Congressman Billy Long's Language Patterns Show the Fallacy of His Arguments

I have noticed a pattern in Congressman Billy Long's soundbites. Long constantly used words that suggest near 100% concurrence. An example of this was during the election with Long contradicted even his own words with a follow up sound bite. Long replied to a question about Obamacare during the Joplin debate against Scott Eckersley, "there's lots of things about the healthcare bill that are good." He then followed it up with "I haven't met anyone yet who likes the healthcare bill."

What is it Billy? See the contradiction.

Words like everyone and always don't make solid arguments, and they once again remind just how out of touch Long is with the populous sticking to the opinions of those close to him rather than reach out and really learning what his constituents think. While I agree with Congressman Long on his stand against raising the debt ceiling, which I believe Republicans will eventually cave thanks to a promise of minimal spending cuts, which they will sell to us as some cuts are better than not cuts, I believe Long will follow leadership on the compromise in the end. If he doesn't, he will pander to leadership like he did during the budget debate in which John Boehner backed down from getting minimal budget cuts for an agreement with Democrats.

In an interview with the News-Leader, Long once again uses weak rhetoric.

"When I went home last weekend, everyone came up to me and said, 'Don't raise taxes. Don't raise the debt ceiling. Don't raise taxes. Don't raise the debt ceiling,'" Long said. "All the congressmen are hearing the same thing in their districts. We've spent too much money that we don't have and there has to be a comeuppance."

Well who is everyone? Because earlier in the story, we find out everyone is only 51%.

Long said 51 percent of all calls, emails and letters coming into his office are opposed to raising the debt ceiling under any circumstance. Another 26 percent would only support raising the debt limit if the deal included cuts to defense, entitlement spending and other programs.

Just 12 percent support raising the debt limit with no strings attached and nearly 11 percent support raising the limit as long as the deal doesn't include tax increases.

There are so many examples of similar rhetorical use of absolutes that often contradict themselves. When you look at Long's own record in Washington, it's easy to see the hypocrisy in his own rhetoric as he has co-sponsored legislation to grow the Department of Homeland Security twice, voted to fund a fraudulent lawsuit with $1.25 billion of your tax dollars, and of course voted to continue federal funding of NASCAR teams. Long isn't as serious as cutting spending as he claims, but he will describe his efforts as absolute in cutting spending in Washington when he returns to the district for his re-election bid next year.