Today, responding to the anti-rights twaddle of daily newspapers is more and more like arguing with—for lack of a polite comparison—terminally ill mental patients. Having departed from the world of fact and reason long ago, and sliding ever faster toward their inelegant demise, newspapers simply have become distractions and decoys for gun-rights activists. It’s only from the force of habit that gun writers today bother to rebut the tired fallacies rehashed in the dead-tree media.
Philip Mulivor
March 14, 2012
Gun rights and the death of newspapers
[“Terminally ill mental patients.” I like that.—Joe]
“It’s only from the force of habit that gun writers today bother to rebut the tired fallacies rehashed in the dead-tree media.”
I disagree. It’s more along the lines of playing whack-a-mole, or spot shooting those freakin’ dandelions that keep popping up in the yard with Round-up (which, come to think of it, can be a force of habit in it’s own right).
You can clear the field once, but they’re persistent little buggers and you need to keep on top of them lest they gain a foothold once more for mere lack of opposition.
It is important to not let them go unchallenged; for me it’s primarily to reach the bystanders who are not familiar with the arguments and who can be swayed by logic (and by illogic, if they view the anti-rights ranting and strawmen with disgust). The hardest part is to avoid ranting right back at them after the fifth go-round.