Posted on 11/27/2015 7:34:22 AM PST by SeekAndFind
So, how do you win an argument against someone who thinks you're evil? Who thinks you're greedy, selfish, wrong, racist, and, like I said, evil? Don't ask me, I'm evil (but sexy).
But last week, I was walking with a friend of mine, a real-estate guy named Joe -- and he asked me what I thought of Andrew Cuomo. I said that I thought he was weak, and waffling way too much on fracking (which is partly responsible for a welcome move toward energy independence). I believe we should be fracking, and helping out the rest of New York State, not just the rich-ass Manhattanites. My buddy then said, "But fracking is dangerous!" I asked him how, knowing full well the information he was about to give me. I had heard it before: fracking causes earthquakes, pollutes groundwater, causes your tap water to ignite, makes you grow breasts that shoot out a fiery spray of milk and peppermint-flavored lava.
I was about to bite his head off, but then I pulled back, and realized the only fault he was guilty of was not reading beyond the Times editorials (plus his head didn't look very tasty). He's not in the media business -- so he doesn't have to read the crap I read. And he's got a new wife, a new baby. Unlike me, he has a life. So I argued from false mixed emotion.
This is important because it removes the sweaty veneer of ideological excess. While I love it when I'm certain about something, I realize those are rare moments in life. You cannot be certain about all things. As an agnostic, I do not call myself an atheist, because, to put it simply, "I don't know." For all I know there is a god, and it's some dude in Jersey named Ned. True, I've pretty much discounted this theory -- Ned has bad skin and a Beatle-do, qualities rarely associated with the divine. But the point is: I can't be 100 percent sure. So I punt.
Saying "I don't know" creates a wonderful bridge to other people. Admitting that you're not entirely 100 percent positive that you're right allows opponents to relax enough that you can pounce -- and beat the crap out of them with facts, logic, common sense, and maybe some nunchuks.
But first you must let them trust you by admitting uncertainty. Remember, your job isn't to confirm but to convert. And conversion requires some humble pie up front. (By the way, this works in marriage. It's also why it took until I was 40 for someone to marry me.)
Uncertainty can only work by paving the path for a rebuttal that is infused with compassion. Meaning: Although you agree with them on the premise, after much thought you've found a way that makes life more livable for more people. Your compassion for the planet beats their compassion for the planet.
This is key: The Left's primary argument is based on the notion "you don't care." But you do. So rather than immediately grant them that territory, take it from them at the start. Show them that you care so much, you can't possibly agree with them.
Example One: Fracking
So, back to Joe: I pull him gently over to my side by telling him that I too hate polluters and calculating oil companies out to make a buck. But then . . .
"That's the weird thing about fracking, Joe: What are we fracking? Natural gas. That's why I am for it. I am pro-environment, and most environmentalists were for natural gas because it was natural. Natural gas was the alternative to all those dirty fuels." Then I explain that environmentalists changed their tune as we found better ways to access it. So the only difference among environmentalists, before the boom and after -- was the boom: We found more of this amazing clean fuel. In short, the greenie would be for fracking, if we did less of it.
It's an interesting question, why so many greenies were for natural gas and now are against it. It makes me think they're only for something that doesn't work! (Must be why so many are Cubs fans.) My gut tells me once we figure out if solar power can deliver real energy, they'll come out against that, too (the sun is bigoted against the Irish).
Example Two: Climate Change
Of course, the climate is changing. It always has, and always will. There have been ice ages followed by warming periods, and vice versa-and this happened well before the arrival of the smokestack, the SUV, the Pajama Jean. Hell, my personal climate changes several times a day. If that sounds good to you, get in touch.
That doesn't mean you should ignore data. You're intrigued and fascinated by climate models -- in fact, they worry the hell out of you. Yes, they worry you. Until you are always relieved when they turn out to be wrong! And you hope that they continue to be wrong. You're watching it closely -Â because you care even more than they do! Even more than Al Gore and George Clooney! You weep nightly for nature, and soil yourself every morning in solidarity with the earth.
Then add that while you believe wholeheartedly in protecting the environment, it would be foolish to hand money over to people who think they have the Solution.
It's not just anti-science, it's anti–common sense. If you wouldn't hand your money over to a huckster who promises you'll stop aging if you just use his magical elixir, in a plain brown wrapper (I finally learned), why would you do the same with climate change? Explain that gullibility is amusing only when it's other people's money being squandered. (If you really want to lay it on, you can add that that money could be better spent building low-income housing.) Most important: You must tell them that you hope that there is some climate change, for subtle increases in temperature can actually benefit the planet by making it more hospitable for growth of plants and vegetables. The warmer the better. That's science, as told by death. Just a one-degree uptick and we'll all have beautiful tomatoes growing in our living rooms!
Finally, you can agree that while coal seems dirty, to try to ban it is selfish, evil, and reeks of white privilege. After all, it's easy for you to ban it, when you're not in some Third World country burning feces to stay alive. As we all know, there is no force stronger in the rhetorical universe than that of liberal race-guilt. Pin your argument to race and you can convince a liberal to paint his ass red and skateboard down Broadway. Which actually might finally account for some of the things I've seen in New York City.
Example Three: Gun Control
When a massacre occurs, the media decides we must do something now. The mistake is to mimic the NRA and come out guns blazing in defense of, well, guns blazing. It's better to admit that there is a problem (one that isn't getting any worse, but no one wants to hear that). Concede. Compassionately. Sound like them. Agree that massacres in schools are horrible. . . . Who wouldn't? And, of course, we need to figure out ways to stop them. But taking guns away from legal gun-owning, law-abiding sane people won't stop it. The typical shooter is an unbalanced, fringe loner. I want to stop them, just like you. Is there a genuinely effective way to achieve that?
Bolster your position with facts: that most shooters target gun-free zones; that these school attacks aren't becoming more frequent -- although there seems to be a proliferation of alienated untreated individuals (a problem our society used to address); and that armed security seems to be the most sensible method of caring for students (it's called protecting them). The idea of more effective permitting is sound -- meaning no permits for the emotionally disturbed.
The examples above show you what arguments to make, but also how to make them. Be calm, compassionate, relaxed, informed. The "how-to" part in the delivery can be summed up thusly: don't be a jerk. You care. You're destroying numerous clichés at once. And if they don't return that favor, shoot them in the face numerous times (with a cake-frosting gun).
-- Greg Gutfeld is a New York Times bestselling author. He is a cohost of The Five and the host of The Greg Gutfeld Show on Fox News Channel. This excerpt is reprinted from How to Be Right: The Art of Being Persuasively Correct. Copyright © 2015 by Greg Gutfeld. Published by Crown Forum, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
You deal with those people with unarguable facts. When they don’t have an answer they of course answer back with invectives, name calling, etc.
It will NOT work!!
AS soon as you drift off track, they shout you down. You must AGREE with them. Sounding like them is just your hypocrisy shining through.
Liberals don’t have compassion.
How about starting with compassion for white people at our universities? After all, they must bear “the white man’s burden.”
How about starting with compassion for white people at our universities? After all, they must bear “the white man’s burden.” /Snark off
Leftists believe themselves to be great thinkers but most operate from emotion, not reason. If you attempt a dispassionate dialogic you will get insults about your ancestors. If you attempt a graduated buy-in argument ("would you agree that...?") they will refuse to admit that water is wet. Appeals to logic and reason are usually met with charges of "racist" and "hater".
So I've found that the best tactic for arguing with leftists is the one that goes, "Get the F away from me before you become irreparably damaged".
I had an entirely unsatisfactory exchange with a “liberal” a while ago on global warming. I was placed in a position where I felt I had to respond to a snotty liberal comment which, tho not directly aimed at me, put me in a place to either agree or disagree. And I just responded in kind - and felt awful afterward. On reflection, my response should have been, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.”
- First the bad news: China is stamping out coal-fired electric power plants like cookies, about one every week. So no matter what they say, and no matter how successful you are politically in the U.S., China is going to cause carbon dioxide emissions to go up and up on into the indefinite future.
- The good news is that global warming has not happened in the past two decades, almost - and the only reason we think there is a significant problem with CO2 and warming is because politicians and journalists can make a killing by scaring us about it.
In fact, people generating carbon dioxide are the only thing preventing the air from becoming so deficient in CO2 that the plants stop growing in a few hundred years. Otherwise carbon becomes scarce in the environment because, over geologic time, it keeps turning to limestone. People burning coal are saving the planet.
STOP giving them the power. STOP playing by their rules.
Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals...
* RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.†Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots†must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)
* RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.†It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real†issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)
* RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.†Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
* RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.†If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
* RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.†There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
* RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.†They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun†activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
* RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.†Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
* RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.†Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
* RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.†Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)
* RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.†Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
* RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.†Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
* RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.†Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Since, as the adage goes, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, all they'll hear is "I don't know."
They're impervious to reason; they want only validation from their hive. Anything else is threatening to them.
‘’You deal with those people with unarguable facts. ‘’
Facts will not matter much considering that most people who vote democratic are not tuning in to anything that might contain facts. Doubtful that they’ll be glued to any GOP debate. Watching American Idol, black sitcoms, Master P whatever the hell that is, Kardashians. Calling 911 if the Chicken McNugget order is one nugget short. Flash mobbing department stores. Facts do matter, but “they” won’t hear them.
The people being interviewed on Fox, who vote, think that Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a white man. Had never heard of “Vermont”. Believe that Obama has a “stash” of money to give to people. (Well, he may truly have a stash, but it’s not money.”)
While I do believe there is a time be ruthless and a time to educate I worry when people suggest we “should sound like them” because that is what we have too much of. We don’t need to soften and blur messages to relate. We don’t have to bite someone’s head off declaring them a gun grabbing idiot when they are a person we are trying to have a political conversation with but when we are dealing with leftists in the public eye our job is to deflate their message and make it look as stupid as it usually is. Our job isn’t to make leftist socialist solutions more reasonable which is something many GOP don’t seem to understand.
Everyone thinks school shootings are horrible. However the idea that we are going to restrict legal law abiding gun owners to stop them is foolish since 99.99% of those who own or have access to guns don’t commit or attempt to commit murders with them just like with motor vehicles. Less than 10,000 people out of over 100 million gun owners misuse their guns to attack other people. The only way to make schools and venues safer is to have armed security. If the concert in Paris had armed security many lives would’ve been likely saved. We don’t make people safer by making them unable to defend themselves.
How about just calling them retards who are just too stupid to think for themselves.
How to talk to Liberals.
Say these words exactly as written.
Make sure you start at the beginning since it sets the proper tone.
“Really don’t mind if you sit this one out.
My words but a whisper your deafness a SHOUT.
I may make you feel but I can’t make you think.
Your sperm’s in the gutter your love’s in the sink.
So you ride yourselves over the fields and
you make all your animal deals and
your wise men don’t know how it feels to be thick as a brick.
And the sand-castle virtues are all swept away
in the tidal destruction the moral melee.
The elastic retreat rings the close of play
as the last wave uncovers the newfangled way.
But your new shoes are worn at the heels
and your suntan does rapidly peel
and your wise men don’t know how it feels
to be thick as a brick.”
I recently hiked with a long term friend. We had somehow managed to stay in touch for decades without discussing (so far as I can recall) politics.
Suddenly while in the middle of talking about a non political topic, she made a side comment about how stupid Palin was. Naturally, I responded with a brief inquiry followed by a brief recitation of facts that were not in the liberal media.
At some time during my recitation of the facts, the friend suddenly exclaimed that “we are not having this discussion.” Since she had been the first to bring up politics, I thought it unfair and impolite to shut off the topic that she herself had brought up, so I continued to finish my thoughts. For a second time, she exclaimed that “we are not having this discussion.”
My conclusion was that she, like most other liberals, have no reasoning skills and have given themselves over to base emotions when it comes to politics. It turned out that her reading mainly consisted of the NYT and that she did not bother to inform herself of alternative points of view because it was her opinion that she got enough information from the mainstream media. My friend has a PhD in hard sciences from a very good university.
Nope. I go for logic and reasoning. Those are what makes a good debate. I hate debating with amateurs who always whine about how “heartless” I am. They are practically spoiled children. They need to be talked to with a firm voice. Kinda like how you would train a dog.
And that also A. Lincoln was gay because he slept in the same bed with a guy.
Sorry. Not in the mood for compassion of any kind.
Actually I consider our position to be most compassionate. We think long term and what’s best for everyone. I don’t consider it playing by their rules
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