Irony In A Modest Propsal

A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift, is an essay full of irony in many different instances. For instance, Swift writes, "the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvements in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables, which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this and many others I omit, being studious of brevity." Swift is talking about how we kill so many pigs to put on our tables which doesn't even compare to eating a child. Even though we work hard to make good tasting bacon and stuff it into our children, the kids would taste better than our bacon. It's ironic because we go to great lengths to kill certain animals and eat them when we, ourselves, would taste better than those animals that we would slaughter for food.

Argumentum Ad Populum Fallacy

      Ad Populum is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it. In other words, it "appeals to the people." When I was younger, everytime I told my I wanted something just because all the "cool kids" have it or asked to do something because everyone was doing it,  my mother always used to respond with the question, "If everyone was jumping off of a bridge would you do it too?" I always wanted to do the things that everyone was doing whether it be something good or bad just to be in the "in" crowd.
      FOX News channel is a great example of ad populum because most watchers want to watch FOX because all of it's news is by popular choice. Since FOX is ad populum, it has some of the highest ratings within three of the major news channels. FOX tends to create stories or controversies for popular choice since the facts and the truth aren't always a subject to popular demand or choice. Rachel Maddow on the Rachel Maddow Show from MSNBC once spent a show talking about how FOX news is argumentum ad populum saying that, "FOX does what FOX does." She was trying to describe that saying she was wrong because more people watch FOX is an argumentum ad populum stating, "If many believe so, it is so."