Beck's emotional Bash on Obama

Roy Beck's article "What A Jobs-Focused State-of-the-Union Address Ought to say about Immigration" gives his opinion on what to do about jobless Americans. He believes that legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. He appeals to his audience through their emotions (pathos), and metaphors and personification (language tools). Unfortunately for him, he also has some fallacies.

Good Pathos should use the audience's emotions to persuade them to side with the author and take action. An example for this would be a presidential candidate visiting an elementary school, reading a book to the kids, and giving them hugs and handshakes. American voters who are parents of little kids will be touched that this candidate cares about kids. Those parents will most likely vote for that candidate. An other form of pathos is getting to the audience's angry emotions. This is what Beck does in his article.

Beck immediately grabs the audience's angry emotions by opening his article up with "What Pres. Obama says -- or doesn't say..." By telling the audience that President Obama is not saying something, he is implying that Obama is keeping something from U.S. Citizens. Hearing that the leader of America was not telling the people something would upset the reader. Especially if the reader was an American citizen.

Word choice is very important when it comes to Pathos. Beck claims that "Americans are suffering catastrophic unemployment" because the "illegal immigrants" are stealing jobs (para. 4 & 11). The two phrases "catastrophic unemployment" and "illegal immigrants" should grab the reader's attention and emotions. The words catastrophic, unemployment and illegal describe negative actions or situations. When putting them in his sentences, Beck has been able to create negative emotions about immigration.

Paragraph 12 is just full of negative emotions towards the government and immigration. Beck talks about “chain migration.” Chain migration is pretty much an immigrant receiving a green card in the U.S. They then can bring their family into the U.S., and their spouse can bring their family, and it just keeps going. Beck does not give any opinion on the matter, but he doesn’t need to. Just these facts alone will create negative emotions.

Beck also uses a metaphor and an example of personification. The metaphor in paragraph 16 is really good. “… suffering U.S. workers begging for jobs just outside their hiring gates.” If the reader takes this sentence literally; they should imagine people dressed in ragged clothing pressed up against a locked gate, begging the key holder to let them in. But as most of us know, a metaphor is not supposed to be taken literally. So the reader would then know that the sentence simply means that many Americans are applying for jobs and not getting hired.

In paragraph 5, Beck uses an example of personification to try to get his point across. Personification is when a human characteristic or trait is given to something that is not human; like an animal or object. The sentence is “Every principle of justice calls for those jobs to be transferred to 7million unemployed Americans.” “Calls for” is the human trait and “principle of justice” is the nonhuman thing.

As good as Beck was with his pathos and language tools, he also had some fallacies in his article. The title of the article is “What A Jobs-Focused State-of-the-Union Address Ought To Say About Immigration.” The title tells the reader that the author has an opinion about immigration that they feel the president whould address. However, Beck uses his article on immigration to bash the president. He seems to be trying to trap the president into saying something – or not saying something – that could get him into trouble. Beck has three obvious attacks towards President Obama in his article. His first attack is the very first sentence of the article. “What Pres. Obama says – or doesn’t say – about immigration wil be the easiest tip-off to whether his first priority truly is putting Americans back to work.” He is already implying that Obama is not telling the whole truth and possible not care about Americans getting jobs.

In paragraph 8 he then says “This should be easy for Pres. Obama…” Beck is pretty sarcastic throughout this article, so he most likely does not believe that what he wants Obama to do will be easy for him.

His third attack is in paragraph 13. He starts off the paragraph by saying, “No president whose top concern is putting his unemployed fellow citizens back to work would allow this to continue.” As there have been no major movements to stop immigrants being hired in place of Americans, he has now “proved’ that this is not a top concern of Obama’s. But he trapped Obama with the “poisoning of the well” fallacy. Obama can’t defend himself without somehow proving Beck to be right. The reason there was any fallacy was because Beck led the reader to believe that he wanted to give an idea about immigration, when he really used it to Bash Obama as a president.

People vs. Things

Humans want to be important. Everyone wants to be considered as special and unique. Nobody wants to be compared to an object or a thing. Nobody wants to have it inferred that things are held more in value than they are.

In his article Bordering on Absurdity, Michael Mandel starts out an emotional appeal by saying that Americans value their 'toys' more than they do people of other nationalities. He points out the fact that while "goods and services move easily across national borders... flows of people are strictly regulated" (par. 1). This attracts people's attention by causing them to realize that while we make laws that allow all the appliances that make our lives convenient to enter our country, we have laws that prevent allowing many immigrants to enter the country.

Being an economic writer for BusinessWeek, Madel focuses on the economic side of the issue of immigration. He focuses on the effect immigration has been having on the economy by talking about the issue of wages and the value immigrants can add to America's economy. For example he says, "A world of open borders would mimic, on a larger scale, the situation that already exists within the U.S. People can move long distances from one part of the country to another, chasing better jobs and higher pay. Florida and Arizona do not erect barriers saying, 'No more immigrants from the Midwest.' Instead, they welcome them and even boast about the number of people moving to their states as a driving force for growth" (par. 5). By comparing the issue of closed borders to something that strikes closer to home, Madel creates the feeling that Americans are completely self-interested. That we are willing to allow other Americans to move into our neighborhoods to create new jobs but when it comes to allowing foreigners we'd rather have them make our 'toys' in their own countries than to come and make them in our own backyards. He uses examples that will strike a cord in people's minds; causing them to realize that we as Americans really do this. Mandel is trying to create an appeal with the business world of America that while "open borders for immigration are not going to happen anytime soon. The political and cultural obstacles are too large, as the latest immigration debate in the U.S. shows. But over time, facilitating the free flow of people is going to be a critical step toward achieving a truly global economy. " (par. 12). Mandel is trying to appeal to American's sense of fairness and compassion by saying that we aren't willing to carry these values that we believe in to outside of our own country.

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.