The problem with experts

Plenty of research, plenty of information, zero mention of the second amendment or the core principles behind it;

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2013/01/with-megyn-kelly-on-fox-news.html#comments

In other words, he didn’t make the case.  Instead he argued purely within The Enemy’s framework, proving who had all the control over the conversation.  Human rights, and the power relations between citizens and government, were apparently not even worth mentioning, yet those are THE points to be made.  Listen to their words very carefully.  Lott and Kelly both took the bait, hook, line and sinker, and ran with it.  It’s sad.  The term, “too clever by half” comes to mind.

In fact, a fundamental human right is being impugned and attacked without being mentioned– as though it didn’t exist– as though infringements on that right aren’t specifically prohibited.  “Machineguns are already highly regulated, and aren’t used in crimes” as if that would matter– as if your rights depend on statistics– as if a certain set of infrigements to your rights is all we’re going to talk about.  It would be like discussing how to cook your mother for dinner, with no mention of the mother’s moral right to life or the legal prohibition against killing her and eating her.  Cannibals are arguing over the cannibal pot, and the audience is to see one chef as the more clever culinary tactician than the other.  No doubt many of us on both sides are cheering along like mindless sports fans at a game.  We are better than this.  It’s not a goddamned game.

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4 thoughts on “The problem with experts

  1. We talk about it constantly at my blog. Come on over and take stock of the pro-Civil Rights position and keys to defeating the rights deniers.

  2. John Lott is a researcher. That is his niche. There are enough of us out here that we can specialize. And we need both civil rights crusaders and researchers. So keep up your good work and don’t expect all of the people on our side to do exactly the same thing.

  3. I just want us all to ask ourselves, in every instance; “Who is controlling the conversation? Who is setting the framework of the conversation? Who’s premises are we arguing?”

    The left does very well trying to frame their anti rights position as the moral position, even if it is twisted and crazy. When we try to counter their “moral” position only with facts and figures, no matter how well researched, we’re failing to control the conversation, we’re failing to take the high ground, and we’re failing to win over the fence sitters. Worse yet is when we take the LaPierre position that enforcing existing gun right infringements is a legitimate means of dealing with crime. In that case we’re ceding the premise, bolstering the anti rights position. Lott did it in that linked video when he brought up the machine gun issue, and argued that actual military rifles are already highly restricted (and so therefore they are not used in crimes, is the insinuation the enemy will pick up on).

    As “shocking” or as “extreme” as the power balance concept may be to some, it, along with the purely moral argument, is in fact the winning argument. It is in fact why we have the second amendment after all. With that firmly planted on the table, statistics become irrelevant, except perhaps as a tool for indictment of the violators.

    If people are in fact dying as a result of second amendment infringements, as I believe they are and it can be proven, then we have a crystal clear-cut case for prosecution under 18 USC 242, for which there is a maximum sentence of the death penalty. But establishing the moral case, getting the moral indignation going, is the first step.

  4. Well, no, of course it is not a goddamned game. It is, as they say on the Internet, Serious Business. Ya know, Life and Death, Liberty or Tyranny, und so weiter.

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