Thoughts From the Campus About Gun Control

21 Apr, 2013 by Morgan Freeberg

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Who’s squirming harder: The gentleman appearing from 2:24 through 3:03 pronouncing “if guns are outlawed then only outlaws have guns” to be a “weak argument,” but unable to explain his rationale…or me, watching him. Him, I suppose, if I could film my first reaction in the web cam and measure it…I’m probably just slightly wincing. But it seems like I’m doing more. Lots of proxy embarrassment.

They’re not teaching ’em what to think, they’re teaching ’em how to think. That’s what we’re told…well…I have issues with both the what and the how.

This business of rephrasing the question that is sufficiently simple and crystal-clear, at least in my universe, that if the answer isn’t a slam-dunk, the question itself ought to be easily understood. What is that?? I see it at 0:28, and then I see it again at 1:44. I heard it in the recording of that original American Castrati guy (since removed) who “didn’t support the troops.”

Here’s what I think: Too much development of communication skills is taking place in the classroom environment. Now if I’m right about that, it raises another issue that these students are a bit old to still be developing their basic communication skills…but let’s let that go, because I speculate that the problem began before they graduated from high school. I conclude all this from the pattern I’m noticing, in which as the verbiage plays out and the speaker approaches a crucial point, the enunciation becomes more and more muddled and unclear, and riddled with phonetic and rhetorical ambiguities; a reasonable observer would expect the opposite to take place. Questioned about why you think the things you think, as you approach the point that substantiates it all, you should want your phrasing to become precise & concise. Crisper. Clearer.

These muffin-heads are doing the exact opposite. And with a remarkable consistency.

It is as if they are counting on being interrupted before they get to the part where they hang themselves.

I have a bit of a beef with the next generation being taught, en masse, how to talk this way. Especially when it influences how they think about things — which, it certainly does appear to.

Maybe they need to spend a few minutes listening to this guy.