Mushy

 the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.

That is how the dictionary defines "rhetoric." They are the words that come pouring out of pundits and places like this blog that try to talk you into thinking and believing a certain way. I might try to convince you that bananas are bad just because I never cared for them myself. This would probably infuriate the International Banana Lobby, setting off a string of ugly incidents that would lead to chaos, rebellion, and the inevitable anarchy we always suspected existed within the peeled fruit community. 

I have used this space on numerous occasions to suggest that guns are bad. Maybe even worse than bananas. After all, while guns are not mushy and I cannot personally vouch for their taste, bananas are not the number one killer of children in the United States. Guns are. This is a substantially better argument than that whole mushy business. 

That was rhetoric. 

Here comes some more: I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that killing children is wrong. This statement alone can be interpreted in ways that don't make me completely comfortable, but let me return to some of my prior argument. I do not believe that children should be subjected to the slightest possibility of being shot, blown up or maimed by weapons of any kind. Being a kid is dangerous enough, what with all those people out there trying to shove bananas at you because "they're healthy." 

Taking half a step back from that stance, I'll just go ahead and make the wild claim that adults should generally steer clear of situations that could get them shot or blown up. Massacres of any sort tend to get folks riled up and cause them to suggest retaliation in kind. This is how we got nuclear weapons. No one seems to be satisfied with the idea that killing is wrong, so we try to reinforce this ideal by killing some more. 

Rhetoric helps in this regard. Load up heavy on the blame and shame, then find a Bible verse or some other high-minded out of context quote to bring it home. You can justify just about anything that way. 

Even the consumption of bananas.