An ad baculum from a rich asshole

An Ad Baculum is a version of the appeal to emotion, and it is a fallacy in which one substitutes a threat of force for an actual argument. One might imagine that such a fallacy is uncommon because a brute threat seems like such an obvious error to recognize. Nevertheless, an excellent example of this fallacy can be found in an email that this man, David Siegal, billionaire owner of the massive timeshare company Westgate Resorts, sent to his employees.

In the email, Siegal threatens his employees with a loss of their jobs if they fail to elect Mitt Romney president of the US. Siegal writes:

As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best. [Emphasis added]

This is about as clear a threat as one could imagine. Siegal then concludes the email by writing:

So where am I going with all this? It's quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.
[...]

You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about. [Emphasis added]

Leaving aside the absurdity of someone actually claiming that a slight increase in the top marginal tax rate will have any effect on whether or not that person continues to work (if Siegal wanted to retire he could, he already has lots of money and doesn't need to work), the general Ad Baculum in this email should be obvious, and in fact the whole point of the email was to threaten his employees to vote a certain way. In fact, Siegal has employed similar tactics in the past. As Gawker notes:

The Florida-based Westgate Resorts is not a public company. It is the domain of David Siegel, a staunch Republican. In fact, Siegel has publicly claimed credit for George W. Bush defeating Al Gore, saying "I had my managers do a survey on every employee [8,000 total]. If they liked Bush, we made them register to vote. But not if they liked Gore."

So, once again we see wealthy individuals exploiting that wealth in an effort to sway elections in directions that they think will be beneficial to them, often using underhanded and deceptive tactics to do so.

h/t to Digby

It's not forced, just mandatory

 

In the above photo from a campaign rally in Ohio on August 14 it appears that Mitt Romney has garnered the support of the coal industry and its workers. He is surrounded by coal minors and the little sign affixed to his podium reinforces the support of these workers for the Romney campaign. However, if we dig a little deeper into the true story behind this image we can see that it is actually an elaborate lie. As broken by WWVA radio host David Blomquist, the workers at this campaign rally were actually forced by their employer to attend the event.

Now the employer in question, Murray Energy claims that no one was forced to attend the event. As quoted in The Raw Story, Chief Financial Officer Rob Moore said:

There were no workers that were forced to attend the event. We had managers that communicated to our work force that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend the event. We had a pre-registration list. And employees were asked to put their names on a pre-registration list because they could not get into the event unless they were pre-registered and had a name tag to enter the premises.

And this is an excellent example of the Appeal to Force. An Appeal to Force is a fallacy in which a threat or coercion is used to support a conclusion rather than a reasoned justification. In this case, we have employees being told that an event is mandatory, but no one is being forced to go. One might immediately ask, how can an event be mandatory but not forced? The distinction seems to be that no one dragged the coal miners there in chains, and in that sense it wasn't forced. However, when an employer tells an employee that an event is mandatory, that is a clear threat leveled at one's job. The employer was implying and the employees understood that failure to attend the event could result in the loss of a job, and in that sense, the workers were clearly forced to attend under threat of losing their jobs. Thus, the apparent support of coal miners for Romney was coerced via an Appeal to Force.

To add insult to injury, because the mine was closed that day, the coal minors were not paid, even though they were forced to attend a political rally. This is really shameful and disgusting behavior on the part of Murray Energy and Rob Moore.

h/t to Atrios