Close Readings: Wayne LaPierre urges gun owners to Stand and Fight

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 4 Comments
NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre, seconds before having his hand shot off

NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre, seconds before having his hand shot off

“After Hurricane Sandy,” Wayne LaPierre writes in an essay for the Daily Caller called Stand and Fight, “we saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia. Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.” Ah, yes—the hellish world of a gun-free South Brooklyn. That’s just one of the nightmare scenarios the NRA spokesman invokes in his call to gun owners to Stand and Fight.

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NRA ad demands armed guards in schools

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 7 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miSjgv1MH7s

The title of this advertisement—Stand and Fight—really demonstrates how a gun can recontextualize things. Stand and fight… is a stirring phrase when it’s followed by for what’s right or against injustice or for your right to party. It works for pretty much anything except with guns. The National Rifle Association is not suggesting that people use rifles to stand and fight, of course. They despise violence—unless it is met with more effective violence, which is why they insist that the President stop being a hypocrite and put armed guards in schools.

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Win any argument with false analogies

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 5 Comments
Some kids suck at yoga and probably eat a lot of carbs.

Four kids suck at yoga and probably eat a lot of carbs.

Ben al-Fowlkes sent me this article from the New York Times about a California Christian group that objects to kids’ yoga classes at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School. Yoga comes from Hindustan, as we all know, and merely holding your arms above your head brings you closer to worshipping their mad monkey god. The story is chock full of delightful quotes, including but not limited to parent Mary Eady’s complaint that the classes were teaching children “how to think and how to make decisions” and to “look within for comfort.” Monsters! This piece is instructive for another reason, though: it contains two examples of an A-plus tactic of dirty argumentation, the false analogy.

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Can a Daniel Tosh joke ever be funny?

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 5 Comments

I’m not certain what it says about us, but this is not the first time we have talked about rape jokes. By now you have probably heard about Daniel Tosh, who responded to a woman who shouted out, “actually, rape is never funny” during one of his stand-up shows with “wouldn’t it be funny if five guys raped her right now?” That’s what we call a First Idea. Tosh can be forgiven his mediocre ad lib, but he can also be taken to task for promoting a rape culture. The internet is pretty much divided on which to do. Careful thinker and talented jokewright Carolyn Jacobson sent me this link considering that there may be a middle ground between “anything is funny” and “some things are never funny.” Its sentiments are eerily reflected in this one. While you read those, I’ll just think about the summer I spent at Boy Scout ca—no! No I won’t!

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Pat Robertson wants to decriminalize marijuana

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 5 Comments

"Shh! This guitar fill is amazing. Hold on—it's coming up. Just a second. Wait..."

When I worked in the East Village, there was a homeless man on Avenue A who would recite the full text of “The Raven” for a dollar. The cornerstones of his operation were that A) it also cost a dollar to make him stop, and B) he was crazy. In addition to being about six foot six, he wore a feather sticking straight up out of his hair and was constantly trying to hug people. I once saw him kick a teenage boy in the testicles so hard that both his feet lifted off the ground. The Raven Guy was a real fixture, and like all crazy people he considered me his friend. One evening, as I was engaged in a delicate negotiation with a young woman re: the future of our relationship, he came charging across the street at us. “You listen to Dan,” he said, looming. “Dan knows what he’s doing.” She broke up with me immediately. I thought nothing like that would ever happen to me again, but this morning I learned that Pat Robertson supports the legalization of marijuana.

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