I like your style there iacovatx. I do the same. It is the only way to go. You can really make a monkey out of them with an expertly constructed sequence of questions.
Sometimes I begin in a way that allows them to believe that I am a fellow liberal moron just to get them to really loosen up.
It’s fantastic entertainment to watch their face when you begin the subtle detour and they start to realize that they are revealing what a galactic dunce they are with their own words. Pass the gravy.
“galactic dunce”—you made my day by adding a new and useful term to my vocabulary.
There are some generic questions, that be there intellectual and broad nature, tend to suck leftists into contradicting themselves. A couple examples are, “What makes government good?” “More specifically, good enough to be given broad control over life?” “Is it smart to be vulnerable?” or “Is it smart to cower?” These latter questions might come in handy in the popular leftist attack on gun owners and the NRA. The Sandy Hook incident is the gold-standard among leftists for arguing for disarming the population. I don’t respond with the standard arguments about self-defense because the left is absorbed with illogical, emotional arguments that are impossibly disconnected from reality.
If I am being tough, and a point about children is made, I correct them with the term “wanted children”. To the left, there are two kinds of children, wanted or planned and those they deign as unwanted lesser beings.
If a point about differing opinions is being made, I correct them with, “unoffensive speech” and see if they will argue otherwise. Gradually work toward “acceptable speech”. There are lots of examples of suppression of what the left considers unacceptable speech and opinions. They will get into pretzel logic trying to avoid this term.
If a point is being made about schools, I correct them with the term “public schools”, then gradually work them toward “government schools”, which is more correct because they do not acknowledge religious or home schools. If they reject this term, their argument has to include the other types of schools—which it won’t. This makes them more self-conscious about their comments and produces pretzel logic again.
I find it useful to insert leftist terms into their own arguments because they sound ridiculous but expose their silly thinking.
Not every approach will work but apply 3-4 techniques and you will tie them into knots.