Straw Man BY: MEGAN BRASHER

Straw Man definition:  The Straw Man fallacy misrepresents and replaces the weakest argument of the opponents by belittling it, in other words trying to use their own argument against them in order to make it easier to disprove. The straw man fallacy in other words is, “on the attack.” For example, a politician asks a presidential candidate a question about health care and the candidate replies with three reasons why we should have it; the politician would then pick the weakest of the three arguments to exaggerate or distort to constitute an attack on that position itself. Another example would be this argument between Caleb and William. Caleb said that we should put more money into health and education. William responded by saying that he was surprised that Caleb hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenseless by cutting military spending.

Video #1:  Obama on the news  The argument at hand would be between Romney and Obama. Obama is trying to attack Romney’s idea on military by using one of Romney’s own arguments against him. In this video Obama is trying to distort what Romney said about the military, making Romney’s argument weaker. This video is a good example for my fallacy because Obama is straw manning Romney, presenting that the Straw Man fallacy is “on the attack.” Obama is trying to make voters believe the nature of the military has changed.

Video #2  Thank you for smoking-  This video is a good example of straw man because the man is distorting what the kid is saying to make his argument about freedom of choice. He is throwing the little boy off so that he can make his point about the freedom of choice for his ice cream, then leading to liberty. He then states that he is just trying to prove the little boy wrong therefore he is right. Straw Man fits well with this video because the older man is misrepresenting what the kid was trying to say, and using it against him.