Essay 3

Stephen James

Professor Mulliken

English 1113

4 October 2011

A Falling Government

            In the opinion section of CNN.com a CNN contributor named LZ Ganderson wrote an article titled “Stupid Voter Enable Broken Government”. LZ Ganderson states the government is falling apart due to the voters that choose to elect the people who run for government. In order for the government not to fall apart, Ganderson argues that voters need to take the initiative and start investing their time and mind into a candidate before they elect their favorite candidate.

            In order to support his claim, Ganderson uses different kinds of rhetorical strategies that appeal to ethos, logos, and pathos. The author first immerses the reader by describing the footage of a politician named Marion Barry in a room of crack smoke who says “B**** set me up” (Ganderson). Marion Barry’s actions in the video footage had no negative impact on the voters’ minds. The voters had still re-elected as mayor after he had been released from a federal prison which is “because he convinced African Americans that the video of him with a crack pipe was the white peoples fault”(Ganderson). Even today, Marion Barry now serves on the City Council. LZ Ganderson analyzes this incident as an example to prove that there is something wrong with our government. 

            The author earns the reader’s respect because of the facts that he displays throughout his article and through his logical presentation about why the government is very broken according to Ganderson’s argument. In support of Ganderson’s position, he refers to a member of the speaker of the house, disciplined for ethics violations, Newt Gingrinch who has cheated on two of his wives. The most ironic thing about Newt Gringrinch is that he is actually running for president of the United States of America as a religious conservative who surprisingly got eight percent of Florida’s votes in the straw poll. LZ Ganderson strongly disagrees with what Gringrinch is doing and what he has accomplished while he has been running for president which supports Ganderson’s argument even more. In response to the incident about Newt Gringrinch, Ganderson states “Are you freaking kidding me?”(Ganderson). LZ Ganderson also emphasizes the importance of how alert voters should be in electing any type of candidate by stating  “The fact that he is even on camera discussing the country's sense of morality during the GOP debates should be offensive to any thinking person regardless of party affiliation”(Granderson).

            LZ Granderson appeals to ethos that pertains to his argument by using an example that deals with the Arizona government. In the Arizona government incident, a lady named Jan Brewer who said last year that law enforcement officials had found headless bodies in the dessert which was done by a Mexican cartel but was forced to say that everything she said about the law enforcement officials finding headless was all false information by saying she had “misspoke”. The worse thing about the whole incident was that Jan Brewer had a relationship with private prisons that are set to profit because her campaign manager and her spokesman were both former lobbyist for private prison companies. The voters had still elected that woman to become governor of the state of Arizona which is another reason why this incident supports Granderson’s argument about how the government is still broken. LZ Granderson states in his article exactly what his argument by stating “The biggest reason government is broken is because of voters.

Let's face it. A lot of us are just plain stupid.Or at the very least lazy”(Granderson).

                Throughout, Granderson’s personal feelings are strongly stated directly in this article. As a CNN Contributor, Granderson openly expresses his opinions about his argument but express those opinions in a way that are supported through current events that have recently occurred and different types of facts that are expressed throughout the article. The type of audience that this article appeals to are regular voters which essentially may weaken the solution as well as the effectiveness to his argument about why the government is so broken because the approach that Granderson is taking is in an impolite manner. However, words that Granderson uses to describe the voters such as “stupid” and even “lazy” appeal to pathos according to the reader because of the harmful descriptions that he uses to define many of today’s voters and basically blame them for the reason why our government is broken. Granderson’s choice of words may also weaken the solution to his argument that he is trying to make. Even though Granderson’s approach is a little blunt he is arguing that voters should educate themselves with facts and candidates involving political issues that will affect the voters future and in support of his argument he states something that entails that the government does not have to be perfect at all but goes along the lines of the voters as well as the people to be able to make smarter choices by stating that “We have to move away from easy-to-repeat campaign slogans and promises of easy solutions, because we're a country with more than 300 million people, a complicated racial and religious history and the world's largest GDP. There are no easy solutions.”(Granderson). LZ Granderson makes his argument in a very blunt and informational way that will hopefully change the readers perception on electing candidates.