There’s a rhetorical ploy that gets a good workout these days. It’s called the “straw man trick.” It works like this: You set up a feeble facsimile of your opponent’s position. That’s the straw man, so named because it’s flimsy and easy to demolish, like a scarecrow. You proceed to devastate the straw man, and hope that you’ve fooled your audience into believing that you’ve also scathed your opponent’s position.
A straw man press release crossed my desk last week. It came from the Independence Institute in Golden, a think tank which usually opposes public transportation and encourages suburban sprawl, thereby ensuring that we continue importing lots of oil while fighting wars to protect the petroleum supply. Lest I construct my own straw man to stand for the Institute here, I must point out that the Institute does other things, among them the subject of the press release.
Later this month, the Institute is sponsoring an “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms” party at a shooting club near Bennett. Guests can fire shotguns at clay pigeons, then enjoy lunch with whiskey, cigars and a talk from political writer Christopher Hitchens.
And now the straw man. Institute President Jon Caldara calls it “a liberal’s nightmare,” and says that “The thought of responsible adults enjoying these pastimes just drives the liberal meddlers nuts.”
Now, I’ve never thought of myself as much of a liberal (my daughters consider me a hopeless curmudgeon, politically stuck in 19th century Jeffersonian hatred of both gun-control and drug-control laws).
But what do I know? Dave Kopel is the research director of the Independence Institute, and he also writes a media column which appears on some Saturdays in the Rocky Mountain News.
Earlier this year, while examining political balance among regular columnists, he wrote that “On the left side of the Post, there’s … Ed Quillen.”
So that should make me a liberal, certified by the research director of the Independence Institute.
And you know what? The idea of responsible adults enjoying guns, cigars and whiskey does not drive me nuts. I have enjoyed all three, even after attaining the age of responsible adulthood. Currently I prefer black powder, Pikesville Supreme Straight Rye and Top rolling tobacco. Marsh-Wheeling stogies, my old favorites, are unfortunately no longer available.
To be fair, I asked some liberal friends, people who profess archaic ideals like public education and public transportation and public health, whether this event would drive them nuts. “Who the hell cares?” was a fair summary of the replies, although one said, “Hope they have some designated drivers when they return to the metropolis after their outing.”
Speaking from experience, I can say that whiskey and guns are seldom a constructive combination, but the institute does seem to be playing nanny by scheduling the shooting before the drinking.
And what kind of “politically incorrect” shooting happens on a trap range? If the Independence Institute were serious, there would be a chance to play with dynamite or mountain howitzers. At the least, the shoot would involve some of those controversial .50-caliber rifles – accurate to 2,000 yards and with enough penetrating power to punch a hole in a railroad tank car. These rifles are so “politically incorrect” that they’ve been outlawed in left-coast California, although the bill was signed by a right-wing luminary, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The institute’s guidance on these matters gets even more confusing. John Andrews, former state senator and current Post columnist, is a former president of the institute. Upon the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson last winter, Andrews wrote disparagingly of Thompson’s work, and called Thompson an incoherent liberal icon.
Can you name any American writer who celebrated guns, whiskey and tobacco with more exuberance than Thompson?
Oh, well. The institute wants us to look at the straw man, some silly tut-tutting scarecrow that it has fabricated, rather than at its own inconsistencies and contradictions.
Ed Quillen of Salida is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
