The op-ed piece “Heavy Price of Defense Spending Cuts: nations that choose butter over guns atrophy and die” has several critical thinking shortcomings. Two of the most egregious are critical reasoning / logical fallacies: first, “arguments against the person” , and second “false dichotomy” combined with “appeal to fear” . While emotionally engaging, these logical fallacies ignore the complexities of U.S. spending priorities. Moreover, Hanson uses these reasoning / logical fallacies to elicit strong emotions from the reader, impeding the reader’s critical thinking. Consequently, Hanson accelerates political polarization and further derails the chances for the robust public dialogue required to develop a nuanced solution to this complex issue. …show more content…
Hanson attacks President Obama’s person with comments asserting that Mr. Obama made “symbolic apologies for purported past American sins, bowing to foreign royals, and outreach to the likes of Iran and Syria.” As with most attacks on the person, this fallacy fails the test of acceptability and relevancy to the argument. Rather, through this fallacy, Hanson largely ignores Mr. Obama’s policies and attacks his person instead. It’s worth noting that Hanson uses this fallacy early in his piece to establish an emotionally charged tone and tenor which he carries throughout his piece. Saving his most emotionally charged critical thinking shortcoming for last, Hanson closes with a combination fallacy: false dichotomy with an appeal to