] Earlier you're not opposed to SUVs, now you are.

I will respond in full later, but as I said before regardless of all of this I want an SUV.

Regardless of that I'm really glad to see a REASONABLE response from you instead of the earlier anti-left diatribe that has no value.

And, more importantly, I would really appreciate it if you would look to what you did and do some self-introspection. In the same way that your largely emotional response had *some* value you should see that sometimes even when someone poses to you an emotional argument that it is not immediately wrong.

Probably, most importantly, we all need to realize that we are human beings and that emotional response is normal and also inherently not rational. However, even though the response might be emotional that doesn't mean it's wrong. Also, even if it's "logical" or "rational" that doesn't mean it's wrong. Or that either is right.

By taking a position that one method of "thought" is more righteous than another you are also engaging in a kind of moralism. The reality is that all of this thought happens in a more free-form and chaotic method than we all might like.

I am sure that the abolitionists were extremely emotional and very fiery in their beliefs. A 100 years later were they more wrong for their thinking?

Again, don't get me wrong, strong emotions are often wrong, but also sometimes strong intellectual or "rational" thought is often wrong. It's not as simple as people often draw it.

You recently lent me a book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Khun. I have not read the entire book, but I will tell you one thing that is very interesting. Thomas observed that when the shifts occurred they had to do with someone completely contradicting what had gone before. It created a "paradigm shift."

I think that is an apparent and normal human function. And you might consider dissedents to be the social scientists.

But even if you don't I think the principle is there.

The reality is that people start dissenting this world will go to hell in a handbasket quickly. And by yelling about people expressing their opinion (even if you don't agree) it adds nothing. The reality is that your over-strenuous attack against proves nothing other than your own animosity.

You have still to disprove that the earlier statistics cited by Swater are incorrect, fallacious, or otherwise malicious.

RE: WSJ.com - The Scarlet SUV