To the editor:

In response to Kenneth Meador’s letter to the editor regarding the defacement of a political ad, I agree the action was childish and had no place in a college.

What does have a place in college is logic.

Therefore, I disagree with the author’s leap from logic to emotion to explain who was responsible.

It is logical to say that the act was childish.

However, it is illogical to make generalizations regarding the Republican Party.

“Upon hearing this, though, I have to ask myself if this is what the Republican Party has come to,” Meador said [in his letter.]

I read the letter again to see if I had missed the facts about the Republican Party as a collective whole meeting in the halls of OCCC to deface the picture of a Democratic candidate.

I have taken some time recently to use political advertisements to discuss logical fallacies with my students.

In politics, many times, emotion takes over and logic is left behind.

This letter is an example.

It begins with logic and then the editorial quickly switches to emotion.

It produces a logical fallacy called hasty generalization.

A hasty generalization occurs when there is a leap in logic based on insufficient evidence.

One person’s childish act cannot possibly be logically generalized to be the fault of an entire political party.

As the president of the College Democrats, Mr. Meador was clearly emotional about the Democratic candidate for governor, but this emotion does not excuse the leap in logic.