The job of a politician is persuasion. By force of argument or force of personality, the politician must persuade people that something needs to be done, and that s/he is the best person to ensure that it is done. While most politicians sincerely believe they are acting for the greater good, their arguments tend to take shortcuts. This is not malicious, in most cases; people do not generally have the time or inclination to digest full discussions of the issues, so points come through more easily in sound byte form. Even so, it is useful to examine the way politicians argue, if only to challenge simple answers and work toward what really matters with regard to an issue.
Appeal to Force Explained
An appeal to force comes when an argument either implies or states that harm will come to the listener or reader if s/he does not accept the conclusion. The simplest example would be that of a schoolyard bully arguing that a smaller child wants to hand over his/her lunch money, because if s/he doesn’t, the bully will hit him/her. It can be a very powerful argument, to be sure, but it is not logically sound because the conclusion does not follow from the premise; the logical conclusion would be that the child does not want to hand over the money, but prefers it to being hit.
Appeal to Force in Politics
A more subtle version of the appeal to force comes when there is no direct threat, but rather an implicit one. As politicians in the United States will not get far with direct threats of violence, this is the form the fallacy is more likely to take. One example is the passage of the “Patriot Act,” in which several civil liberties were rolled back. The appeal to force came to two different groups of people: Congress and the general public. For the former, the argument was something like this: We are at war, and you should support the Patriot Act, because if you do not, then you are unpatriotic and will be seen as helping terrorists. There is no direct physical threat, but the threat to career aspirations of those who wanted to be elected to additional terms was unmistakable. While the threat was powerful, though, the threat of losing political careers had nothing to do in this case with the value of the act itself. In fact, most congresspeople have since admitted that they passed the act without even reading it.
A similar appeal, also implicit, went to the general public. In this case, the argument was that if people did not accept the Patriot Act’s terms, they would risk being attacked again by terrorists. In the wake of 9/11, this was a powerful argument indeed. Still, rolling back civil liberties does not ensure America will not be attacked again, nor does it mean that the Patriot Act is the only or best way to help prevent future attacks.
In the current political climate, the appeal to force comes from a different angle. Candidates, particularly democratic candidates, argue that they should be elected because if they are not, Americans will continue to lose important liberties and rights. Again, they believe their message, but that does not make it a sound argument. Losing liberties is a frightening proposition for most, but the possibility of this occurring does not in itself make any individual candidate the best choice. In fact, Congress is responsible for rewriting and passing this act, or repealing it, or allowing it to remain in force. Further, most of the candidates running for president are currently members of Congress – and with the exception of having veto power, they have more control over the fate of legislation there than they would as president. Again, the appeal to force does not logically lead to the conclusion that one of these candidates must be elected.
Conclusion
None of this is meant to imply that the administration did not firmly believe the Patriot Act was the best way to address terrorist threats in the wake of 9/11, or that candidates now do not sincerely believe they are the best choices to lead the country forward. What it does mean, though, is that the arguments described above not logically sound. Indeed, the act has come under a great deal of scrutiny after the fact, and some of its provisions have been modified already. Looking through the arguments at the time and addressing the merits of the act could have sped up the process and led to a much fuller debate on the topic.
The appeal to force is a powerful argumentative weapon, but it is not sound logically. When one has the ability to look past the threat in the argument, one can look at the merits of the issue and decide accordingly.
