Reflection #8

The Declaration of Independence, being the perfect piece of flawless text with absolutely no flaws at all, has is far from perfect, some might even say that it is flawed. Why? Well it uses faulty logic and propaganda techniques very similar to my starting sentence. It uses a clear form of propaganda when it says "The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation's, all having in the direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states" (Jefferson 122). Now notice how they directly call out the king, who is at the time their enemy, and the way the portray him is in a bad way. They are pretty much saying that everything bad happening is because of him, and that all the people who are against the Declaration are siding with the king, who is evil. This is clearly propaganda due to it using propaganda based methods, like making your enemies seem evil, and you seem not evil. It's a good method to use on the plebeians as they are plebeians and don't have sufficient brain function to realize what is truly being written at them, and that they most likely can't read because they are plebeians. Normal people though require a bit more than our enemy is evil than to persuade them. Messages such as spending the entirety of the next page giving very specific examples of his tyrannical ways. Most of this document is just one big insult towards the king and then describing all the things that he has done, so in essence it is a series of insults and propaganda, which are both no nos in the world of persuasion, but they are effective. Although he didn't have to spend so much of the thing singling out the king, when he could be talking about the rights and stuff that he should be promising the people reading said document. This shot out at me while reading. "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people" (Jefferson 124). This is a great case of extreme exaggeration as he has simply exaggerated the effects of the king to further his propaganda against him, which is really bad because it makes people take him less seriously, for example, I have just read this and I am finding him to be fairly silly with his accusations and what not, as he shouldn't be hitting on his enemy, as he should be making himself look good, preferably by promising good things that he can give them. Really, why with all the hate, it makes him look like a bad person who hates people, which is bad because people will fear him and that is counterproductive. If he is being counter productive, then he is only helping the king by putting his people in disarray, as if the people don't like him, their moral will be horrible, which will cause them to suffer on the battlefield, which will make them lose. I rest my case.

Eefferson, Thomas. "Declaration of Independence." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 122-124. Print.