I was talking to my friend Gord the other day, and during the conversation, the topic of the Canadian Wheat Board came up. Gord's of the opinion that it's about darn time the government dissolved it, it's doing more harm than good! And I'm mostly of the opinion that if the farmers want it, then they should have it. (This website lists some reasons to keep it: Stop the Steamroller.)
I said, "I don't know too much about why the CWB's a good thing or a bad thing; but I do know dismantling it this way is illegal."
Gord replied, "It's only illegal because there's a law that says so."
Talking to Gord often turns up one of these gems: a turn of phrase that's pretty meaningless by itself, but deployed with the intent of fundamentally shaking one's adversary's assumptions. Or to otherwise make them pause (either for humour or to make a point).
But my opinion is that the conveyor of a message should "go half way", meaning, she should use commonly-enough accepted methods so that a "reasonable person" would be able to understand enough of the message to be willing to do the rest of the work to understand the rest of it. This is how I was taught in art classes.
An art example: I was painting a picture with a man standing by a window, looking out through it at a ball. I wanted my audience to understand that the ball was very important to the message of the piece, so I made the window frame red, and it was the only time pure red appeared in the picture. You can decide for yourself how successful I was. My point: I made an attempt to use common techniques to get my message across.
A conversation example: I've heard a Christian say, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist." This was meant to blow the atheist's mind and make him reconsider his assumptions. Of course, it didn't. What the Christian meant, I presume, was: "There is so much evidence for God all around that one would have to rely on blind faith to believe there is no god at all!" with the extra, "Atheists have a quality they claim to disapprove of in Christians, which makes them hypocrites and discredits their claims! Their world view is full of contradictions!"
But without further explaining this loaded phrase, it's not a very constructive thing to say! I don't think it's extremely likely for the atheist to want to pause to think, "Gee, being an atheist requires faith, eh? Maybe I should reconsider some of the things I think!" in the middle of discussing the existence of a god.
Coming back to Gord...
I think what he meant by that was: "The law that says this is illegal is unreasonable in our current national context." But because he didn't say this, I can't be certain it's what he meant!
In the end, it really does come down to personal preference. I happen to be of the opinion that the best way to communicate with minimal chance for misunderstanding is to be descriptive.
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