My Morning Wooten

A rare saturday edition.

I normally let Jim off the hook on the weekends but I just can't let this one pass.

First, we set the table with a certain type of argument which seems all too common in this era. Can you say strawman? Good. I knew you could.

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man," one describes a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view, yet is easier to refute. Then, one attributes that position to the opponent. For example, someone might deliberately overstate the opponent's position. While a straw man argument may work as a rhetorical technique—and succeed in persuading people—it carries little or no real evidential weight, since the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

Shorter version - say something absolutely ridiculous to make your equally ridiculous argument seem reasonable.

Now, can you spot the strawman here?

It’s not role models we need. It’s leaders willing to confront Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry for their depiction of what’s “normal” in marriage and families. The industry would burn film before it would allow a modern Katharine Hepburn to light a cigarette on screen, as she did in “Woman of the Year” in 1942, with Spencer Tracy, because of the bad example it would set. But in today’s Hollywood, the long-running affair between the two actors would have been on-screen and public. That’s important because children, especially those without a married mother and father in their lives, turn to the media for their role models.

Good I thought you could. Now, your homework for the weekend is to research the history of the MPAA.

Enough of this. Go Falcons.