The other night, I had a discussion with my father about politics (Which is, pardon my sarcasm, always just so fun). During that discussion, he told me a hypothetical story that I would bet you are familiar with. It goes roughly as such:
“A man asked his son to mow the lawn, offering twenty dollars for it. After an afternoon of work, the son came inside and was given his promised money. The father then says that he would like to take his son to get some ice cream, and so they get in the car and drive towards town. On the way, they pass a house with another boy sitting on his porch. The father says, ‘Alright son, I want you to get out of the car and give that boy ten of the twenty dollars you earned for mowing the lawn.’ ‘What? I earned that money myself, why would I give it to him?’ asks the son. ‘Because that boy didn’t have the opportunity you had to earn the money.’ The son crosses his arms and grumbles that it isn’t fair, to which the father smiles and says, ‘Welcome to the Republican Party.’” The fact that I had already heard that story so many times already aside, I thought it would be a interesting piece of rhetoric to analyze. This hypothetical is meant to appeal to one’s logos. It makes sense that money that one earned through their own hard work would be theirs to do with what they will. The son would have no logical reason to want to give the other boy half of his earnings unless he wanted to be charitable out of the goodness of his heart. Pathos is also possibly applicable here, if we are meant to feel bad for the son who does not want to give up his money. For myself, what is to be missing from this hypothetical to make it a convincing argument is ethos. A father arbitrarily telling his son to give up half of his money to some other random child lacks whatever nuances are present in the actual United States tax system. It ignores numerous tax laws and things like tax brackets. On a simple level, I suppose it is a somewhat effective argument, but again, it lacks all nuance. I believe if one were to revise this story to make it more convincing, the situation should be more akin to the United States government. First of all, involving a random boy is like if the United States decided to start sending tax money to a random country. If we wanted to make it comparable, a closed economy of the household would make more sense. Perhaps the son would be asked to give his sister some of his money. Secondly, while it might seem naive to say this, the money gained from taxes is meant to be used for the benefit of all people in the country for things such as maintenance of highways and national defense, not just sloughed off to some random people to do whatever with it. I understand that the story is meant to parallel things like welfare, but it was presented in an unsatisfactory way. Here is how I would change the story: “A boy was given twenty dollars by his father after mowing the lawn. Of the twenty, he put five dollars into his piggy bank. Half of it was for saving up for a new skateboard after his old one broke. The other half was going to be used for ammo for the monthly paintball battle he has with his friends. Satisfied, he went to the living room to ask his father to take him to get ice cream. ‘Okay, I’ll take you. By the way, you have to give your sister one dollar of the twenty that you made today.’ ‘What? I earned that money myself, why would I give it to her?’ asks the boy. ‘Because she didn’t have the opportunity to earn that money.’ This didn’t sit right with the boy. ‘But, you didn’t ask her to mow the lawn, you asked me to to do it.’ ‘Right, but I’m trying to instil my values and disdain for welfare into you with a flawed metaphor that I’m deceptively making out to be more simple than it truly is. Welcome to the Republican party.’”
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April 2019
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