Posted on 07/08/2005 4:50:14 PM PDT by Yosemitest
This is How You Argue With Liberals
July 8, 2005
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Meredith in Poughkeepsie in New York, you're up first today in Open Line Friday. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. It's a pleasure to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I've been listening to you since I was a little girl driving to cello lessons with my dad, so this is an honor.
RUSH: Well, I appreciate your saying that.
CALLER: I'm calling because I work at a rather prestigious college on the east coast that has a reputation for being progressive. I am getting frustrated by --
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: When you say "progressive," you mean they're liberals?
CALLER: They like to call themselves progressive but yes, it's very liberal.
RUSH: Well, okay. That means they just don't have the guts to call themselves liberals. Progressive sounds like a forward-moving, advancing term, and everybody knows liberal means dinosaur.
CALLER: You're right, yes. Well, I work in the library, specifically I see what people check in, what they check out. I see what professors put on reserve, what they take off of reserve. I see titles of things that, you know, really have nothing to do with the actual course that they're teaching, but you can tell it promotes a certain agenda that they have. I leave during the day mainly to listen to you for my lunch hour because it's a breath of fresh air to get out of that environment. I end up not being able to say what I would like to say with my coworkers, because they are constantly bashing the administration, particularly yesterday, and I would like to know at what point should I say something back? Do you understand what I'm saying?
RUSH: Well, are they talking amongst themselves or are they taunting you with these comments?
CALLER: They're not taunting me. They are assuming that I am one of them.
RUSH: Uh-huh.
CALLER: They're assuming because I am young and because I am a girl and because I have chosen to work at their institution that I must be one of them. And my question is: At what point should I thought allow them to let them assume that they are the only ones?
RUSH: Whenever you feel most comfortable in asserting yourself. You have to make some assessments here. Is it going to change the way they think? Are you going to persuade them to change their point of view, in other words?
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: Is it going to cause acrimony and rancor between you and your coworkers and make the daily existence with them even more frustrating or uncomfortable than it is?
CALLER: Uh-huh.
RUSH: And if the answer to those questions is yes, you might want to stay mum and just laugh at it. You will not believe what laughing at people who are earnestly serious about what they think will do to them. And they will go, "Why are you laughing at us? What's so funny?" And you say, "I can't believe what you guys are saying. I really can't believe the way you think." And then they'll start, "What do you mean?" And then they've led you into it. You haven't confronted them. You've just laughed at them. And they've led you into it, and then you'll have free rein to answer their questions as they ask them. Just remember that when you start this, what's in your heart, you know, don't paralyze yourself by trying to remember what you know. Don't paralyze yourself by trying to remember the arguments that you've learned in your head. Just speak from your heart about what you think, and one of the ways to do that would reduce the acrimony is, instead of saying, "You are wrong, you don't know what you're talking about," you could say things like, "I'm listening to you and I can't keep a straight face." I mean, the fact of the matter is, XYZ, what you believe. You don't sit there and say, "You idiot. You haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about." Because that's just going to build up resistance and tolerance. If you can maintain confidence, humor, and just an aloofness, almost, as though you can't believe what you're hearing, you'll have them on the defensive the whole time.
CALLER: Thank you. I needed to hear that. I needed some motivation.
RUSH: Well, you're outnumbered. How many of them are there?
CALLER: Well, it's pretty much the whole office.
RUSH: Yeah. But I mean at any one time. At any one time when you're with them, how many are there and --
CALLER: I would say anywhere from ten to 20 during the day. I get faxes that really have nothing to do with work but are from different liberal organizations that different staff and employees are involved with, and I'll have to give them to people, so it's frustrating for me, and it's frustrating to see --
RUSH: Well, okay. I understand that, but I think the trick here, or the key here, is going into these kind of things with total confidence in yourself. They say X, that you don't believe, and you laugh at them and you say, "You know, you guys must watch a lot of news, because the people that watch the news, that's what I hear a lot of other people saying but you couldn't be more wrong," or draw them out and make them ask you. If you're really want to -- I could send you a Club G'itmo cap.
CALLER: I would love a Club G'itmo cap.
RUSH: We'll send you a Club G'itmo cap and you can -- now, if I send it to you, you've got to promise me you'll wear it to work one day. That will be really all it will take.
CALLER: You know, I think it will. I think I will. I was actually looking at it online today when I was at work. On the sly I was checking out what they call G'itmo wear, so I do like the hat. I think that's my favorite.
RUSH: Yeah, it would be easier for you to wear a cap in there than a T-shirt as work attire. So I'll tell you what we're going to do. We'll put you on hold and we'll get the information necessary to get you a Club G'itmo cap on me, but the deal is you got to wear it to work one day and you got to call back and tell us what happened.
CALLER: I will.
RUSH: In fact, we'll get your number so we can call you.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Not necessarily put you on the air, if you don't want to go on the air again, but just to find out what happened.
CALLER: Okay. Sure.
RUSH: I appreciate your calling. I appreciate anybody asking for advice. There's nobody better than me to answer such questions.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: But the key is confidence and laughter and incredulity. You just can't believe what you're hearing and it's so much that it amuses you.
CALLER: Well, it does, it does.
RUSH: It doesn't anger you, it doesn't frighten you, it amuses you. The only thing that frightens you, you can tell them, is that they're library in a library teaching young skulls full of mush.
CALLER: Well, I'm going to start keeping a tally sheet of how many times the titles "Bush's Brain" and "Fahrenheit 911" circulate among the faculty members, so maybe I can update you on that as well.
RUSH: You just have to laugh at it. (Laughter).
RUSH: I'm also going to send you a copy -- we got a free report going out with new subscribers to the newsletter called How to Defeat a Liberal. I'm going to send you one of those along with the cap, okay?
CALLER: Fantastic. Thank you.
RUSH: Well, you're more than welcome, but remember the deal.
CALLER: I will.
RUSH: If you really want to set them off, go and read How to Defeat a Liberal while wearing a Club G'itmo cap. (Laughter) Yes! All right. I got to run here Meredith, I'm way over time, but we'll get the information from you.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Note to Deanne Stillman at the Huffington post. This is what we do with the money. We give some of the product away too.
Visit the RushLimbaugh Store...
(...for your Club G'itmo gear)
To argue with a liberal, he'd do better by following an advice of one Nicholas Gogol: "By Lord, Ivan Ivanovich, one ought to have eaten a lot of beans before talking to you!" Garlic works well, too.
I noticed that liberals love to flaunt their "education" and imply that I'm a totally uneducated hack when they're losing the argument on merit.
They don't hesitate to resort to personal attacks, for sure.
NOT AT ALL. She SHOULD laugh in their faces.
Your enemy sets the rules of war(debate).
Not necessarily. They may be reserving books like Richard Clark's - a big bag of tripe, wth a definite anti-Bush agenda. Then again, she may be reading more into it that is warranted. I heard the caller, and tend to believe she knew what she was talking about.
JMHO
Rush is going to cause this young woman to be out of a job. After the initial shock wears off, the office grapevine will be in full hum, attributing all manner of neanderthal thoughts and motivations. If she's not set up for a fall and fired outright, she'll be frozen out and ridiculed until she leaves. University politics is unbelievably bitter and destructive. If she's so unhappy, and I probably would be in the same position, she needs to have her ducks in a row, with a job outside of academia, before she finally rips into them, that's all I've got to say.
That was my thought too, but Rush's advice is interesting. That is exactly how some of my liberal friends treat me and my comments. (Laugh and imply that I must be loosing it, cause I surely am smart enough to see the liberal idea is the only correct position,.. Ug.
Yeah, and since they're liberals, they can change the rules in midstream.
I often find that laughing at people when they are being true to their beliefs(whatever they may be) IS in fact being confrontational. But to each their own I guess.
I think you're right. University politics is very petty, very ugly. Wearing a hat like that is simply asking for trouble. That doesn't mean that you don't have to stand up for what you believe in, but it's imprudent to start fights by laughing at people if you don't have a fallback position. A young and apparently unconfident girl can't really argue with, persuade, and win over an office of twenty hardened leftists. They are immune to the application of logic.
If we're ever to clean up the vomit that these liberal professors have spued into these young minds of mush, then we MUST confront them, in a manner that they have earned and deserve.
"That is exactly how some of my liberal friends treat me and my comments."
The best thing to do is to turn their own methods on them. For instance, the argument that homosexuality is genetic... they're desiring to appear tolerant and inclusive, and therefore haven't really given it any further thought. They're also invariably "pro-choice," because they want equality in all things for women, including the liberty to have sex without consequence. That creates an interesting "teachable moment" (another term swiped from the left), when the question is asked: "What should society do, when parents decide to abort the fetus because the fetus tests positive for the homosexuality gene? Surely you understand that, in most of the world, homosexuality is regarded as undesireable, and would result in an abortion?"
There are inherent conflicts in nearly all the positions of the left. There is so much incoherency there, that there is no end of opportunities to create that teachable moment again and again, pertaining to a wide variety of subject matter. It does take familiarity with just what is deemed axiomatic among leftists, though. Most people don't really know them well enough to pull this off, but I would think that the young woman who called in to Rush would know.
She'd still be out of a job, though.
To confront them....is the point.
Humor is precisely the attitude I take when I get the liberal playbook. Works like a charm.
I believe that she was referring to the materials that professors put on reserve in the library for their students to use, not the professor's personal reading material. Those materials may be suggested or required reading in the course. As an alternative to requiring students to buy the books (they could also be out of print), they reserve them in the library to guarantee their availability for the class. The caller's access to those materials is cluing her in that the professors are requiring reading that may have questionable relevance to the course description, as well as serving to indoctrinate students to leftist ideology. That's where the problem is. What the professor reads on his own time shouldn't bother anybody.
"What the professor reads on his own time shouldn't bother anybody."
Unless it's the Unabomber Manifesto.
I submit the following:
Philosophy Verses Reality
Fundamentally, Socialism is the complete discarding of the institution of private property by transforming it to public property. The resulting public income is to be, then, equally and indiscriminately distributed to the population (Liberals strive toward this end through the levying of taxes and tight governmental controls). In Socialism, private property is anathema to this objective.
The main tenets of Socialism are:
2. Equality of income (From each according to his ability, to each according to his need Karl Marx)
3. Class interests oppose each other (class struggle)
4. Government is, or should be the progressive representation of the interests of the working class
Modern Socialism also contends that Capitalism must be exported to where new land can be appropriated and workers exploited to sustain its insatiable gluttony.
The problem for the Left is that the doctrine they hold so dear has all been proven false by history and reality and they dont want to let go. After a century and a half of tyranny and catastrophic economic failures, along with the inarguable benefits to the human condition wrought by Capitalism, the Left is now forced to re-package their convictions, revise history, identify new victims and champion new causes in order to sustain the orthodoxy. As Daniel J. Flynn establishes, in his book Why the Left Hates America, the Left has substituted their overt hysterics regarding the evils of Capitalism, with the new hysterics of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc., etc. However, the enemy remains the same. America, as the globes preeminent cultural, political (Democratic), economic (Capitalist) and military power, is now decried as a cultural oppressor propagating inequality both inside and outside of its borders. Government is again to be the final distributor of cultural equality as well as economic equality. Liberal causes now collectively rally around the banner of this nefarious new notion of American repressive cultural hegemony that is proliferated by intolerant rednecks and imposed by American military and economic might. Nearly all contemporary Liberal causes and policy can be traced back to any one or more of these (and/or the aforementioned) basic tenets of Socialism, or Neo-Socialism.
Environmentalists contend that U.S. industry (big business) is indiscriminately exploiting the land and people for economic gain, and that this evil is being exported. This subscribes to their contention that the US has had to export capitalist hegemony to sustain growth to the detriment of the environment, and on the backs of the underclass. Environmentalists are, however conspicuous in their exaggerated claims and selective criticisms which are nearly all exclusively targeted at the U.S. - Thereby exposing their political, rather than environmental agenda.
Relativism/Multi-Culturalism/ Racism/ Homophobia/ Xenophobia
These class-isms allow for the invention of multiple victim classes that can be established as the new proletariat. By fostering, contriving, or otherwise promoting notions of injustice and inequality, the Left can progress their Socialist doctrine of the new class struggle while allowing them to cling to the original foundations of their faith. This fact is perhaps most plainly represented by the group, International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). The name evokes racism as an issue, yet the organization is a known front group for the World Workers Party, a Marxist-Leninist political party.
Anti-Business/Anti-Prosperity
This too, is rooted in the Socialist/Marxist notion of the exploitation of the working class, opposition to private ownership and their desire to redistribute peoples wealth. Business owners, though they create jobs and wealth, are vilified as greedy parasites taking advantage of the underclass. Sound familiar? Wealth to the left is inherently bad or unfair and should be redistributed to others in the form of taxes and government programs to foster economic parity. Conversely, tax reduction programs are reflexively condemned as initiatives to further prop up the rich at the expense of the poor.
Anti-Globalization
Again, the Left resists the globalization of economies as it represents the exportation of Capitalism and all its associated evils. It appears that, to the die hard Left, equally applied poverty is preferable to unequally applied prosperity.
Atheism has deep roots in Socialism (as religion is regarded as a threat to Socialist evolution) and its remnants clearly exist in modern day Liberalism. The examples are ever increasing and undeniable. These tendencies manifest themselves in anti-religion, (with particular animus toward Christianity) speech, discrimination, legislation and other repressive actions. Pro-abortion advocacy is also partially rooted in anti-religion sentiments as much as it is about anxiety over freedom and choice. Abortion has been politicized for use as tool to promote the notion of women as an oppressed class. The oppressor class is presumed to be men and people of faith. The Left can then feel free to promote actions that restrict the freedom of religion in the name of protecting this oppressed class. In other words, they seek the oppression of religion in the name of freedom, while presuming to take the moral high ground.
All of the above
It is a reality that the American governmental and economic system has improved the lives of its people and those around the world to a level unparalleled in human history. Its profound and positive contributions to culture, science, medicine and freedom, are undeniable to any reasonably objective and discerning mind. No past or present Socialist venture can even remotely claim to have achieved the levels of economic prosperity (at all stratums of society), racial equality, womens rights and equal protections for all its citizens regardless of sex, faith, cultural, racial, or social background. A quick check of your Encyclopedia Britannica will bear this out. These truths are a testament to the benevolence and inherent morality of this great and successful American experiment. Is America perfect? No. Do we have many historical shames and societal ills that need to be resolved? Of course ... What country doesnt? But, there exists no other nation that is as willing or capable of identifying and fairly addressing the problems with which it is confronted.
By contrast, not a Single Socialist or Communist state has ever existed that has been popularly elected or otherwise sustained by the will of its people. Socialist-Communist regimes have, throughout history, maintained power solely through the strict imposition of personal, cultural and intellectual martial law. The media, schools, arts and literature have all been strictly controlled to manage thought and freedom of ideas. It should be no surprise then that the liberal establishment maintains a covetous and disproportionate control over our educational institutions, media (with the exception of radio) and the arts. The packaging may be slightly different today, but the tactics are largely the same and quite plain to see. You need only review the statements and policies espoused by civil rights groups, anti-war organizations, the ACLU, Teachers Unions and the curricula of our institutions of higher education (indoctrination?) to quickly assess that our most basic American freedoms are at risk from the Left. Oppression (factual, intellectual, or otherwise) is the only means by which the Socialist agenda can succeed.
So, the next time you bear witness to the mindless sloganeering, claims of injustice and inequality, hysterics regarding business, the environment, anti-war, abortion, anti-religion and the blame America crowd know where theyre coming from and where they want to go.
Gary Schneider is the President and founder of TheRealityCheck.Org, Inc., a Conservative policy advocacy group established to promote and defend conservative social, political and economic principles nationally, through the origination and dissemination of commentary, analysis, news and research tools via the public Internet and other channels. TheRealityCheck.Org, Inc. is located in Fairfield County, CT.
Schneider received his degree in Government and Russian Studies at Norwich Universitys Military College of Vermont, the nations oldest private military academy. At Norwich he held numerous leadership positions within the Corp of Cadets. In 1989 Schneider moved to New York, where he initially conducted financial research for various on-line and print publications used by Wall Street investors. Since that time, he has built and led research teams and oversaw the creation of global financial research and news products for some of the largest media organizations in the world to include Thomson Financial and Reuters, the worlds largest news and television agency. Schneider has also attended executive leadership training at the University of Michigan and received a certificate in e-Commerce from New York University. His articles have most recently appeared in America's Voices, IntellectualConservative.com, TheRightWing.com, CommonConservative.com, The Patriotist, American Daily and EnterStageRight.
During his 14 year career, Schneider has traveled extensively to Europe and throughout the United States. In addition to Politics and Finance, his hobbies include fitness, mountain-biking and is actively involved in his Church.
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