I have a dirty little pleasure. I lurk (and sometimes–rarely–participate) on Quora, mainly in order to keep track of just how low literacy and rhetoric can sink (is sinking, still) in these DisUnited States. Here:
In the wake of another mass shooting, do you support the NRA who is saying “anti gun doctors should stay in their lane,”or are you with the doctors who treat the victims?
Answering such a question is a waste of time, because the question is illegitimate on its face.
“. . .do you support the NRA who is saying ‘anti gun doctors should stay in their lane,’ or are you with the doctors who treat the victims?”
The questioner creates a class “anti-gun doctors” and sets the NRA against that class, but also, by asking if one—contra the NRA, in the questioner’s construction—is “with” (in support of) doctors who treat the victims, creating an equivalence between “anti-gun doctors” and “the doctors who treat the victims” implying that doctors who are NOT “anti-gun” don’t treat victims. . . or worse, implying there are not doctors who are not “anti-gun.”
All-in-all, it’s a question that was either formed poorly by someone who just cannot use English literately or it was formed by someone intending to semantically slant the question in an illegitimate manner. Either way, it’s a less than useful question from an arguably useless questioner.
But, frankly, on some issues, a question formed like this one would be better than most.