Shakespeare and "them"

I personally was impressed with Kevin’s presentation because I am also in his Shakespeare class and just so we all know, we have not mentioned one word about rhetoric in that class. The teacher was somewhat mentioned persuasiveness but the idea of rhetoric has been completely glossed over; so good job to Kevin for thinking that one up. Anyway, I think that he had good ethos, due to his participation in the Shakespeare class and his own love for and participation in the theater. I also think that he picked good plays to show his point.
In Richard III, Kevin shows the use of logos and pathos in Richard’s speech to his future wife, Anne. Richard is probably one of the best examples of Shakespeare’s use of rhetoric. Richard is a complete villain, who is able to make himself appear to be doing things in the best interest of other people. He uses rhetoric to convince two separate women to marry him; despite their absolute hatred of him. Richard also uses words to confuse his brother, Clarence, into believing that he is going to help him get out of jail when in fact he is going to kill him. Richard becomes a difficult character to react too; on one hand, you want to hate him for his evil acts and yet on the other, you must respect him for his ability to use words and rhetoric.
I must agree with Jillian that Shakespeare appears to be epistemic in his rhetoric because he is always leading either the audience or another character to a new idea or decision. Very rarely is a character in Shakespeare talking just to take up space, they are always conveying a message. To answer a question asked the first day of class, I believe that Shakespeare (through his characters and through the actions of his plays) is the best rhetorician of all time (expect maybe Hitler, whose work I do not know well enough to speak of at this point in time).
I was also impressed by Robert’s presentation, although I must confess that I had little idea of what he was talking about. I feel that he had a lot of ethos through his own knowledge and research. I believe that he made some good points about American media and how it skews things in our direction. I also enjoyed that he mentioned the “us and them” idea. We do tend to think that “they” are not us. We also always refer to them in groups as “the Middle East” expect, the truth is that they are only in the middle East compared to us (whom we obviously assume must be in the middle of the earth). Anyway, I liked that he pointed out some of the stereotypes that we have about the peoples of other nations.