#rhetorical argument

[gotanewblog]

Tsarnaev Brothers

Just in case you were wondering about this, there is in fact a difference between someone who is a refugee and someone who is seeking asylum. Asylum seekers are would-be refugees. I've seen conservatives claiming that there isn't, but that's NOT TRUE. Do not let people trick you into believing that the Tsarnaev brothers were refugees. They weren't. At least not in an important sense, that actually has a meaningful impact on how they arrived in the U.S.A.

You cannot use that claim as an argument that refugee screening wouldn't stop terrorists. It is possible that some would-be terrorists would make it through the screening process, but if you are going to make an argument like this, "Refugee screening wouldn't work, look at the Tsarnaev brothers!" it DOESN'T WORK. Additionally, the Boston marathon bombing happened in 2013, and the family arrived here in 2002-2003. They had been here for around a decade when they conducted their terror strike. The father and mother got into the U.S. on tourist visas (which have some of the least intensive screening), and brought their kids over when they 12, and 16.

We need to take this into account before we make claims like this, that could save, or destroy thousands of lives. Let's do research, and look into stuff like this before making rhetorical arguments.

Some sources: http://www.snopes.com/tsarnaev-refugees/

http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/70

http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/policy_research/the_truth_about_asylum/the_facts_about_asylum

http://www.immihelp.com/gc/refugee.html

http://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum

[fracastore-blog]

Towards a More Classical Rhetoric

(Feel free to scroll by explanation for the links to Aristotle's Rhetoric below.)

Aristotelian rhetoric is heavy work, when considered in terms of freshmen--that is, beginning college--writing. An in-depth look at the basis of what it is behind those three magical principles we teachers of freshman rhetoric so often hold up in front of our students as the stuff that argument is made of--ethos, pathos, and logos--may be too much for any of us to share thoroughly with our students (some of us, I know, avoid the Greek altogether, and that's fine, too, of course). Indeed, when I first came to teach this course years ago as a TA, I had to go first to the dictionary to relearn the word rhetoric (simply, the art of persuasion, at least in terms of composition and argument). That brought me down to Aristotle, or up to Aristotle, or however you want to look at Aristotle. My first thought then: I'm over my head! I was and am a creative writer, not a philosopher and not a rhetorician.

I soon learned, though, that these young scholars were made to attend my class--and many classes like mine (more or less)--to learn how to 1) become better writers and 2) to construct an argument. Once I figured that out, I stopped hyperventilating so much and begin designing a course. It was pretty close to a failure of a course, but I sallied forth to the spring semester. I get better every time!

Still, I think it is important that we teachers of rhetoric and composition need to know that original text. If our students want to know it, they should be able to read it, too. It's easily Googled and, since it's so old, it can be had for free anywhere. But I link to it here for the curious and the knowledge-greedy. Cheers!

Aristotle's Rhetoric in a neat, hypertext format.

Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy (a wonderful and free site) entry on Aristotle's Rhetoric.

[fracastore-blog]

A great example of a rhetorical argument.