article. Kairos is presenting your argument at the right time, in the right circumstances, in the right place and to the right audience. I think it pretty clever that USA Today looked at their immigration concerns in a different light. Instead of focusing on illegal immigration and the disputes on that, they talk about legal immigrants who come for college and then stay. I think that the timing to address this was perfect. The reason being is that people have been frustrated with illegal immigrants taking the lowend jobs for so long that action seems to be dying out. So USA Today brings us to the attention that legal immigrants are also taking jobs in the U.S. They are taking the high paying jobs. Now in order to get positive responses on this article USA Today needs to make sure that the right people are reading this article and under the right circumstances. Because USA Today is a newspaper I don’t believe it will be hard for the right audience to come upon this article. The right audience would be those who are interested in immigration and/or those who are also against immigration. The very best circumstances would be while a bill, law, or proposition on immigration is in the process of being voted for and passed. This article was published on May 12,2009. So all of the voting was obviously finished. But I still believe it was a good time to publish it. The reason why is because opinions were slowing down about the results of the current elections, and the public would need something else to focus their attention on. Legal immigrants taking the jobs that many Americans so desperately need seemed like a great idea.
RJeremy's view on immigration
I want to shortly describe RJeremy's Ethos. Here's a man who uses relatively good logic. He uses good logic to prove his point on the article, but he lacks one important point. He does not establish his Ethos. From his absolutely ridiculous picture, to the end of his article, he gives his audience very little, if any reason to trust him. In turn, because of this, I am sure that his audience will be less inclined to listen to his argument. Now it would be bad enough to see a picture of a man who already seems to have little respect for his country, but then he continues to poke fun at candidates, which his audience of Americans voted for. Of course, he is allowed his opinion and his own freedom of speech, but his audience will most certainly not see any credibility behind his words. Instead they would only see the picture of a fat deranged poser, posing in front of an American flag, trying to give them advice on how they should run their country. Without an eloquent establishment of ethos I would much rather that an individual just kept his freedom of speech to himself.
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