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     Dawes, Massachusetts is a mid-size city just north of Boston along the route most traffic from Boston's northern suburbs takes to reach Logan Airport. The city is run by a Mayor and a six-member city council; each councilor is elected from a particular geographic district.
     City Councilor Steve Ercellini is facing a tough re-election campaign.  His challenger is Jaleel Bianco, a twenty-four-year old who moved to Dawes when he was starting ninth grade.  He attended college at MIT, living on-campus (which is 20 minutes from Dawes) and graduated with honors with a B.S in Urban Science and a minor in Environmental Science. 
     Councilor Ercellini represents a district in which a multinational grocery store chain (Food! Food! Food! or "Triple F") has agreed to buy the land on which a car dealership (Revere Chrysler) has operated for more than thirty years.  Revere Chrysler occupies more than four acres of land abutting a residential area, a small commercial strip featuring mom & pop businesses, a gas station, a garage for state highway vehicles (especially plows and salt and sand), a competing grocery store and an interchange connecting to two primary highways. 
     Councilor Ercellini met with his constituents to discuss Triple F's plans; 30 homes border the Revere Chrysler property and 92 are on the road that would see the greatest traffic increase from the new grocery store. He explained to them that the local zoning code allows for the store to be built.  The only leverage the City of Dawes has over the project is delaying its review of a driveway permit the store would need and its approval of the building permit for the store.  Ercellini cautioned the neighbors that Triple F could force the City to pay its legal fees if it has to sue to have the driveway permit and building permit issued.  The neighbors were adamant that they wanted him to fight the project at all costs because the store would destroy their neighborhood.
     After the meeting, Ercellini tweeted: "Calling upon all Dawes officials to join me in protecting my constituents' neighborhood around Revere Chrysler and opposing Triple F's grossly disproportionate building plans."
     In response, candidate Jaleel Bianco tweeted: "SAY IT AIN'T SO, COUNCILOR ERCELLINI! Giving false hope to your constituents.  Why not honestly explain that Triple F has won approvals and legal fees in court all three times our cities have delayed permits."

     You've now been retained by Ercellini to publish tweets responding to critiques by his opponents.  Your client insists on two rules:
(1) All responses must be published within four minutes of when any attack is published and
(2) All tweets must be truthful.

     Publish your first response below by making a SLIPPERY SLOPE argument.

Comments

  1. DEFINITION OF SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENT:
    In a slippery slope argument, a course of action is rejected because, with little or no evidence, one insists that it will lead to a chain reaction resulting in an undesirable end or ends. The slippery slope involves an acceptance of a succession of events without direct evidence that this course of events will happen. [Texas State University Dept of Philosophy resources website: https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Slippery-Slope.html]

    ReplyDelete
  2. Right now it's just one grocery store, but before you know it, they could kill local business and bulldoze your homes.

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  3. Traffic congestion with the new supermarket with the increase of pedestrian/auto accidents, resulting in blood in the streets and lead to money flowing out of our pockets.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The addition of the store to the neighborhood is going to add a lot more traffic to the area. This will endanger children waiting for their school buses, playing in their yards and result in traffic accidents and most likely the death of many children.

    ReplyDelete
  5. All the Mom and Pop stores are going to die in a bloody death at the hands of corporate greed.

    ReplyDelete

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     Challenger Jaleel Bianco quickly responds to Councilor Ercellini's slippery slope argument.  He publishes a  meme with Ercellini's head superimposed on a panda referring to him as a "panda-er" because Ercellini is pandering to his constituents' interest in fighting the grocery store.      Using an APPEAL TO EMOTION, tweet the response to the meme.
Not unexpectedly, Jaleel Bianco seizes upon Councilor Ercellin's evasion of his call for his action. Challenger Bianco tweets a stinging rebuke: "Ercellini refuses to address his "strategy" for costing Dawes a lot of money for the privilege of delaying construction of Triple F by 6-10 months.   Is he trying to create more work for his fellow lawyers?” As Ercellini's advisor, you suggest that he should not respond to the specifics of the tweet but should try to discredit Bianco who is gaining some traction in the local social  media.  Your client agrees and tells you to review Bianco's background (see the first blog post) and capitalize on some fact, no matter how insignificant, that will make him seem less connected to Dawes or less able to suggest ways to manage the proposed Triple F store development. You do some of your own investigating and uncover a note in Ercellini's college files suggesting that Bianco had once failed to properly and full
          Later that same day, Challenger Bianco publishes a website which reads like a thesis on urban planning. He explains how zoning laws cannot be changed to stop a project which a city knows is underway.  Bianco reviews the ten most recent court cases in which developers (like Triple F and other big box retailers) have sued the cities which were delaying approval of their permits, won court orders forcing the cities to issue the permits and awarded the developers large sums for their legal fees.  He then provides his own analysis of what Triple F's legal expenses would be and areas that the store might agree to some form of compromise before final plans are created for the store.      He tweets a link to his website (JustBeHonestErcellini.net) and includes the following message:      "If #PandaerErcellini won't tell his folks the truth, I will: neighbors can likely get some improvements from Triple F if they negotiate in good faith now, not after a lawsuit is start