A Breakdown Of Sorts

I am getting to the end of a little "break" from participating on Facebook.  Quite frankly, the whole gun debate was getting to me in unhealthy ways.

A big part of the problem is that there is no firm basis for a reasoned discussion of the subject.  The "facts" have been polluted by liars to the extent that rational people are no longer able to express an argument that is based in reality.

Robb Allen of Sharp As A Marble links to an article penned by a doctor that is filled with factual errors.  Somewhere, someone with a lack of knowledge about guns and who is trusting of medical professionals will read that story and become committed to banning or severely restricting gun rights.

And it will be impossible to have a rational discussion with that person until you first go through the laborious effort of emptying out the lies and replacing them with facts.

A short list of the lies involved include:

• Including 24 year old adults as "children".
• Using heart disease as a comparative with gun deaths.  Heart disease is the result of decades of low exercise, poor food choices, and smoking.  Children don't get heart disease because they haven't lived long enough.
• Not using drownings as a comparative with gun deaths.  Because kids (the real kind) die from drowning at a much higher rate than they do from guns.  Yet the movement to ban backyard pools is pretty ineffective.
• Talks about rates of fire as if it makes a difference in the number of deaths.  The issue is not the gun.  It is the intent/purpose of the person holding it.
• Calls our rights "privileges" and states that they were "granted" by the Constitution.  Our rights, including the right to self defense, existed before the Constitution was written.  It only acknowledged what already existed.

The list continues in the comments.  Having a rational discussion on gun issues is impossible because of the rhetorical filth such as the above that have contaminated public discourse.  Perhaps irreparably so.

Now? Really?

Megan McArdle has all the details...you...might...want..about the recent dump of documents from the Heartland Institute.  And I want to point out that on the subject of human induced global warming, Ms. McArdle is a believer.

But the tidbit I want to focus is from Mr. Gleick's mea culpa.

Given the need for reliance on facts in the public climate debate, I am issuing the following statement.

...

I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed.

But we have been told that the debate is over.  We have been told that the only "rational" scientists are those that enthusiastically endorse the theory of human induced climate change that results in a global catastrophe.

Only now that this guy's boy-parts are in a vise does he find it necessary to talk about a "rational public debate" and "facts".

He could have had that without shredding his credibility if he'd be willing to have an adult conversation with people that are of a different point of view.