David Rothkopf Ethical Decision Making

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David Rothkopf uses logical and ethical appeals to bring awareness to the American society about the effects of Washington’s past mistakes on The United States. Many years ago, the intended result of war was to do great things. The space program was created as well as the highway system and the internet. Needless to say, times have changed. Washington's executive branch hasn’t made the finest decisions over the past few years. Fear has been put into the minds of America’s political leaders, and fear can lead to bad decision making. An example of bad decision making is the Iraq War and Afghanistan War. The attacks of 9/11 introduced fear to the American government. Resulting from this fear was the thought that everybody had become a …show more content…

“On 9/11, we had a crisis because we were looking the wrong way. Today we have a crisis because, because of 9/11, we are still looking in the wrong direction, and we know because we see transformational trends on the horizon that are far more important than what we saw on 9/11; far more important than the threat posed by these terrorists; far more important even than the instability that we've got in some areas of the world that are racked by instability today.”(Rothkopf) The message that he is attempting to portray is that the decision that you make may backfire, just like the decision to go to war with the Middle East. Rothkopf goes on to tell his audience that there were only 100 members of Al Qaeda which wasn’t too much of a threat to The United States considering that the American military outnumbered Al Qaeda’s military. Rothkopf also presents facts to persuade the audience in believing his opinion that the decision to go to war with other countries was rushed and also a bad idea. As Rothkopf states, “On the security side, we've come out of a Cold War in which it was too costly to fight a nuclear war, and so we didn't, to a period that I call Cool War, cyber war, where the costs of conflict are actually so low, that we may never stop. We may enter a period of constant warfare, and we know this because …show more content…

Ethos is the character of a specific culture. Rothkopf uses ethos by reminiscing about his childhood memories. In his younger days, him and the rest of the American society grew up in a time period when there was something to fear. They feared war just like the current generation as well as the former generation. If the federal government doesn’t take a stand against terrorism, then most likely the next generation will also have to face the fear of war. Rothkopf doesn’t just talk about his childhood though. He also relates this topic with events that taken place involving war throughout his life. Events that ended up being both positive and negative outcomes. Some of these events include the creation of the internet, as well as the attacks on The World Trade Centers. Ethos is just one of the two rhetorical methods that are used in his

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