There is temporary insanity as when a middle-aged man buys a motorcycle on which to ride though his midlife crisis, wisely selling the bike after the crisis subsides. But my theme is topical insanity, that species of temporary insanity that can occur when certain topics are brought to one’s attention. Someone so afflicted loses the ability to think clearly about the topic in question for the period of time that the topic is before his mind.
Try this. The next time you are at a liberal gathering, a faculty party, say, calmly state that you agree with the National Rifle Association’s position on gun control. Now observe the idiocies to flow freely from liberal mouths.
Some will say that the NRA is opposed to gun control. False, everyone is for gun control, i.e., gun control legislation; the only question being its nature and scope. Nobody worth mentioning wants no laws relating to the acquisition and use of firearms. Everyone worth mentioning wants reasonable laws that are enforced.
Others will say that guns have only one purpose, to kill people. A liberal favorite, but spectacularly false for all that, and quickly counterexampled: (i) Guns can be used to save lives both by police and by ordinary citizens; (ii) Guns can be used to hunt and defend against nonhuman critters; (iii) Guns can be used for sporting purposes to shoot at nonsentient targets; (iv) Guns can be collected without ever being fired; (v) Guns can be used to deter crime without being fired; merely ‘showing steel’ is a marvellous deterrent. Indeed, display of a weapon is not even necessary: a miscreant who merely suspects that his target is armed, or that others in the vicinity are, may be deterred. Despite liberal mythology, criminals are not for the most part irrational and their crimes are not for the most part senseless. In terms of short-term means-ends rationality, it is quite reasonable and sensible to rob places where money is to be found -- Willy Sutton recommends banks -- and kill witnesses to the crime.
Still others will maintain that gun ownership has no effect on crime rates. False, see the work of John Lott.
Here then we have an example of topical insanity, an example of a topic that completely unhinges otherwise sane people.
Now that I have provided you with the concept, your job is to find further examples of it.
However, I have identified another example in which these routine breaches of rational thinking are common: driving. If people actually thought rationally about the risks involved in driving and the implications of their decisions (e.g., speeding to save 90 seconds in a trip as compared to the elevated risk to your life and the lives of those around you), the whole debate over gun control would be trivial. Driving is every bit as dangerous, and automobile drivers are, by comparison to gun owners, so reckless that it would be a joke to compare the two. Yes, the social utility of driving is obviously higher, but so is the risk exposure for society. Yesterday, I just about got creamed by a driver who was touching up her makeup in a mirror behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. If we are comparing the worst cases, a single ragingly drunk driver on a freeway probably exposes more innocent lives to serious risks even than a gun-wielding maniac in a mall, and ragingly drunk drivers are a hell of a lot more common than gun-owning psychopaths who assault public places. Gun owners know that they are using a deadly weapon, while most automobile drivers certainly appear oblivious to that fact. But if you raised the possibility of subjecting automobile drivers to the same ridiculous scrutiny that gun owners face, everyone would be up in arms, screaming "You can't take away my car!" In this case, it's topical insanity doing double work: people are delusional about the risks of their operation of motor vehicles, and because they are delusional, they don't rightly judge other risks either.
As for abortion, there can be no doubt that unborn humans are human by any biological criterion of humanness. But the ascription of person-status -- which is a normative status -- is a further step. I would take this step. But here there is room for arguments pro and con. But you are right that the vague and emotional appeals you mention cut no ice.
Excellent points about driving. Part of the problem is that we are so tolerant of crime in this society. Drunk driving is a very serious crime, but do the penalties reflect its seriousness? I'd say no. Liberals are soft on crime, which is one of 147 reasons why I am not a liberal.
You're right: the way people behave behind the wheel shows that they do not understand the dangerousness of what they are doing. Speeding, talking on cell phones, applying makeup while driving, tail-gating . . . Some of this is due to a lack of basic science knowledge.
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3. The Comments area is not an open forum for anyone to say anything about any topic. As the name implies, it is primarily for commenting on the author(s)' posts. But to comment on them, one must have read them. And if I have spent three hours on a post, a reader will not understand it in thirty seconds. Secondarily, the Comments area is to facilitate civil discussion between and among commenters as long as the discussion remains on-topic.
4. Some undesirables: The skimmers, those who cannot read but only read-in. The sophists who, abusing argument, argue for the sake of argument. The ideologues, those who are out for power, not truth. The uncivil. The illogical. The politically correct. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who exemplify the anti-Socratic property: those who think they know what they don't know. If Socrates was famous for his learned ignorance, these types are marked by their ignorant unlearnededness.