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Chapter- 11 Blog Post


In this chapter, the author talks about refutation by fallacy claims. He talks about the different types of fallacies and how they are used in argumentation. He defines a fallacy claim as “one that asserts that an argument must be rejected because it violates a significant rule of argumentation relevant to the appropriate decision makers.” In this blog post I will particularly focus on the Ad Hominem Fallacy. It is defined as “when people turn their criticism against a person rather than the person’s ideas.” The author gives the example of how we unconsciously use the ad hominem fallacy when listening to argument by attractive people and tend to believe them more than unattractive people just based on their looks. He also gives an example of how people might blame and start threatening all Muslims in a city upon learning that the shooting in the city mall was done by a Muslim immigrant.

              These examples led me to think of the most common example of Ad Hominem attack in our present world. President Trump seems to often be a victim of the Ad Hominem attack because of his racist comments on immigrants from different countries based on their racial or religious background. As well as his conservative views on abortion rights and his stance on gun rights. His racist and polarizing views often make led to people not believing his policies or doubting his intentions because of his certain actions in the past. His policy and stance on the TPS (Temporary Protected Status) is a great example of an Ad Hominem attack. President Trump wants to get rid of the TPS for people who are safe to go back to their home countries. The TPS is a humanitarian effort to protect people and give them refuge in case of life threatening situations in their home countries. Since, the condition in most of these countries are better and it is safe for the refuges to go back, President Trump wants those refugees to go back. But because of the President’s remarks about immigrants most people believe that the policy to get rid of TPS is racial motivated act making him a victim of the ad hominem attack. where in reality the President is not the only one responsible to draft this policy and their are other legal departments such as the Homeland Security which people are not aware of or in other words ignorant of. 

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