Posted on 06/02/2014 3:57:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
Non-lawyers often ask me, “What is the best way to argue with a liberal?” This is silly, because there is no best way to argue with a liberal. They're beyond argument. You might as well argue with your terrier. Take it from someone who argues with his hideous terrier all the time.
But if you do choose to argue with a liberal, understand that your purpose should never be to change the liberal’s mind. You're not going to change the liberal’s mind. Instead, if you choose to argue with a liberal, you should do it for one of two reasons – to either win over people who have not yet made up their minds, or to support people who already have begun to understand the truth.
The truth is that conservatism is an ideology that is in accord with natural law and basic human decency, while liberalism is merely the summit of a slippery slope leading down to the hellish depths of collectivist misery.
Liberals aren’t going to like to hear this manifest and demonstrable truth. So you’re going to get called “racist,” “sexist” and “homophobic,” even if you’re a conservative black lesbian.
What you are not going to get is an argument. An argument is a collected series of statements designed to establish a definite proposition. Arguments involve the presentation of facts and evidence from which one draws a conclusion. Implied within the concept of an argument is the potential that one might change his conclusion. But liberals start with the conclusion.
They don’t change their conclusions based on the facts and evidence; they change the facts and evidence based on the conclusion they want. This is why a 105 degree day is irrefutable proof of global warming, while a 60 degree day is irrefutable proof of global warming. As is a -20 degree day.
Liberals are only concerned with argument, or what superficially appears to be argument, as a rhetorical bludgeon designed to beat you into submission. They aren’t trying to change your mind. They don’t expect you to agree with them. They don’t even care whether or not you grow to love Big Brother.
They just want you to shut up and let them run rampant. If you understand that, you'll be fine.
There are two basic tactics to choose from when responding to a liberal pseudo-argument, defense and counterattack. Without getting too detailed and infantry-nerdy on you, think of defense as simply preventing a loss. You're holding your ground. The counterattack, however, lashes out to seize the initiative and defeat your enemy.
Both have their uses. When you defend, you are generally responding to the pseudo-argument the liberal is making. A liberal will start advocating some nonsense and you reply to what he says. You may choose to use examples of liberalism's many failures to illustrate how collectivism is a prescription for disaster. For example, some pinko starts crowing about how eight million suckers signed up for Obamacare. A good defense might involve raising the question of how many of those eight million have actually paid for it.
But the problem with defense is that it treats a liberal "argument” with a respect it doesn't deserve. You dignify liberal silliness with a response when all it deserves is mockery and contempt.
This is why I prefer to counterattack. When you counterattack, you ignore the proposition offered by the liberal and refuse to respond on the liberal’s preferred terms. In fact, you don’t even need to address the same subject the liberal is talking about. Your goal is not to undercut the liberal’s assertion. You're going to counterattack to undercut the liberal himself.
There are many good reasons to choose the approach of treating the liberal like he is a terrible person with terrible ideas who seeks to impose a quasi-fascist police state upon America, including the fact that it's all true.
Let’s try a counterattack battle drill. Some doofus with a “Capitalism Is a Patriarchal, Cisnormative Hate Crime” t-shirt starts babbling about “privilege.” The undecideds start listening, their jaws drooping slightly. Some of the more conservative ones are silent, not wanting to be labeled racist by some geek whose grandfather came from Oslo. You need to act. So you causally inject the question, “Hey, why are you an eager and active member of a political party that made a KKK kleagle a beloved Senate Majority Leader?”
Then you mention that you’re a member of the party that fought slavery and didn’t turn hoses on civil rights marchers. Then you finish by announcing, “Well, I’m going to stand with Dr. King and judge people by the content of their character.” It’s optional whether you then get up, scream that the liberal should have issued you a trigger warning about his racism, and leave.
But be careful – the liberal may totally spit in the next latte he sells you.
Some people might question whether this kind of Alinsky-esque tactic means we are stooping to the liberals’ level. Except the liberals’ level is six feet underground, where the victims of collectivism lie buried. Anyone not willing to take the fight to them simply empowers their liberal fascist fantasies.
If you're trying to win an Oxford Union debate with a liberal, you’ve missed the point. This isn't about the Marquess of Queensberry’s fussy little rules. This isn't about some sort of extended-pinky exchange of ideas over a fine glass of port. This is about fighting for our way of life and our fundamental rights against the intellectual heirs of Stalin, Mao and Hitler.
Attack. This is about winning. First prize is freedom. Second prize is tyranny.
The point is not to convert the fascist, but the people nearby who are not radical and are willing to passivly overhear your argument.
Post of the day and it’s not even daylight here yet!
Old joke-
Arguing with liberals is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over all the pieces, crap all over the board, and then strut around looking victorious.
Good points,
I do the same thing.. I ask them questions that force them to defend their positions, e.g., “Given the fact the U.S. government is clearly unable to provide medical services to those we’re all told are the country’s finest... what data convinces you such a system can successfully deliver those services under a single-payer approach to 315 million people?”
I have yet to get an answer other than babbling about “corporations,” “greed,” “inequality,” etc.
“...we are wat oast dialogue with the left.”
Absolutely.
IMHO
“...how do you communicate with a person who doesn’t recognize logic?”
Hell is a place where logic doesn’t exist and that’s where the hardcore fourty-per-cent-plus of the electorate is taking us.
IMHO
I agree- Debate- and be clear - even it is on just 1
subject!
The dufus lieberals in my family are always spouting
off the latest crap -direct from the DNC-
here is how to answer some:
A. “8 million people signed up for health care- Yea!”
How many have lost?- (approaching 7 million)
I thought there was 38 million without?
Health care costs have risen faster than ever-
and are just starting-
and HOW many hospitals and clinics have closed?
Being liberals- they will not listen to reason- but
the younger people who hear this conversation may
start to question the lies they hear 24 x 7 from the MSM
Sometimes you can spur the thought processes by one upping them. They want a minimum wage of $20/hour, say you can’t live on that, it has to be $50/hour.
They want single payer health care, you agree and say that the government should provide a car and a 3 BR home to everyone as well.
They want to ban fossil fuels, you agree and counter that the government should ban automobiles and make everyone move to a city where they can walk or bike.
Sometimes a real crazy person will agree with you, but usually they will say that’s going to far. Then you say, how far is too far and who’s to decide that?
I do this one all the time. When they say they want a minimum wage of $15/hr, I say, "Why not make it $50/hr? If $15 is good, then $50 should be better, right?" Then I sit back and enjoy the stupid looks on their faces. Deep down, they know there has to be something wrong with what I just said, but they cannot for the life of them figure out what it is.
“I have several lib/leftist acquaintances. Their thinking is SO warped that you cannot have an intelligent, rational, reasonable discussion/conversation with them on anything but the most mundane, nonpolitical topics’
Try this next time.
Don’t disagree with them agree with them and make even more bazar leftist statements than they are making.
If they disagree with your bazar statements go directly into name calling, hater, racist, denier, right wing extremist, just the same as they always do.
Let them see themselves.
Sounds like a fun debate tactic - just take their policy desires to their logical conclusions (ie, the real goals),
and see if they defend them.
BTTT!
________________
Word for Today:
“ Fascism: Noun. - - - A system of Government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of the opposition - - - “
Hitler, Hitler,
He’s our Man!
If he can’t do it,
Judge Roberts can!
Roberts, Roberts,
He’s our Man!
If he can’t do it,
Geithner’s IRS can!
Geightner, Geithner,
He’s our Man!
If he can’t do it,
BLM’s Reid can!
Reid, Reid,
He’s our Man!
If he can’t do it,
Soetoro’s NSA can!
Soetoro, Soetoro,
He’s our Man!
If he can’t do it,
Obama’s EPA can.
Obama, Obama,
He’s our man!
If he can’t do it,
Gestapo Holder can!
Holder, Holder,
He’s our Man!
If he can’t do it,
The Democrats
Damn sure will!
Damn. They're half right. The USPS isn't losing the money that you hear in the headlines. They're being robbed of much of that. USPS is a successful, and reasonably efficient example of a government run agency, only, they're only a quasi government run agency. For example, I can't think of any other government run agency that has invested heavily in automation, rightly or wrongly, and has actually shrunk the work force. Rightly or wrongly. This last round of closures has hurt the business, but the USPS will plod along and pretend that everything is skittles. This pretend parlor game of having the USPS run as an independent, free business, while being under the control of Congress, has indeed reaped some efficiency.
Unfortunately, they then stumble into the idiocy of "taxes too low and unfair competition with the private sector" as reasons for the money loss. It's utter ignorance of what they speak, and the necessity to regurgitate headlines, professorial puke, and what they read on twitter that leads to such un-insightful comments.
I agree - never accept their premises (which are always wrong) and go on the offensive. Treat them with the disdain they deserve.
I don’t agree entirely. An awful lot of conservatives started out as liberals. They must have changed their minds at some point.
That is no doubt the best way to talk to idiots but sometimes I forget that I am talking to idiots and address them as if they actually had a thought process. That is my grievious error. One of my favorite memories is when a full blown liberal clown who steadfastly denied being one made some ridiculous remark and when I disagreed with it he came back with, “There is no one as blind as someone who refuses to see.” I immediately answered him with, “Then why don’t you see instead of refusing?” To my surprise he actually complimented me on the speed of my “turnaround”. He seemed to admire the art of turning his own rhetoric back against him.
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