However, many people in this thread are demonstrating that it may not be possible to love the NRA - or be a member - without being a complete moron about it.
Well, then, they’ve nothing to worry about. So, why do they seem to be so anxious?
Fortunately, Bricker’s comment is bullshit. There has been a regression in America lately but the overall trend is of progress, despite the morons.
I suppose Bricker’s comment could be sort-of true, if he very narrowly selects the timeframe of November 2016 to present.
Then you should have had no trouble typing a second paragraph explaining WHY it was a bullshit analogy.
But that step was not apparently possible, leading to the inevitable inference that your complaint is groundless.
I appreciate your confidence.
But the fact remains that any attempt to dismiss an opponent as a moron begins to ring false if the opponent is winning.
I’m remembering a treatise I read several years ago about, of all things, winning the “Street Fighter,” video games, and how the author described complaints he heard from “scrubs” – his term for sub-par players with the odd tendency to impose their own rules on combat. The opponents would practice long hours on complex “combo moves;” and he’d beat them by simply using the “kick,” move over and over. His opponents would then call his tactics cheap: “Is that all you know how to do?”
Well, no. He knew how to do lots of moves. But if the game can be won by kicking, and the opponent doesn’t know how to defend against or defeat the tactic, then their self-proclaimed unwillingness to use the “cheap,” tactic is absurd, the author pointed out. The rules of the game are the rules. He was apparently playing against opponents who crafted this additional fake rule “no kicking,” in order to assuage their reputation after losing.
I see the same tactic here. “My opponents are morons!”
I see. But they win, and you lose. Ok, I’ll take that. All the laws and policies I favor remain extant, and you get to announce that I’m unable to think. Deal.
Your analogy is inadequate because it fails to represent two essential aspects of the situation. One, “winning” here is not some objectively determinable accomplishment; it consists only in swaying the judgment of a sufficient quantity of morons. It’s like the infamous old jury trials in the south where in any case of white vs black, the black man was almost always guilty (and generally sentenced to death) and the white man always innocent. Would you attribute this to the brilliance of the prosecutors? Would you say that it “rings false” to claim the prosecutors were morons because they were “winning”? This seems to rather spectacularly miss the point that all they had to do was convince a bunch of ignorant bigots of exactly the sort of blatant falsehood that the ignorant bigots were already predisposed to believe.
The second problem with your analogy is it fails to acknowledge that idiotic decisions made by idiots have real-life long-term consequences. Being too stupid to recognize those consequences doesn’t prevent them from happening, and that alone has the potential to change things in the long term.
To borrow a turn of phrase from P.G. Wodehouse, the success of the NRA is a case of moron calling moron like mastadons bellowing across primeval swamps. The small blessing I was referring to is that their messaging and the people they use to deliver those messages are so transparently idiotic and the consequences they’re bringing upon the nation so increasingly tragic that, just like the stereotypical injustices of the Old South whose outrageous recklessness contained the seeds of its own destruction, it just isn’t sustainable.
Sophisticated reasoning, counselor. Winning politically trumps everything else.
You know what? The don’t-do-anything-about-climate-change side is winning politically too, and their kids will pay the price, just like my son will pay the price. Winning.
The kill-Obamacare fight is a mixed bag in terms of who’s winning politically, but the uninsured rate in non-Medicare-expansion states averages 19%, while it’s only about 9% in states with the Medicare expansion. So to the extent that the Obamacare opponents are winning politically, they’re mostly screwing themselves over by doing so. Winning.
Ain’t winning great? :rolleyes:
Well, yeah. You didn’t think this asshole was concerned about results, did you? As with most right-wingers, the important thing is that he get his way so he isn’t sad. Women should be forced to give birth against their will so that torture-supporting asshole isn’t sad, your government should let its citizens suffer from poor health because doing something about is ideologically incorrect as per that same asshole’s spec, and so on.
So your answer is;
“I’m going to deliberately throw out a bullshit analogy that you and I both know is bullshit, then when you refuse to be diverted into a bullshit conversation about it, I’m going to declare victory and walk away!”?
Good luck with that. Loser.
I think it’s a great plan, actually. I like the walking away part. Don’t care if he declares victory in his head or not.
The part that you miss was explained properly by wolfpup. And you wilfully ignore that Lysenko was also a winner. Eventually, decades later after many dead by famine and other scientists discredited or even killed to defend his pseudo-science, he was finally discredited in the former Soviet Union. Again, that took decades.
Of course, it is clear that you think that nonsensical policies that will cause harm like that are favorable.
O.K., you win.
Don’t forget your ball.
So, it’s clearly not a first amendment issue, but it is a tragedy that we as a nation aren’t doing more scientific research as to the relationship between guns and deaths. Good research might, for instance, show that some styles of gun safes are actually safer than others. Or that certain types of background checks are or aren’t effective.
Can the pro NRA folks agree that changing the law that makes it hard to do that research in the US would be a good first step towards a better regulated militia?
I put my life savings into lottery tickets, because it’s the 8/8/2018, and 8 is my lucky number.
I win the jackpot.
Did I make a wise decision?
I’m not claiming pseudo-randomness as an explanation for the whole topic, btw.
Guys, Bricker is using alt-right tactics. He hasn’t actually argued that the NRA’s position is better. He’s made a claim he knows is false because he knows that Dopers can’t let a false claim stand up. It distracts you from the main topic. He knows that someone who is a moron can still win. Hell, Trump is president, for fuck’s sake.
He’s being deliberately antagonistic. What’s weird is that he actually had a stronger argument before this. Granted, he was a snarky ass, because he was, again, being deliberately provocative to make people argue against him, but he had a good argument that the whole thing was not intended to be taken seriously.
Of course, it’s not airtight, because this actually is a policy that is floated around by some people, and it is possible that the guy was having his cake and eating it to, saying what he really wanted to say, and then backtracking it. That’s another dishonest rhetorical tactic.
But at least he had an argument there. This other thing is just pure bait. As such, I suggest we don’t take it. Say flat out that this is a just world fallacy, and that winning doesn’t always make someone more intelligent, and return back to the original topic.
And, if you want more of what I’ve been listening to lately that let me figure out Bricker’s dishonest tactic, you can watch this video series. The tactic I am referring to is saying something obviously wrong to get people to jump in.
Bricker normally seems to avoid these arguments, but I guess his theory that whatever works is the smartest means he’s borrrowing alt-right tactics.
Thanks! I didn’t know that.
It’s really pretty easy.
The straight dope’s mission is to hear from a variety of opinions on all issues that can ever be imagined. From there one can, hopefully, find a way to the truth, or at least a greater understanding. If some opinion comes up on the site I think everyone knows that it would be idiotic to say that the site admin support that opinion.
NRATV is a vehicle of a single issue organization. They have one view only, and support that one view rabidly. If some opinion comes up on their TV show I think it would be reasonable to think they support that opinion.
I think everyone understands the difference but I’m happy to point it out to you.
Also, you can be winning and still be wrong. People get fooled by con-men all the time.
“…Colion Noir, a gun-rights activist and host of an NRA-TV show…”
So a host of a TV show not an official of the NRA and according to the the article you link too
"Noir, in his TV spot, appropriates language generally used by gun-control advocates, by proposing “common sense limitations” on media coverage of shootings, and also implies that its hypocritical for the left to talk about gun control while exercising their first amendment rights.
“As much as the media loves to pivot the conversation after a mass school shooting to gun control, the pen is mightier than the sword,” Noir said. “I vehemently disagree with the government infringing on first amendment rights, the same way i believe the government shouldn’t infringe on second amendment rights.”"
So, no “Gosh, we want restrictions on how the media can report on shootings!”
He was basically pointing out that if you can take one right away, they are all in danger.
BTW ‘well regulated militia’ means in good working order. For example a well regulated watch doesn’t mean a watch with a lot of regulations, it means it’s in good working order. Militia meant able bodied men and later defined as “Unorganized militia – composing the Reserve Militia: every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age, not a member of the National Guard or Naval Militia”
under
10 U.S. Code § 246 - Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Sorry but even the Supreme court has agreed that the right to own guns is a right of the people. District of Columbia v. Heller DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER
You are aware that no one is arguing the right to own guns (I own several), right?
Or are you just a complete dumbfuck?
And yes, when an NRA member on an NRA produced show on the NRA owned and operated TV network makes a statement, their positions are clearly endorsed by the NRA. If they were not, one would reasonably expect some kind of disclaimer, as per other networks. “The opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Rifle Association.”
But that was argued above and you either didn’t read the rest of the thread, or you’re continuing to push the “Nuh Uh!” approach.