The Red Herring

Many people in politics love to divert attention from the real issue by throwing out a red herring argument. I just watched a clip of Elton John at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser. He took a breather from singing to extol his view of Senator Clinton's virtues as a prospective president.

All of this is well and good. I'm all for free speech. Individual freedom is one of my big bugaboos. Sir John is certainly welcome to support whom he wants and advocate for his choice to his heart's content. Here's where the problem lies: Elton John then begins to excoriate America at large, laying out his belief that misogyny is behind the lukewarm poll numbers for his treasured candidate.

Time to burst the bubble on Sir John's (and other people's) la-la land. Hillary Clinton is only marginally to the right of Karl Marx (and I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt here). Add to that she runs a dirty tricks machine that makes Nixon look like the most off-key contestant on amateur night. I do not agree with her policies in any way and I find her methods contemptible. Therefore, I am not going to vote for her and would oppose her with every means. The fact that she sits down to pee is irrelevant.

Now, if in the future a female ( or black or latino, etc.) candidate runs on conservative principles and I oppose them, Sir John may trot out the charge of bigotry. Until then, it's just a load of malarky. Or, the more polite version - it's a red herring.

The Meme Front, pt II

Sometimes memes are very subtle. Take global warming for example. When you here the words "global warming" what do you think? A) an increase in global average temperature B) the earth is turning into a massive desert as the ice caps melt and the polar bears are drowning and were all gonna die.... C) a totally concocted bunch of nonsense liberals are using to create more taxes and take property.

Choice A is merely the strict meaning of the two words. B&C are the memes associated with the phrase "global warming". When speaking scientifically, A is true - its proven that there has been an increase in global average temperature. Politically, a lot of people fall for choice B or C. Yet B is only valid for goofy movies and C is just this side of paranoid (then again, paranoids do have enemies).

I'll be posting on global warming in the future. Since I am a scientist, I will be including hard facts and references. Right now, I am gathering those references. For now, I'm just asking you to think about what you think about when you hear certain words.

The Meme Front

I once had a rather painful encounter with a shovel. As the shovel descended towards the earth to increase the size of the hole it was creating, it intersected my foot. Specifically, it struck at the joint connecting my big toe to my right foot. (Luckily I was wearing appropriate footwear and suffered no injury.) While no evil intent existed, neither did the shovel apologize for the (inadvertent) assault. Why?

Because the shovel is just a tool! In this particular instance a tool being swung by my own, momentarily clumsy, hand. Unfortunately in today's culture it has become common to anthropomorphize tools and thereby lay the blame for an offense on an inanimate object rather than the person wielding it.

My focus in this blog (not this individual post but the blog) will be combating inaccurate memes in current use. A meme is an idea or concept, usually one that is not the technical meaning of a word or phrase, but an undercurrent associated with what is spoken. Memes are often adopted by mere repetition rather than frank evaluation and acceptance as true. When a given movement desires to push it's vision forward, but cannot make traction in a straight-forward debate, they can use propaganda to blanket the populace with their memes. Once the debate is framed in the desired context, the weaker argument of the movement is shielded from frank assessment and is accepted. I intend to shoot darts at these hot air balloons and bring the debate back down to earth.

What has this got to do with the above story? Let me ask you a question: When a criminal shoots a person, who is to blame, the gun or the crook? ..... Then why do we always get calls for more gun bans after a shooting incident? Gun bans only keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens -- making the criminals safer! This applies not only to gun ownership, but gun use. Did you know that when citizens are allowed to carry weapons, crimes against persons drops? If the petty thief doesn't know who might have a gun, he won't risk snatching a purse or holding someone up at the ATM. Rapists are less likely to attack if there's a chance the lady might have a gun to defend herself. We don't need fewer guns, we need more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens.