Deliberate use of fallacy

[bennyboy]

Is it right to deliberately use fallacy in rhetoric if one thinks it will get a point accepted?

For example, if I know Republicans won't "get" logical arguments-- statistics on gun deaths, for example-- is it right to use appeals to emotion, appeals to authority, and argumentum ad populum? Or does this introduce a kind of Achilles heel-- you'll plow through the masses, and then end up getting embarrassed when you eventually come across a decent debater? Or, on the other hand, will you end up so wrapped up in the web of bullshit that you are spinning, that you will ending degrading your own intellect?

It occurs to me that the Fox News people, for example, may actually be highly intelligent. They may know their crowd, and may be manipulating that crowd in a measured and deliberate way.

I think 'gun deaths' is a type of logical fallacy. A death is a death regardless of the means.

That's silly. In trying to eliminate or minimize needless deaths, you have to categorize the cause of death. It's not like if the family of some kid who shot himself in the face didn't have a gun, he would have slipped in the shower instead-- at least not at that moment. He would have been reading comic books or jerking off or something.

The problem with what you're saying is that everyone thinks the statistics are "those other guys." Then they're surprised when it turns out that they aren't special God-favored snowflakes, and their kid's face is as susceptible to bullets as those of all those "just numbers" they thought didn't apply to them. You know what? I think you don't care about any of those kids, or their families. You'd rather hold some goofy idea about statistics, which no sensible person can believe in, than take real steps to protect little Johnny here:

I, for one, think this boy's life is valuable enough to justifying trying to keep it from being blown all over the wall of his parents' closet.