Rhetoric of My Roommate

It has been quite an adventure with my roommate so far this semester. We have known each other for many years as we attended the same middle and high schools and played on the same club soccer teams. We have always been good friends and I am proud to say that we continue to remain good friends. One down side of our relationship is that he picks at me at every opportunity he gets. He is a vulture who thrives off of the mistakes of others, loving arguments for the sake of arguing, and of course in his mind, always winning these verbal matches. No matter what the argument is about, in his mind he will come out the victor. It is truly amazing to watch his verbal jousting into which he pours such passion, regardless of the absurdity of his position. It is even more amazing that in reality, for the most part I do have to agree with his established position. As I am usually in agreement, I have to question how he believes that he “wins” all of these arguments. In truth I will never know the way his mind works to justify his winning scenario. He is very good at making each argument very personal in nature. He knows a lot about other people and will use that personal knowledge against them during an argument. Whenever I call him out on something, he employs the tactic that the best defense is a strong offense, and argues that the mistakes I have made are worse than the errors that he committed and that I shouldn’t be allowed to talk to him unless I correct my alleged errors. I have recently been endeavoring to exercise a resistance to this ploy, and a few weeks ago I decided to argue in so fierce a manner as to brook no defeat. I discovered that when we vehemently argue in this manner, his arguments generally degenerate into derogatory name-calling. Although it is sad to see his arguments deteriorate in this fashion, somehow, in the end, he still almost always gets his way. The only possible explanation I can give for his winning is that he decides to firmly hold his ground without budging, no matter what the cost. I, on the other hand, do not have the need to win every argument regardless of the bloody cost. For example, one day when I was emptying my pencil sharpener, he decided that the sound bothered him. He told me to stop it otherwise he would throw the TV remote at me. Needless to say, I accepted the challenge and continued emptying my sharpener, and he did as he threatened by throwing the remote. It is of no surprise that the remote broke and now we can only turn the TV channels manually, but he was still satisfied because in his mind he had won the argument. This has ultimately led me to the conclusion that the only possible way for him not to win, is for me not to play. So after constantly analyzing his every move and attempting a psychological defense, to no avail, I will now attempt to not argue with him at all. Perhaps this is the only way he cannot rationalize that he has “won”.

Rhetoric of Steve Jobs

This week the FBI disclosed a background check they did on Steve Jobs in order for him to receive a job on President H.W. Bush’s Export Council. The most reveling part of this report is that it states, “Several individuals questioned Mr. Job’s honesty stating that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals”(Washington Post 1). While a lot of people will perceive this characteristic as a bad thing, unfortunately, this is exactly what a successful politician does, and in truth it is exactly the tactic that a rhetorician occasionally employs in order to get their audience to act in a desired fashion. It is a fact that everybody knows a politician will pick and choose which facts to admit or not in order to portray his or her position in the best light. This propensity to bend the truth is seen as a bad thing, but why? I believe that it is because people believe they can make their decisions based on every single fact that surrounds their decision. But can people really see and appreciate every factor that is involved in a decision? The true answer is no, and more importantly do rhetoricians really lie? No they just “distort reality” in such a way so as to persuade their listeners to act, or in some cases not act, in the manner the rhetorician is advocating.  This is a daily process, and without it most people would not be willing to commit to certain ideas or actions. Yet when the process is noted, it attracts resentment. I understand that most people resent it because it makes them feel like they were taken advantage of, but the question really lies in whether they are better off after they accepted the rhetorician’s advice than before? If so, then why is there even a need to run this article?

Washington Post 1: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/fbis-steve-jobs-file-he-will-distort-reality--to-achieve-his-goals/2012/02/09/gIQAWJfU1Q_story.html?hpid=z3

Rhetoric in Decisions

President Obama is currently facing one of the toughest challenges of his presidency. The conflict with Iran has grown to a point where he must make Iran believe that we are both willing and committed to go to war with them if they don’t sacrifice their nuclear weapons program. This is a very difficult time for the United States military. We are trying to sever all military ties with Afghanistan, the country’s moral support for its armed forces continues to be at an all-time low, and worst of all, the federal government is cutting back its monetary support of the military. In such difficult economic times, everyone’s spending has to cut back, including that of the military. All of these factors are contributing to Iran’s belief that the United States is actually fearful of another war, and therefore Iran feels that they can continue to pursue their own nuclear ambitions without constraint. This scenario is why President Obama is facing one of the toughest challenges of his presidency. He is charged with making Iran believe that we will strike militarily, despite all evidence to the contrary. He has to convince Iran that we are dedicated to engaging in a new war during a time when we are backing out of an existing military situation. Even though I am a Republican, I believe that President Obama has done an acceptable job with a bad situation. Even though the end result is not yet clear, he has shown that American intervention is sometimes inevitable as was apparent in Libya and Egypt. Although President Obama is not yet committed to putting down a ground force, he has become the first president to really establish the presence of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This is a critical new aspect of warfare because it allows the United States to “fight” in other countries without having to give a body count back home. This means that public morale for a war is not always necessary, as seen in the Vietnam War. This, as well as his recent speech in which he threatened Iran with war if they shut down the Strait of Hormuz, are critical examples that President Obama can and will  show that the United States will not back down. Obviously the crisis is far from over, and President Obama will have to use more rhetoric if he hopes to get Iran to back down from its current development of a program of mass destruction.

Rhetoric throughout the Penn State Scandal

For the past several months the media has attempted to defile Joe Paterno’s great legacy which he worked so hard to build over the years. They have described him as more than merely incompetent, actually attributing to him a degree of evil greater than that of Jerry Sandusky in this incident. It seems that the need to exaggerate, sensationalize, and exploit in order to sell papers has resulted in a grave decrease in the journalistic integrity of the media’s works. It is this sensationalism which has lead people, who have no idea who Paterno is or what he has done, to see Paterno as a man who is more at fault than Sandusky, the actual perpetrator of the heinous acts. As recently as this Monday, one of my high school acquaintances, who attends Auburn University, posted on Facebook, “Are they going to turn JoePa’s statue around during the funeral so that way he can’t see anything?” I tried to respond to this comment calmly, although it was tremendously hard. Since I could not possibly explain to him all of the impact that Joe had on the Penn State community, I contented myself with naming only a few by telling him about Joe’s part in building one of the best libraries in the nation, an entire wing of the hospital, and an interfaith center where kids and people of all religions can come together to practice their religion. Even in the ensuing months after the tragic revelations were made, Joe never uttered a word of reproach for how he was treated and even encouraged all to embrace the values of being a Penn Stater. Not surprisingly, my high school acquaintance had never heard about any of these things. After talking to him a little while longer, he decided he would no longer post anything about Joe Paterno, and eventually he completely deleted that comment. A key lesson that I have learned from this entire fiasco at Penn State is that when other people disagree with you, you can’t be angry with them for disagreeing. Although I have previously been angry at those who disagree with my ideas, Joe has taught me that cooler heads actually do prevail and that actions do speak louder than words. Even though all odds may be against you, it is better to remain calm and give the media nothing, rather than react to opposing views and give the media another story to write.

Rhetoric in Elections

Every four years during a presidential election, each nominee attempts to make the voters believe that they are just an average joe. A successful example of this is how the way Reagan talked allowed one to believe that he was just another one of the guys when the reality was that he was a wealthy movie star. As the presidential election is just around the corner, it means that it is time for another presidential primary. During these primaries, each candidate attempts to prove to the majority of the population that you should vote for him because he is an average American just like the voter. This is ever present as Mitt Romney, the front-runner in the Republican primary, is attempting to prove that he is one of the average Americans. But this is far from the truth, as he, as well as many other political candidates, has attained significant personal wealth. The only difference on this issue from other candidates is that Mitt has gained most of it through private business acumen. Nonetheless, Mitt is still trying to appeal to be one of the average Americans. Unfortunately, this is one point that the other candidates won’t let rest as they are trying to force Mitt to publically release his tax records. Although it may have been a problem if the records showed that he wasn’t an average American, it is an even bigger problem that Mitt still hasn’t released these records. It is the thought of, “He must be guilty of something if he wants to withhold them from public scrutiny”, which ultimately does more political damage than just making them public. In the end, most Americans know that these candidates live a completely different lifestyle than themselves, so it isn’t that much of a shock to see that the candidates make a tremendously larger amount of money than the average American. But it is those “what ifs” that can do major damage when it comes time to tally up the votes. Nonetheless, it seems that every time there is a presidential election, each candidate attempts to use rhetoric to make voters believe that the candidate is just one of them, and yet the reverse is usually true, and these attempts to recast themselves in the image of an all American joe almost always holds very little ultimate impact.