Why in this day and age do we still shoot the messenger ?

And a darn good question that is!!! I figure we are all so anxious to place blame that we care little about the actual source, and pile on the messenger instead for our instant satisfaction.

Because this is the good ol’ US of A.

If we’re annoyed by something, we shoot it. If we’re afraid of something, we shoot it. If somebody “looks at us funny”, or cuts us off in traffic, we’ll show their ass….we shoot them.

Online, it is impractical (and very costly) to shoot someone’s thoughts on your computer screen, so we just fire verbal rounds at each other, and hope that the other person becomes irritated enough to shoot themselves.

It’s not really that complicated….

It’s not just isolated to your country @PullMyFinger.

I never said it was. But if any other country has over 30,000 citizens die every year by gunfire, and more privately-owned firearms than it has people, please raise your hand…..

Perhaps the message being presented is wrong. Just because someone says, writes or believes something, does not make it right or make it the only available or acceptable perspective. The responses or answers to most situations or problems are often in the grey.

I wouldn’t want to live in a world where we all have to accept whatever argument a person makes, simply because they said it and where arguing against that point is deemed to be shooting the messenger. That would be a dangerous place in which to exist.

Because people are simpletons and many of them are unable to separate the messenger from the message.

Sometimes – more often than not, I think – the perception is that “the message” (whatever it might be that is communicated and found to be objectionable) is a lie. And if “the messenger” is delivering a lie, then by extension and definition the messenger is “a liar”. We’re trained from birth to attack lies and liars.

I wouldn’t want to give up that aspect of our culture.

I don’t understand why people ask for an answer or opinion and then bash your position once you answer them honestly.

For instance— they want to ask why you hold a specific religious belief. You explain the position, and they go on a tirade about how stupid and narrow minded and bigoted you are.Often even accusing me of trying to convert them or prosthelityze

Then others chime in, also exclaiming the same. I often counter with, if you don’t like this position, don’t ask about it.

Public education, political correctness and Argumentum ad hominem.

When reasoning isn’t developed in school anymore, and logic is regarded as a phony construct because it occasionally produces politically unpopular conclusions, the only thing left is an emotional response and a handful of common fallacies.

It’s target practice—prep for when you track down the source.

@Espiritus_Corvus I like that one. :)

It’s really quite simple. If you discredit the person, you have effectively discredited the message. Ridiculing a person is much easier than a rational response to an effective argument. As Saul Alinsky (Rules for Radicals) says “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” It’s easy to do and puts the messenger on the defensive.

You know @Jaxk I find that rather sad, but sad in the fact that I find that probably the case.
Sad in this day and age we can’t rise above that.

Related—If you expose a lie, you ‘de facto’ call someone a liar. And YOU become the bad guy. When I was a pastor in Alabama, our church was regularly barraged with liars and lies about people that hurt the individuals lied about.

On a few occasions I tried vindicating the victims by exposing, revealing, or outright telling—revealing evidence that someone lied.

Suddenly, it was like, “So YOU are our PASTOR and YOU called BUH-BUH a ‘LARR?’

Even the vindicated victim, in his/her newfound liberation, saw me as the bad guy for revealing a lie and the innocence of someone else. Calling someone a ‘LAR; was worse than the lie itself.

Often times I’d try to placate everyone by saying, ‘No, I’m not saying so-and-so LIED—maybe he really BELIEVED that when he said it.

Even so, I was often told I should not ‘take sides’ and, once ousted, the only bad thing anyone ever said about me was that I “added fuel to the fire.”

So yeah the messenger is the bad guy.

That kind of says it all, @Yellowdog

As the saying goes, the one thing most people hate more than being lied to is being told the truth…

@Yellowdog. That was wonderful. I can actually hear those people calling people “lars” Heee heee : )

Actually, I think Jeff Sessions recently said that.

It was like this,

(to me): “Bubba says you’re a FAGGOT!!!”

(Me) “Well, I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re saying.”

(to me) “ARE YOU CALLIN’ Bubba a LARR?”

(to which I’d often just say, ‘No, maybe Bubba really BELIEVES that)