A Bridesmaid`s Bad Breath Warning Signs of Trickery

A Bridesmaid’s Bad Breath Warning Signs of Trickery • If its scary, be wary • The Blame Game • Glittering Generalities • A Story that’s too good • The dangling comparative • The superlative swindle • The “Pay you Tuesday” con

The FUD Factor Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt • Pop-up messages such as WARNING: POSSIBLE SPYWARE DETECTED... (You all know this tactic, but it is still out there!) • WMD!!!! Condeleeza Rice said," But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” (You all know what happened after this also. We should have asked for more info, but images of 9/11 were too fresh and vivid so our judgment was clouded.)

A Story That’s “Too Good” • Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture by Michael A. Bellesiles, a professor of history at Atlanta’s Emory University • Contrary to what had been previously written, he said that gun ownership was rare by colonial households. • For those who favored gun control, Bellesiles message was way to good to be true. But they embraced it anyway.

• Other experts started looking at his book and doing research. They found evidence of “falsification” regarding vital facts in the book. • He ended up resigning from Emory, but insisted he just had faulty data. Those who had jumped on his bandwagon (Guncontrol advocates) looked foolish. • Be careful what and who you stand behind without knowing all of the facts, especially when they sounds too good to be true!

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf (watch out for “data in the service of ideology”)

• Wrote a book about women being victims of a sexist society. • Claimed that 150,000 women die annually from anorexia nervosa. (Preposterously high number and more than 5 times the number of Americans who died of AIDS in 1991) However, this strongly supported her premise and belief that women were suffering because of impossible standards of beauty imposed by society.

• In 1994, Christina Hoff Sommers, a critic of the feminist movement, said “the correct figure of women dying from anorexia was less that 100”. • When the research done by a reputable National Institute, the number was actually 1,000 deaths per year (roughly).

• When the data squares too nicely with your biases, always ask, “Is this dramatic story really true? Am I buying this just because I want it to be true? What is the evidence?”

The Dangling Comparative • Watch out for any advertisement, politician, or person advocating something when they use the following: • Larger, better, faster, better-tasting, keeps you fresher longer, higher, lower, voted against, voted for…

• Examples: • G.W. Bush’s TV ads hammered away with this line, “John Kerry supported high taxes over 350 times.” Bush counted every vote Kerry had cast against a proposed tax cut, which meant voting to leave taxes unchanged. He also padded the count by including many procedural votes on the same bills. He also counted some of Kerry’s votes for Democratic tax cuts, reasoning that those would still leave taxes higher than the Republican alternative. So, by twisting the use of the dangling comparative, a vote f or cutting taxes became a vote for “higher taxes”.

• We need to ask “higher that what?”

Let’s be fair! • Another example: • The democrats have also used the dangling comparison. In 2001, Bush was accused of trying to put “more arsenic” in drinking water. In April the DNC ran a TV ad in which a little girl asks, “May I please have some more arsenic in my water, Mommy?” • There was a disagreement about arsenic, but it was over how much to reduce arsenic levels. Bush had stopped a bill reducing levels that Clinton had proposed, to study it to see if it would be a hardship on small towns. He concluded it wouldn’t be, and reduced the arsenic at the levels had Clinton suggested.

WARNING SIGN: The Superlative Swindle • Watch out for :”most”, “highest”, “biggest in history”, “smallest ever”. • Example: After 9/11 the Progress for America Voter Fund ran a TV ad asking, “Has any president been dealt a tougher hand?” • Think about President Lincoln, The Civil War President Roosevelt, Great Depression and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor

• Another example: Republicans still persist in calling Bill Clinton’s 1993 deficit reduction bill “the biggest tax increase in American history”. It wasn’t. It was 1/6th the size of Roosevelt’s 1942 tax increase Let’s be fair: Republicans have been victims of this tactic as well. The Sierra Club accused Bush of having the “worst” environmental record in US history. By what measure? • The Sierra Club accused Bush of having the “worst” environmental record in US history. By what measure? • The air got cleaner during his tenure, the 1st federal controls on mercury emission by power plants were put into place. • THE EPA DIDN’T EXIST BEFORE 1970!!!!

WARNING SIGN: The “Pay You Tuesday” Con • In politics, both parties are responsible. • In general, Democrats promise social programs without mentioning future costs, while Republicans promise reduced taxes but are vague about future deficits. • (Examples are Medicare and Big tax cuts for the rich)

• Bush promised to pay Tuesday for the war in Iraq. He assured the nation in his State of the Union Address in 2002: “Our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term”. It turned out to be $412 billion in 2004, and I think that we all know how that ended….or hasn’t ended. • To be fair, Democrats constantly promise to preserve Social Security without mentioning that it will require a sizable tax increase to sustain it.

The Blame Game • Bush blamed greedy lawyers for rising health care costs. After examination by many independent groups, the CBO found no evidence that caps on damage awards of the sort Bush sought would reduce medical spending.

• Blaming often occurs reflexively, out of pure partisanship and with little regard for facts. • Example: A former Clinton aide, Sidney Blumenthal, suggested that G.W. Bush was to blame for the flooding in New Orleans brought about by Katrina. • The major cause of flooding were the flood walls built before Bush took office. An act of nature of this magnitude cannot be blamed on one person, even if he is the president.

Glittering Generalities • Coke: It’s the Real Thing. • US Army: “Path of Strength”