straw man fallacy

The straw man fallacy is a common rhetorical tactic whereby one gives the impression of attacking a position or argument that another has taken while actually attacking a false, distorted, misleading, weakened, or exaggerated version of that position or argument. For example, President Obama is regularly called a socialist by conservative pundits and politicians whenever he proposes any government action, but they are attacking a straw man. Obama's proposals on health care, bailouts, and other government interventions in public life are not part of a socialist agenda. Obama is no more a socialist than Rick Santorum is an agent of the Vatican. Obama's defenders also attack a straw man when they characterize his critics as claiming that "Obama wants to seize the money of hardworking Americans and redistribute it to single mothers and jobless crackheads ... until we resemble the Soviet Union." Obama's critics have distorted his proposals, but to say they're portraying him as wanting to redistribute the wealth to support jobless crackheads is a bit of an exaggeration.

An important consequence of attacking straw men instead of real arguments in their strongest form is that doing so prevents serious discussion of whatever issue is at stake. The bar for moral, social, and political discourse in this country isn't that high to begin with, but attacking straw men lowers the bar even further.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum provided us with some examples of the straw man fallacy in his attacks on President Obama's position on education and John F. Kennedy's position on separation of church and state. Here is what Santorum said regarding Obama's views on college education:

President Obama said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob! There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.

Obama did not say he wants everybody in America to go to college, so attacking him for holding this position is irrelevant to either proving Obama's position is wrongheaded or for proving any of the other claims Santorum makes about getting a college education, creating jobs, or indoctrination. What Obama actually said was:

I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country — and this country needs and values the talents of every American.

Santorum's straw man ploy was matched by others who characterized Santorum's position as being against education, which it isn't. Comedian Jon Stewart, for example, asked of Santorum: “You’re against people educating their kids because it’s fancy?” We can forgive Stewart, since exaggeration is an expected part of comedy. But others who distorted Santorum's position are as guilty of the straw man fallacy as he is.

Regarding JFK's position on separation of church and state, Santorum said:

To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live [in] that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?

That makes me throw up and it should make every American who is seen from the president, someone who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can’t come to the public square and argue against it, but now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square.

I admit that it is difficult to follow what Santorum is saying, but it seems clear that he is characterizing Kennedy's position on the separation of church and state as meaning that people of faith have no role to play in our political life. In actuality, Kennedy's position was put forth to defend the position that a person's faith should not disqualify him from public office. Kennedy never said that he wanted people of faith to have no role in the public square. I remember the speech well and Kennedy's point was clear: if elected I will not be taking orders from the Vatican. Here's what Kennedy actually said:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

Nothing in this speech comes close to Santorum's distortion.