Language is an amazing yet scary tool. It has been utilized in so many different ways, whether as speech, text, and other formats. Words can be arranged in such abundant fashions that their meaning or goal determined by the author or orator can have either nefarious or positive reasoning behind them. We rarely find a discipline with so much darkness and light at the same time. Even more intriguing is that there are so many shades of grey as well. What other type of art form allows for Nazi propaganda and Cinderella to be in the same category? One of the most observed and unfortunate occurrences in writing are illogical fallacies. Illogical fallacies are arguments that are as their name states, illogical. One type of illogical fallacy is called a “sweeping generalization”. An example would be if a student at college were part of a very rich fraternity. Other students would be exemplifying an illogical fallacy by ascertaining that this individual was rich, which may or may not be true. It does not matter if they are rich or not. Even though we are aware of these extremely false arguments they occur all the time in our society, whether it be politicians, TV and radio personalities, or the average citizen. What is even more horrifying is the fact that many prevalent individuals rely on illogical fallacies to boost their beliefs. One of these people is Rush Limbaugh. This man is a strong conservative influence that often has very opinionated ideas and has been viewed as evil to some and as a pioneer to others. Rush Limbaugh is repulsive, especially for the way that he utilizes illogical fallacies daily. However, Rush is relying on something that many that fall into this type of behaviour possess. The illogical fallacy sweeping generalization is reliant on individuals beliefs or emotions regarding various elements to have become a truth for them.
Rush Limbaugh is a toxic individual. Anyone who employs illogical fallacies to boost their ratings and beliefs is a disgusting individual. He feeds off of bolstering negative views of his opponents, no matter the cost. The real twisted aspect of Rush’s arguments is that he realizes that he is using illogical fallacies to bolster his points and does it anyway, with no regard to which he is hurting. Furthermore, a large percentage of the United States believes what he is saying to be true. The power of the media is extremely influential. As aforementioned, it is Rush’s political beliefs and ideals that spurn the garbage that leaves his mouth. Rush has capitalized on many different illogical fallacies; especially sweeping generalizations, but one of his worst to date is saying that the NAACP should have a riot rehearsal, where they would become inebriated and rob stores. This is an illogical fallacy for various reasons. Firstly, the NAACP, which is a society for the advancement of African-Americans, is filled with African-American citizens. Rush in essence is using racist stereotypes to belittle the NAACP, which is wrong and hurtful. Moreover, it shows how simple Rush is at his core. He is so obsessed with keeping everything the same, obvious from his strict conservative beliefs that he still thinks that racist humour is appropriate, even though it never was. He then goes on to typecast African-Americans as a whole, insinuating that all they do is get drunk and steal. It is astounding that this man has not faced any job security issues in his lifetime. Unfortunately, the United States is such a money-driven country that although from time to time Rush may have a sponsor drop him, he will find others very quickly, if not already satiated from the current establishments.
The problem with individuals such as Rush Limbaugh, and other different types of political spokespeople is that they are so involved with their political beliefs and emotions that they disregard the opposition’s entire. They feed off their emotions and in reality, are communicating how they feel with their negative words. The problem is that after time, these people are blinded by their emotions, and the emotions that they rely on to fuel their opinions become truth. They have been arguing these points for so long that they tend to believe in the demonization that they give their opposition. Rush Limbaugh’s views are abhorrent, but the same thing could happen to an individual who opposes him. They become so focused on arguing against conservatism that they tend to have the sweeping generalization that all conservatives have only negative elements, which is not true.