Bednar - Rally for Sanity and/or Fear Values and Fallacies

First, some context -

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear is a satirical movement that emerged as a response to Glen Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in August 2010.  Beck’s rally was met with a counter-rally occurring at the same time: Al Sharpton’s “Reclaim the Dream” march to honor the 47^th anniversary of MLK’s March on Washington. 

The resulting satirical rally were announced as separate events by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in their respective shows that September.  Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity was intended to illustrate that the majority of American voters wanted to “Take it down a notch for America.”  Meanwhile, Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive was a mock call to action; “This is not the time to be reasonable,” to quote The Colbert Report.

During the actual event, the two hosts would debate fear vs. reason; waging war over songs about trains (Stewart backing “Peace Train,” Colbert championing “Crazy Train,” with a compromise over “Love Train.”), awarding Medals of Reasonableness and Medals of Fear, with a climax of a giant paper-mache puppet of “Fearzilla” being taken down by Peter Pan (played by John Oliver, frequent contributor to Stewart’s Daily Show), signifying reason’s victory.

Premises:

·      Facts/Truths

A key part of Colbert’s rhetoric is “truthiness,” the idea that as long as it sounds about right, it must be right.  Probably.  This ties into likely presumptions as well, but it’s very representative of supposed facts and truths.  Further, it’s modified by amplification – it’s a premise that runs off the division of people.

Meanwhile, Stewart’s campaign is based on the observed – reasonability is derived from having concrete facts that aren’t played up, twisted, or made to fit more of an agenda by incendiaries.

·         Values

Abstract and universal – both sides are campaigning for their own versions of truth and justice.

Fallacies:

·         Black and White

The inherent dichotomy between the two rallies asks for attendees to choose a side – either you stand for reason or fight for fear.

·         Slippery Slope

The main point of the rally is that heavily polarized political discussion is a fast-track to creating wide-spread conflict in social environments.  The “debate” between the two hosts is a satirization of the press’ tendency to create a “24-hour politic-pundit perpetual panic conflict-inator.”

·         Appeal to Fear

I mean, what else would you call a March to Keep Fear Alive?

·         Straw Man

Colbert is the over-the-top right wing caricature (for 2010, anyway…), acting as an incendiary pundit with the goal of riling up anger in the crowd.

·         Guilt by Association

Parodied on the Sanity side of things in their signs as part of their campaign – “I want you to stop drawing Hitler mustaches on everyone.”

·         Bandwagon

The nature of a rally invokes the idea of a bandwagon – everyone else is here, you should be too.