Thursday, January 20, 2011

Shooting from the Hip

Let's just "shoot from the hip" here and point out that this increasing paranoia of gun metaphors is getting ridiculous.  The "double barrel" effort of the left to paint every phrase and nuance as a cue to some nut job extremist or as a sign that Republicans are crazed gun toters is turning our discourse into a "tinderbox" of perceived missteps and inflammatory rhetoric where it just doesn't exist.

The Hill points out that Mike Pence wants to repeal Obamacare "lock, stock, and barrel."  Writer Mike Lillis suggests that this is Pence's refusal to restrain his aggression.  (To be fair, Lillis also points to Rep. Steve Cohen's comparison of Republicans to Nazis.)

While the left wants to depict the right as the only ones who use gun metaphors, we've seen that's simply not the case.  So, keep your powder dry, people.  Get off the hair trigger and keep your objective in sight by first remembering that some of these expressions are now just common American vernacular and your new perception of them doesn't change that reality. 

Get a grip.

6 comments:

Red said...

Ahahahaha! "Get a grip". Hey... ;-D

yukio ngaby said...

Very good. This civility and violent metaphor thing is so ridiculous.

I do wonder what the "get a grip" actually refers to though...

BTW do you still go to Politico? I rarely do, and stick with The Hill.

Tina said...

HAHAHA!!! Good job! Never point at anything you don't plan to shoot! :-)

Eddie Van Halen said...

kind of like "my gun is loaded and ready for action" lol

Laurence L. said...

Get a grip....A Pachymar commercial? An Aerosmith album?

I love idioms. But appropriate here, just another kind of gun control, the real kind of gun control. (Hitting the target.)

Tina said...

You are
linked , Ma'am :-)