Perceptions and the Creation of the Strawman

The topic under discussion is the creation of the strawman that shortcuts all possible intercourse that could seek to resolve issues.  To do this study in a reasonable approach, I needed to create the situation that I am dealing fairly in this project and not creating the strawman concerning something I disagree with and defeat the purpose of this post.  What would be the point of dealing with the creation of the strawman if in doing so I have fully engaged in the mindset that creates the fallacy?  It would be no more a demonstration of the fallacy by committing it myself.  A type of "watch me screw something up in the field of logics."  I wish to examine this unhealthy phenomenon critically.

In doing this, I wish to present two political movements that are poles apart on the key issues, acknowledging that I will tend to lean towards one position, but also pointing out the shabby tendency to vilify the opposition.  These movements are the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement.  In the study, I would first show images that would positively present the position of the activists with brief commentary, and then images that promote strawman disemblance of the movement.  But without commentary.  After showing both positions, I would critique the common fallacy committed by both, with a plea for understanding of these contrasting views.

1.  THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT

Positive images








In review of the pictures, the movement sees as the problem over-sized government, with a zeal to tax excessively. It sees the role of such government as socialism, which has been a noted failure as a system of regulations of nations, economics, and social structure.  It holds such government to be tyrannical, unsympathetic to the citizenry, and wasteful of resources.  Such government is incapable of sustained growth and management.  This is what the Tea Party movement sees as what the nation must fear.

Negative images:

2.  THE OCCUPY ... MOVEMENT

Positive images





The Occupy Movement sees that failure of capitalism as the foundation to all the wrongs of America.  They seek to define a method of a reasonable and fair redistribution of wealth to alleviate social injustices that have been mandated by a portion of society that controls the economics of the country.  The role of government is to establish the necessary programs that would see to the material needs and equivalent rights that a failure to resolve the effects of poverty had for the most part had caused.

Negative images:




THE POWER OF PERCEPTION IN THE CREATION OF THE STRAWMAN

In examining the negative images of each, it is clear that no effort is made to see the reasonings of a given movement if one happened to disagree with the premises of the movement.  To the Occupyan, the Tea Party advocate is a pawn of the corrupt 1%, or inconsistent in the basic positions of the movement.  To the Tea Partier, the Occupy protester is an unprincipled slacker who is secretly working for enemy governments that would transform America into a socialist state.  We have seen all things in the filter of our own perceptions.  The opposition is not a disenting view, it has become a hostile enemy that must be destroyed.  It is too easy to point out the tacky signs that label Pres. Obama as fascist, or the wealthy individual as a narcissic drain upon the strength of the American worker.

Bottom line.  Both are concerned for the future of their country, but at this point, we have not alerted each other to our visions, our fears, our passion for the continuance of democratic systems and the common welfare of the citizens.  Until we have this ability to hear we drives our political viewpoints, our desitny is best expressed in one last image: