Following selections were taken from letters-to-the-editors columns of newspapers and magazines. Identify any fallacies that may be committed, giving a brief explanation for your answer. Then, if a fallacy is identified, discuss the possible factors that led the arguer to commit the fallacy.
1. What's wrong with kids today?
Answer: nothing, for the majority of them. They are great. Witness the action of two San Diego teenage boys recently, when the Normal Heights fire was at its worst. They took a garden hose to the roof of a threatened house-a house belonging to four elderly sisters, people they didn't even know. They saved the house, while neighboring houses burned to the ground. In the Baldwin Hills fire, two teenage girls rescued a blind, retired Navy man from sure death when they braved the flames to find him, confused, outside his burning house. He would probably have perished if they hadn't run a distance to rescue him. (Theodore H. Wickham).
2. Now that Big Brother has decided that I must wear a seatbelt when I ride in a car, how long will it take before I have to wear an inner tube when I swim in my pool, a safety harness when I climb a ladder, and shoes with steelreinforced toecaps when I carry out the garbage?