Rhetorical Mishaps

Putting aside my own gripes with The Daily Free Press, I have one suggestion for Brian C. Chaitoff, writer of yesterday’s “Stop the liberal bias,” featured in the Op/Ed section of The Daily Free Press. I encourage him to choose concisely his rhetoric! Mr. Chaitoff criticizes the “unbalanced and completely biased…Socialist” Daily Free Press for catering to the “Epicurean garden” of “[un]reality.” In isolating but one of many rhetorical gaffes, I hope to call attention to the dangers of hyperbole and misinformation evoked by Mr. Chaitoff. Although Mr. Chaitoff wants to elicit attention for his allegedly censored opinions, he would do better to argue his point soberly. Since when does The Daily Free Press advocate socialism? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, socialism is “a theory of social [societal] organization that advocates” communal “ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, property, etc.,” for “their administration or distribution in the interests of all.” Socialist papers therefore advocate the policies and doctrines of socialism. “Liberal” ideas are not necessarily socialist, nor are socialist ideas necessarily liberal. This is not the first time The Daily Free Press has printed a gross misconception of socialism (see “PERSPECTIVE: The Negative Aspects of Socialism” by Michael Graboski, printed May 4, 2002). Mr. Chaitoff’s exaggerations and unsupported assertions undermine and detract from his “argument.” If you want to criticize, fine, if you want to start your own “conservative” newspaper, great, but for your sake and for the “[un]educated,” “cloud-cuckoo-land” readers’ sake, resist from using misinformation to persuade. You do a disservice to yourself and to the “reluctant” readers of The Daily Free Press.

Cordelia Chadwick CAS ’05