Writing a good screed, U.S. edition
In honor of Independence Day, I’d like to offer some suggestions for writing a good political screed:
- Reference one or more of the founding fathers
- Describe a false dilemma, register everything in black or white.
- Invoke the Constitution without being specific
- Refer to the Articles of Confederation, Federalist Papers, or the private writings of the founders.
- Misrepresent 18th & 19th C. thinking. Opportunities exist in misunderstanding Natural Rights, Exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, the Enlightenment, Objective Idealism, Romanticism. Get creative here.
- Make a inappropriate reference to the Separation of Powers.
- Make an appeal to Anti-Federalism, ex. States Rights
- Claim an immediate threat to a politically powerful but diffuse group: small business, seniors, the wealthy, etc.
- Warn of an existential threat to the nation:
- external threats might include Europeans, China, brown-skinned people, trade imbalances, or Communism
- popular internal threats are debt, minorities, Socialism, Liberalism, and moral hazard
- Engage in one or both of Naturalistic and Moralistic fallacies.
- Include numbers without scale, history, or comparison taken from unnamed sources.
- Reach a false conclusion (or none at all).
Following these hints will all but guarantee that your posts to your favorite social media sites will grab attention. Have a good time!
Interesting bit of junk mail
I received an anti-school tax mailing today with no identifier other than the U.S.P.S. permit information “PRSRT. STD. Permit #370, Albany, NY”. A few minutes of searching turns up that this permit also appears on publications by:
- NY Farm Bureau
- SEIU Local 444
- Legal Aid Society of Northeastern NY
- Institute for Design Professionals
- School Span
- Project Lead The Way (various sites)
- Teamsters Local 294
- NYS Insurance Fund
- Albany Prep Charter School
and many others.
I wonder what the connection is? Are they using the same bulk mailing company?
Update 20110510 —
The local newspaper picked up on it too… Phantom Call for No Vote
Open letter to the Cusick campaign
To whom it may concern:
Prior to this morning I did not have a strong opinion on the Albany County District Attorney
A Pilot Comments on Security Theater
The New York Times has a cogent opinion piece by an airline pilot on Airport Security Follies. Think about it.
Are you worried about civil rights yet?
Whatever you think of Cindy Sheehan’s clumsy, personal brand of activism, read [Glen Greenwald’s discussion](http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/learning-from-dear-leader.html) of her arrest at the State of the Union speech.
Are you worried about civil rights yet?
Observation on getting out to vote
Here are some numbers for New York City:
- According to the [NYC Department of Planning and the U.S. Census](http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/census/popcur.shtml), there are 8,168,338 people in the Big Apple.
- The 2000 U.S. Census demographics show that about 89% of those people were over age 18, which means that there should be roughly 7 million potential voters.
- The Board of Elections reported in March there were only 3,903,852 registered voters across the five boroughs.
- On Wednesday, 1.2 million people voted.
The next time you hear someone grousing about or praising the city government you can feel comfortable that the odds are better than 3-1 that they didn’t have anything to do with it.
Ross Lonstein
