Great Writing-A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Smith

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/872/modest.pdf

This "proposal" by Jonathan Swift is a satire, where Swift proposes an idea for what should be done to solve the severe economic problem and human suffering caused by overpopulation in Ireland. Swift recommends killing Irish babies at one year of age in order to alleviate these problems. The reason that I think that this essay contains such great writing is because of the way Swift writes in a formal tone and makes his proposal seem valid, when in reality what he is proposing is absolutely ridiculous. Throughout the passage, Swift uses language that dehumanizes the Irish people, making them seem like cattle raised for slaughter, which helps him achieve his underlying purpose of criticizing the way in which the poor were mocked at this time. Swift's proposal is so agreeable and contains so much support that I even found myself somewhat agreeing with the man, until I remembered that it involved something that was morally terrible.

Proposal-Reflection Paper

            The question that I would like to explore in my reflection paper is “Why does the general public decide to treat other people so poorly?” It did not take me very long to decide on this question, since it is something that I notice each and every day of my life.

            I really began to question the attitudes of the people once I got my first job. My job was a caddy at a country club, so my primary objective was to serve the needs of the golfers by carrying their bags and handing them their clubs. Prior to working here, I had always seen other employed people (such as my parents or friends) deeply frustrated at the ways that they were treated by either people who had authority over them, or just normal individuals. After starting work, it astonished me how many people looked down upon me and treated me as if I was some sort of slave. I know I had done nothing wrong to them, so why were they treating me like this?

            After getting my next job at a grocery store, Wegman’s, I really began to question, and even dislike, much of the general public. Whether they are telling me to grab a grocery cart on the other side of the store just because the one they have is wet, or just acting rude by talking on their phone when I am trying to check them out in line, people look down upon me, and surely countless others, numerous times a day. I have even experiences some extreme cases where customers simply walk up to my face, curse me off, and then leave for no apparent reason. I often become very frustrated at times like these, even though I know that I should just brush them off. I have always hoped that my last day of work will consist of me getting back at a customer with some sort of revenge (this would be my last day of work since whatever I do would get me instantly fired), which is probably a byproduct of my built up anger. The bottom line is that working has opened my eyes to the terrible ways in which people treat others.

            In this paper, I really want to discuss how the ways people decided to downgrade others for numerous and profoundly meaningless reasons (taking frustration out on someone else, trying to make themselves feel better about themselves, or the fact that many people inherently just do not care about strangers) is a fundamental flaw in society. I will talk about how working opened my eyes to this nasty reality, and how today I see it everywhere. I will try to find the reasons for why people act so superior to others by treating them in a condescending manner. I will that, of course, not everyone is like this, but it is very surprising how many are. My overall voice in this paper will most likely be very critical and I will try to point just how meaningless degradation is.  

Logical Fallacies

http://www.truthout.org/witnessing-death-republican-party/1330698232

This article, arguing against the Republican Party and its ability to stay relevant in politics, contains a few logical fallacies. The major fallacies used are the hasty generalization and the slippery slope. In using Rick Santorum’s super-conservative agenda to characterize the entire Republican Party as a group of “right-wing nuts”, the author is demonstrating a hasty generalization. One party member does not represent the entire party as a whole. The author also makes a very bold jump from first criticizing the Republican Party candidates today as radicals to then stating that this will inevitably lead to the death of the Republican Party, at least in its ability to win a national election. The ability of the Republican Party to compete for presidential positions in the future really is not dependent on the group of party members running today (and, as was shown with the hasty generalization, it is really not correct to label all of the party members even of today as incapable of contending). Aside from this, the very statement that the Republican Party may be dying is fallacious, since so many of the past elections between the two major parties have been so tight, and since there is such a large base of Republican citizens that it is questionable to state that the party will die with such ease.