type of fallacy

I simply call this type of fallacy, "patriotism".

That's not a fallacy, strictly speaking. At most, the speaker has elided the difference between the statement that "all Americans should stand" and "Tinker should be fined for not standing." Since "being fined" is not implicit in the original statement as a punishment for not standing, the speaker has jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. That's not a logical fallacy, that's more of an error of composition, since the missing middle term ("all people who don't stand for the national anthem should be fined") can be readily supplied.

But I'm sure that's not the answer you were looking for.

Presumably, the author of this question wants the answer to be something along the lines of: "Tinker can't stand, so he should be excused from standing for the national anthem." But that doesn't point out a logical fallacy either. If the speaker posits a rule ("all Americans should stand for the national anthem") and doesn't admit any exceptions to that rule for people who can't stand, the absence of the exception doesn't make the rule fallacious, it just makes the rule unreasonable.

Oh wait, I see the fallacy now.

The speaker states that all Americans should stand for the national anthem. There is nothing to indicate, however, that Tinker is an American. That's an unproven assumption. So the speaker is begging the question.

Yes, but how many people misuse the phrase "begging the question". Mostly, when we say that, we should be saying "raises the question".

There's also the assumption that all Americans are from the US.

Perhaps Tinker is Brazilian.

A lot.


True.