Barack Obama and the Tyranny of False Choices

Center for Individual Freedom - Barack Obama loves the rhetorical trope of the “false choice.” From his earliest days as a national figure, the president has repeatedly attempted to convey his intellectual superiority to ordinary politicians by announcing that some controversy of the day is being unnecessarily simplified. ✧ Thus was there “a false choice between our safety and our ideals” when it came to national security. ObamaCare was a response to “a false choice” between “government-run health care with higher taxes — or insurance companies without rules denying people coverage.” Conservative and liberal views of economics represented a false choice “between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy.” ✧ As Ruth Marcus [of the Washington Post] noted, Obama’s application of the [false choice] tactic would often run as follows: “Set up two unacceptable extremes that no one is seriously advocating and position yourself as the champion of the reasonable middle ground between these unidentified straw men.” Read more at CFIC...