Wednesday, April 25, 2012

If I wanted America to Fail

The group Free Market America released the anti-environmental video “If I wanted America to Fail” on Earth Day. The video is a concentration of right wing arguments starting with coal is good, drilling for oil anywhere is good, environmental regulations are bad, ANY regulations are bad and don’t worry Capitalism will take care of you.

You need to notice a few important things about this video. It presents no facts; it makes no arguments. It relies upon assertion, accusation and innuendo while not backing up with facts or data anything it presents. It argues from consequences and attempts to frighten you while not providing any evidence that what it says is correct or that there is reason for concern. It appeals to emotion and not reason or logic. It presents points that are known to be false and items that are the result of simple human error as some sort of nefarious conspiracy. In other words, it's a load of crap.

It also strongly implies that if you don’t agree with it, you’re somehow disloyal or a traitor of some kind. It presents the opposition as a conspiracy rather than just well meaning people who happen to be wrong.

The video doesn’t surprise me. It’s about what I expect from the right wing. However I continue to be amazed at the number of people, based upon the comments, that are taken in by this sort of nonsense. You learn nothing by watching this film for four minutes about anything.

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