Aristotle said the art of
Rhetoric consists of three elements of persuasion:
ethos is persuasion by getting the audience to identify with you on the basis of your character;
pathos is persuasion by eliciting sympathy for your situation from the audience through emotional appeals; and
logos is persuasion through reasoned, logical argument. I’m concerned only with
logos.
Palast’s comments on VoteTrustUSA and other comments on the various threads are important because VoteTrustUSA is important. Given the serious nature of Palast’s email, there are some questions to be addressed.
I want to comment on a few things you said to Land Shark in the post above (your comments are in italics, underlined):
”As is why you saw fit to drag Mr. Palast, himself into your own private swiftboating of VoteTrustUSA.” This sounds a little like Salon.com’s Farhad Manjoo claiming Kennedy is under the thrall of Mark Crispin Miller and DU. Land Shark is very persuasive but how did he get control of Palast’s mind and pen? That assertion falls right on its face. It is inflammatory but not logical or reasoned.
“.Nor have we ever defended ChoicePoint as a company or the work they do. The only posts in these vitriol-filled threads that represent VoteTrustUSA are the two in Paul's thread that I posted under my longtime DU screen name of heddafoil and signed in my own name.” Take a look at these two statements:
You say, “"We do not support or defend ChoicePoint's business in any way,
except to point out (as is acknowledged in the Georgia article) that they did not own the company that handled the Florida purge contract when it occurred and took themselves out of handling election related business immediately thereafter."
http://tinyurl.com/qv6w6 The Choicepoint corporate web site says: “ChoicePoint did not perform the legally required review of Florida voter rolls used in the past Presidential election.
Rather, ChoicePoint acquired the company that did – Database Technologies – after DBT had delivered the initial 2000 voter exception list to Florida officials for verification."http://tinyurl.com/opku2The common argument used by you and Choice point is that timing relieves culpability. Choicepoint acquired DBT after DBT delivered the program for felon purges you both argue. What you and the Choicepoint’s corporate statement both miss is that Choicepoint owned DBT between the time of the acquisition (2/06) and the election (11/06). Palast addresses that in his email and articles. My point is that you and the company both agree on the rationale for their innocence in this matter for the same reason.
A further question is why does VoteTrustUSA even have a position on this? It seems that you go out of your way to defend an organization, a company that can defend itself quite when that defense lends nothing to the cause of election reform. Your statement excusing Choice point in the Florida 2000 purge looks gratuitous.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
