100%You're right. I think some of it is wishful thinking, and trying to push a subconscious idea generating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Don't like guns and freedoms they bring? Put out the meme that gun-culture is dead, bad, backward, etc.
Don't like private cars and the freedoms they bring? Put out the meme that car-culture is dead, gone, backward, etc.
Oh yeah, the NYT is soooo progressive, so forward, so cutting edge in their thinking. {snort} (that's so obviously sarcasm, I don't have to put the emoticon on it, right?)
100%