Brand Control
It’s not often I get called a Nazi and a liberal on the same day.
Although, I have to say it’s tragic that in America today the ideals of Jefferson and Locke are considered to be just as extreme as those of Gobbles and Himmler.
In both cases we were talking about the new gun control measure passed in San Francisco, or more accurately, we weren’t talking about it. I admit I know very little about the details of the measure that was passed. Interestingly, both of my acquaintances interpreted my pressing them for details as opposition to their views.
Then it hit me. Political discourse today is little more than asserting brand preference. Pro-life vs pro-choice, pro-war vs anti-war, development vs environmentalism. I know people think they are thinking, but in general all sides simply parrot the marketing message defined for them.
To me, discussing the implications of a gun-control law I know nothing about is pointless, but I have no brand loyalty on that issue. Interestingly, most discourse actually seems to take place at the abstract brand level, and the details of specific instances are ignored.
Asking someone “Do you support gun control” is nothing more than asking them to state their brand loyalty. A rational answer is “What specific proposal are you talking about? Banning all firearms? Not permitting the clinically insane to own machine guns? What?” But we rarely hear that. We are conditioned to answer such questions with the same mental processes we use to answer the question “Which is better Jack Daniels or Maker’s Mark?”