The Left’s Con Man Logic
Or consider the finely crafted argument, “You’re a racist!!!!” (or a homophobe or a sexist or Islamophobic or whatever you like). What purpose does such a comment serve besides silencing the opposition? And what purpose is there to silencing the opposition except to obscure the fact that it might be in the right? If someone says behaviors in the black community are destroying black families and increasing their generational poverty… or redefining marriage is dangerous to the social structure… or women are less rational than men or Islam is a degrading philosophy… these statements are either true or false, useful or not useful, important or unimportant. The character of the person making them is largely irrelevant — but the fact that someone resorted to the argument ad hominem should make a warning light go off in your mind.
And as a final example of such cons: “You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.” The Wall Street Journal this weekend had two writers of opposing opinions address the question: Has the sexual revolution been good for women? The feminist who answered yes began her argument with this masterpiece of disingenuousness: “Here’s the thing about revolutions — you can’t take them back….If you feel that the sexual revolution destroyed the American family by giving women power over their reproductive choices, and that power turned daughters and wives… into a bunch of wanton hussies, well, stew over your feelings all you want, but you might as well give up thinking that it is possible to herd us up and drive us back into the kitchen….”
Do lefties really fall for garbage like that? Why? Everything about that argument is meant to make you stop thinking. I need hardly point out that the relative chastity of the Victorian era in Britain followed the relative promiscuity of the Restoration period and was in turn followed by the roaring twenties which were followed by the fifties — so that, while, yes, there’s no going back, one can always go forward in a new direction. Nor need I point out that some of us who feel the Sexual Revolution hurt women may have our fellow creatures’ good at heart. The only thing you really need to know is that the writer is trying to obscure, not illuminate, the situation. That alone should make you start asking questions.
Like this one: Are you stupid… or what?
Its an interesting world we live in when we can tell someone (in public, mind you) that he needs to pull his pants up and he calls me a “racist” in response.
So, the young man in question has, himself, linked a behavior adopted from criminal culture…
http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2010/12/14/sagging-pants-criminality-and-prison-clothing/
…To his race? What does that say about him, or his opinion of his race? =0[.]o=
Honestly, I thought it was just a pitiful excuse of a rebuttal to somehow seem more righteous while continuing to dress like he’s supplying the world it’s “crack” habit.
Eddie “you can tell ‘em I said so” Griffin claims that “saggin is faggin”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J36I0_D0rvE
Of course, he also calls Obama “a puppet on a string”, which is decidedly untrue as well, right? [crude language alert] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiCYOr_rmHg
They say a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has its boots on. These days, the lie leaves behind a substantial portion of the populace to kill the truth and the truthteller as soon as they come out the door to deal with the lie.
Brilliant observation.
well, yes you can stop a revolution by starting another revolution. When single, childless older career women pop up in femininist’s own favorite books- as death’s heads, and SS troop skulls- then, well, maybe that revolution knows, deep in its dark heart, that it’s not the final reich of truth.
Mormon plural wives were being elected to run towns before Seneca Falls. The first female senator in the nation was a plural wife who beat her own husband in the election. The Mormons sent a contingent to Seneca Falls. The theoreticians had no clue about what to do with these poor, oppressed wives who actually, really did run businesses, get elected, vote, read, and play piano.
Not a fan of polygamy, here. But not a fan of clueless theoreticians trying to ignore real wives with interesting lives. The leading light of the feminisist era, then, ended up committing suicide, b/c she felt useless in her old age. The others couldn’t even really seem to get married in the first place. or have kids. I’m not sure why people are set to venerate the 1% who cannot function in normal society.
1972 changed the banking laws. That did more about women working than any emotional appeal. More, even, than title 9 sports.
And second, the sexual revolution? I grew up with that- there are CDC researchers writing reports saying “remain chaste until a devoted marriage” based on cootie rates- nothing religious about it. My daughter and sons are being told to wait until marriage based on genital warts alone. Nothing so high-minded as blessings from God- simply avoiding Veruca, salt or otherwise.
First fight I had with my feminist English teacher was when I raised my hand while she was talking about how women before the 60s couldn’t go to college and pointed out that both of my grandmothers had– one was halfway homeschooled (her parents ran a school for the local Indians so they kept their kids in the class, too) and went to college at 17. They also both had careers– that came second to their kids. “Just” newspaper reporter and court stenographer, but they weren’t magically shackled at home.
I didn’t take well to being called a liar….
Dr. Susan Smith McKinney-Steward, New York’s first Black Female medical doctor who graduated in 1870 (third in the nation) is buried across the street from me in Brooklyn’s Green Wood Cemetery. Three female Black doctors in the five years after the 13th Amendment. Not too shabby. Women’s Lib 19th Century Style.
Interesting. This tactic, if one can call it that, of those who for the most part identify themselves with the Democratic party is nearly as old as the party itself. I’m reading the brilliant “A. Lincoln”(2010), by Ronald White , one chapter of which gives a quick analysis of the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates. Douglas often responded to lawyer Lincoln’s logical ideas honed during his many years practicing his profession, with invective and anger. A quick quote from the book:
“Whenever cornered, Douglas resorted not to ideas, but to aggression… His favorite tactic was to characterize Lincoln as part of the “Black Republicans.” He used the term “Black Republicans” thirteen times at Ottawa and eighteen times at Freeport. He also referred to Lincoln’s ideas by using the terms “abolition” and “abolitionizing.””
In addition the author says this about Douglas’s and Lincoln’s respective “strategeries:”
“Whereas Douglas had been pretentious, often demeaning, and sometimes angry, Lincoln appeared comfortable, self-deprecating, and often humorous in his remarks.”
All of which is to say that with your brilliant vids you’re on to something time-tested and used to great effect by the best political genius we’ve produced- the most effective response to ad hominum attacks, name-calling, and a refusal to face facts and logic is…laugh at ‘em.
I love it.
I agree that is a good lesson. For instance, I always laugh at people who idolize tyrants like Lincoln. And as to why that might be, Thomas Sowell’s quote page contains this from Douglass, “Everybody has asked the question… ‘What shall we do with the Negro?’ I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”
See also: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356078/Abraham-Lincoln-tried-deport-slaves-British-colonies.html
A true Democrat who understood the ethos of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the USA proposed that black Americans be treated as Americans. To be provided the same advantages as all other Americans who were capable of managing their own affairs. He proposed “benign neglect” based on his reading of the effects of the Great Society specifically on black Americans. Effects that have escalated since the program was initiated. The effects that dare not speak their name.
Babies born to mothers without males anywhere in sight, except when the welfare check is due. Horrendous black unemployment. Fatherless teenage black males getting their male identities via criminal gangs. Fatherless teenage girls getting status by baby after baby with no means of livlihood except welfare. Lifelong and intergenerational dependency on momma/papa government. Loss of self-respect and self-esteem AND the respect and esteem of their progeny who they’ve failed as adequate and adult role models. These as only the beginning of the damage done to them for their “free lunch”.
But even many of them now know nothing is for nothing, nothing is for free. Waking to the nightmare designed for them as dream by those who profess to be democrats and liberals, feel your pain compassionates. As you say, snake-oil salesmen. Many bought their poison. Many still do.
Very well observed. One of my oldest friends and I got into it last week over global warming. She opened the ball by saying that opponents were Bigfoot hunters and paid shills. Then when I asked her if she could outline the case against global warming that she thought was so wrong, she huffed about being the only person in the discussion with a science degree. Then she demanded that I mention one fact that I would accept that would prove me wrong about climate change, and when I refused to play that game, she took it as evidence that I wasn’t open to evidence and that I wouldn’t ever change my mind or position.
Here’s the kicker, though: I’d never actually stated my position! She just assumed what it was, that it was wrong, and that I was impervious to reason. Classic case of projection. I was really probing to see if she could make a fair argument, and you know, she just couldn’t. She couldn’t see there might be two sides to the debate. As a result, she was neither persuasive nor persuadable, but she seems to still think she “won” the “fight” instead of failing the test. Clearly she thinks of herself as “liberal, intelligent”, and thereby the converse is “conservative, dumb.” It’s like she’s still 17 and wants to prove that she’s better than those hicks in the small town she left behind.
So why do she and others like her fall for that garbage? Because they want to, Andrew. Because they want to.
Amen!
We must never lose sight of one simple fact:
Every group that makes up the Democrat coalition are, in one way or another, defined by a mental disorder. That’s why all the components of today’s Democrat party self-identify with some mental or emotional incapacity (as defined by the medical profession before the libs took over the psychiatric branch). They are obsessed with sex; onsessed with wealth; obsessed with power. In short, they are children, with immature, childish notions of what hese concepts actually mean.
By the way, the “appeal to authority”, especially in the first person, is a standard Leftist rhetorical feature, debunked by some ancient greek or other, just like every other shibboleth the left uses to “prove” thier arguments! So, who’s stupid and uneducated?
Andrew Klavan: hitting the nail on the head, once again. Don”t you ever get tired?
“If you feel that the sexual revolution destroyed the American family by giving women power over their reproductive choices, and that power turned daughters and wives… into a bunch of wanton hussies, well, stew over your feelings all you want, but you might as well give up thinking that it is possible to herd us up and drive us back into the kitchen…”
I won!
The science is settled.
Discussion is merely theoretical, because it is already over.
We are Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be absorbed.
Inevitability.
These are known in the sales business as “the assumed close”. Skip them having to say ‘Yes’. Just pretend they did and state that we are in agreement then. If the assumed close did not work, dig back in and make another pitch, then maybe try the assumed close again. It works on a lot of people.
It’s not an argument, however; It is a sales pitch. One side is attempting to have a discussion to understand the issue in all its permutations and maybe discover what is the right thing. The other side is trying to win, right or wrong be damned. One has an open mind, and the other has a closed mind. There is no point in discussing things with someone with a closed mind. All you can do is discuss in such a way that you are actually discussing with the audience.
If a salesman starts assuming that you just said yes, you can just start assuming he promised to give you 80% off in his giant closeout sale. That will change the nature of the discussion mighty quick!
Herein lies the key to determining the “other side’s” covert agenda. If all that matters to them is victory, then the goal is whatever victory will bring: in the case of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, a degree of political power undreamed by all the emperors of old.
Michael Emerling’s “Isolating the Issue” technique can be used to separate the deluded-but-sincere from the power-mongers:
A power-monger will often grow red-faced and stomp away. The deluded-but-sincere person will realize he’s been caught in a contradiction, after which his true reasons for his stance will sometimes emerge.
“Stew over your feelings all you want to . . . ” Someone else mentioned the habit of the leftist, non-liberal mind (liberal in the 19th century sense) to project onto their opponents the defects noted first in their own skulls. Leftist trust feelings so they assume conservatives are arguing from feelings rather than something else foreign to them . . . logic. So, the best game is to expose the projection the leftist accuses you of. They pull out the race card — show how the destruction of the Black and minority family, and the destruction of the dollar on which welfare folks rely on a very fixed budget with no hope of advancement absent self-improvement (a conservative trope) is racist to its core, and solely a leftist plot to keep the minorities down, stupid and dependent so they keep voting for the leftists. They are the racists not you.
Anti-feminist? The leftists are responsible for the missing 151,000,000 female babies mostly missing from China and India, which has got to be a presecription for aggressive war in mobilizing the millions of unattached men who will never get married. (Study the plot of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” which is an allegory of the civilizing influence of women). Who are the clever anti-feminists and secret war mongers now?
Oppose the authority of Montesqui and the Founding Fathers with Alinsky and the lesser lights that followed him? Who is anti-authoritarian now?
You can keep this game up all day long with the “feel-good” projectors of the left who will always accuse you of what they most fear in their own heart, that is lurking there to be exposed. But warning. Don’t expect to convince them or to persuade them that you are their friend. But its good for a belly laugh or two, or maybe an exploding skull or two ala “Scanners.”
I wish I could remember in which essay C. S. Lewis described going to a library for some very old (centuries old) book that had been read by anyone who could read in its day. By Lewis’s day, the book was considered so lewd, special authorization from a professor was required in order for a student to be able to borrow it. Lewis’s point, I think, was that we imagine societies only become more unrestrained about, say, sexuality because most of us don’t really know very much about the history of our civilization.
If it is true (and I don’t claim to know) that there were times in the past 2012 years of western history when marriage, family, chastity and true piety, were no more valued than they are today, and other times, in the same place, when the same 4 things were greatly respected, then Ms Patchett’s use of the word “back” is, at best, silly.
50% Stupid.
50% Or What (evil/exploitative/conniving…)
You pretty well covered it. With the Libs, half don’t want to think. And the other half wants to think for EVERYBODY.
I’m always skeptical of any problem that requires the same solution as the last problem.
Overpopulation? Reduce consumption and more government regulation.
Global cooling? Reduce consumption and more government regulation.
Peak oil? Reduce consumption and more government regulation.
Global Warming? Reduce consumption and more government regulation.
?????? Reduce…
Retirees’ medical care? …
Even though they insist consumption drives the economy.
They are to be addressed as ‘your betters’.
It’s posturing for an imagined audience.
Nothing to do with ‘facts’, intelligence, or integrity.
Tony Soprano is neither an English professor nor a CPA,
but he can still demand anything he wants from you!
When are conservatives going to address the real issue-
that liberals are, and must be, always on top.
You’re not listening, conservatives.
You’re not addressing their needs.
I can address their needs…
It looks like a 2 X 4 and is laid upside a liberal’s skull…
Not to kill them mind you, but to beat some sense into them…
Thunder
LOL!
You can not beat sense into a person. But, you can knock the ignorance right out of them.
Societies move in cycles, they always have and always will. It is a pendulum that swings from liberal to conservative over and over, intra – generational and for thousands of years in our past. We can read complaints about promiscuity in Sumerian texts thousands of years old, or read about puritan lifestyles a few hundred years ago, or the many swings in our own culture just the last hundred years.
If you don’t like your society, just wait a few years.
A hint about one of the things that drives these cycles: STD’s or venereal diseases — has widespread chastity made them relatively uncommon or medical science recently learned how to cure most of them? Or has widespread promiscuity made them relatively common instead and medical science have trouble dealing with the newest ones?
No, societies do not move in cycles. The Victorian state sponsored moves against sexuality were part of women’s emancipation and the destruction of marriage, predecessors of today’s date rape and sexual harassment legislation.
In the victorian era, they said that they could smash patriarchy without smashing marriage and family because women are naturally chaste, and if they are not, we will mold them to be. Today, they say that smashing marriage and the family is a good thing.
The last time society moved rightwards was when Monck and Charles the second purged the leftists from government. Ever since then, it has been a an ever leftwards movement. Sometimes, as in the Victorian era, leftwards meant more puritan, sometimes less, whatever served its agenda.
Trees do not grow to the sky, but they grow till they fall. The most probable source of a rightwards move is foreign conquest, perhaps by Islam. The only internal source of a rightwards move would be a white nationalist coup, but this does not look very probable, or state collapse, followed by some mixture of warlordism, anarcho piratism, and anarcho capitalism.
brilliant Andrew – love the way you tell it like it is about these lefticons and their minions (millions?)of useful idiots. Now if we can just clean out the righticon pretenders, we might give our children and fighting chance for the future (return of a past, if you will)
I don’t think they’re really “useful idiots” anymore. They’re either “reliable idiots” or, in the case of the media “go to idiots” (as in “who’s my go to idiot on the economy”).
I love your video, Andrew. Thanks for not “shutting up.”
Why think, call names. The leftist will feel better and not have to examine the failure of Obama/Democrat policies, now in their fourth year. It has taken the place of religion to these poor boobs, it’s impossible for them to admit error. And it’s only going to get worse.
I’m going with stupid.
It must annoy progressives to no end that American culture has generated decentralized resistance to progressive social engineering, mainly through the conservative churches, but to a lesser extent through the folk libertarianism inspired by the pulp novels of Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein. This phenomenon shouldn’t surprise anyone with a sense of how organic societies work; they have homeostatic mechanisms which act to counter deviations from long-term trends, especially the deviations imposed by central planners.
Interesting you should mention Rand.
Especially considering Andrew’s column here. He’s talking about what Rand called “the argument from moral intimidation.” That is, where one replaces an argument with a moral judgment, in an attempt to shut down argument. But, what is most interesting is, you will find her explanation of this in a book titled “The Virtue Of selfishness.” A book about ethics. Which contains in its INTRODUCTION, a prime example of this phenomenon, or technique. You see, if one is intrigued by this title, and might honestly wonder why someone would claim selfishness as a virtue, you will read, just asking a question like that makes you a coward. And if after that, you go ahead and read this book anyway (because you thought that was funny, so did not apply to you), you might eventually discover the whole Objectivitist philosophy was founded by a moral fraud. Which you should have known.
Just like Andrew also said.
Who is trying to take away their pills and send them back to the kitchen? These ladies are paranoid to the max. Some of us choose to be in the kitchen with a baby on our hip and are thankful to have the opportunity. Otherwise a majority of women work because they have to not because they want to (I would not think twice if I had to go back to work to make money to feed my family) and would be happy if they had the opportunity to spend their days taking care of their own children instead if shipping them off to strangers every day. Then coming home each day to another full time job of domestic resbonsibilities (which will always exist and need to be done no matter how it is divied up). woman who wrote that article and most of her fellow feminists are part of a very small elite minority who have fulfilling careers rather than necessity jobs. Also many of them do not have children, so do not understand the strong internal desire to nurture your children. It is that small minority who claims to speak for all women and dictate that we pursue a path outside the nurturing of our families.
We don’t want to take away their pills and send them back to the kitchen, we want them to stop monopolizing the narrative. They can speak for themselves but don’t claim to speak for all of womankind. Let us choose our own heroes instead of choosing them for us. I’ll take Ann Romney over Hillary Clinton any day as a role model for my daughter.
Would you take Hilary Clinton as a role model for your son?
Why do you call them, “ladies”? I see no evidence of this. It cheapens that honorarium to throw it around willy-nilly at every adult female. It is a title that should be earned.
I suspect that very few of them, in the deepest secrets of their hearts, are feeling fulfilled. This is part of their anger.
No, they don’t understand it as fully as a mother does, but they do feel it – it’s hardwired in. They fight it, they pretend it doesn’t matter, they pretend they don’t feel it. This, too, is part of their anger.
The Communist mantra: Whoever makes the most noise, wins. Control the dialog with noise, if necessary. Nice discussion, Andrew, on a subject the opposition would love to see Republicans worrying about. We have taken the bait if we even acknowledge this leftist drivel about female reproductive rights. The actual issue is our freedom to control our own lives, and we had better make the most noise this time around. ABO2012
No, it’s not about who makes the most noise wins.
It’s who counts the votes….
Ann Patchett : “Here’s the thing about revolutions– there is no taking them back.”
That’s also the thing about house fires, mob violence, years of active alcoholism. Afterwards, there may be repentance, reform and rebuilding, but people do have to deal with the wreckage.
Ann Patchett : “….you might as well give up thinking that it’s possible to herd us up and drive us back into the kitchen—which, depending on how many revolutions have offended you, might be a kitchen with a washboard and a cake of soap or a smoke house featuring a picture of King George.”
I don’t imagine many colonial families could afford family portraits, let alone portraits of King George. But even if some indignant (and wealthy) patriots did put the King’s portrait in the smoke house, how is our 50 years of drift toward an irresponsible, parasitic, tyrannical kind of sexuality comparable to the American Revolution? Next she’ll be telling us Patrick Henery really meant : “If it feels good, do it. And make others pay for the equipment and consequences.”
I don’t care who is having wanton sex. I’m galled by the idea of being forced to subsidize killing human life with abortifactants. Patchett, for some reason, can’t see the decency in not forcing people to be a part of what they believe is wrong.
I wonder what she would have told Henry David Thoreau to do regarding his quams of conscience about paying tax money used to hunt escaped slaves. Oh— I know : ” Make a list of all the other troubling ways your tax dollars are spent.”
Why do you suppose that the Democrat-controlled teachers’ unions have been dumbing down American children for decades? So that they will lack critical reasoning, and thus will be unable to detect the con.
It’s going to take a major disaster to get the attention of most Americans, and even then, Democrats will blame Republicans and promote themselves as saviors.
The big lie. Many people believe what they want to believe.
Republicans not only must struggle against Democrats, but against human nature.
How is, “Are you stupid… or what?” not an ad hominem attack?
Why do you then go on to dismiss such attacks, when your article is bracketed by them?
Why is “Scientific consensus” a “meaningless phrase?” Based on your advice, just taking your word for it seems a little, well, stupid.
Your whole article is full of patronising, vague generalities, glib platitudes and a wholly spurious attitude of reasonableness. You in fact come across as as much of a con-man as the fellow you describe at the start of your little screed.
Hi. Perhaps I should have explained this. “Scientific consensus” is a meaningless phrase because science isn’t established by consensus. It’s a remark of precisely the same order as “a consensus that the Patriots won the Super Bowl,” regardless of whether or not the Giants scored more points. Scientists may reach a consensus for any number of reasons — methods of funding may make one conclusion more attractive than another, exclusion of those with outlying opinions may leave only those who agree, passion, political opinions, corruption… The odds that they would reach “scientific consensus,” — i.e. universal agreement due to theories repeatedly confirmed by independent, controlled experiments — on a long-term computer projection of a highly complex system, are so small as to be negligible. What’s more, if they did reach such a consensus, and if that consensus meant “the debate was over,” – i.e. that science could no longer be done – it would no longer be scientific.
Once again, the left demonstrates their inability to comprehend humor.
It’s really kind of stupid.
No, they are not stupid at all.
Liberalism – and it’s fellow ideologies (communism, nazism, anarchism, etc) – are all based on coercion, on force, in an attempt to compel others to behave and think as those who are engaging in the coercion.
Those that engage in this coercion are typically those who believe they are intellectually or socially superior to the ignorant “masses,” (who they hold in contempt) or those who are basically unhappy and totally frustrated with their miserable existence and blame others for their miserable lives.
In either case, by forcing others to do as they wish, they can assuage their feelings of (self)contempt and frustration.
It is no different at all than a school yard bully beating the crap out of the other kids ; it simply makes him/her feel better. It alleviates the pain they have because they feel – for whatever reason – inferior or frustrated. So, take it out on someone else because it provides, for a brief period, a sense of accomplishment and success.
Of course, some “liberals” seek to coerce others also to enrich themselves – think Al Gore – a guy who was “invented,” and placed in a powerful position by his rich and powerful father, Al Gore senior. So, Al Gore Jr. lives every day knowing he is a total fraud, a fake, a charlatan, a ZERO; because his father “made” Al Gore Jr.
Liberals are hateful, frustrated, very angry individuals; they are like 2 year olds denied a cookie. They are little children in adult bodies.
It is beginning to be obvious that normal people are spending too much time trying to understand liberals, and way too much time trying to have discussions with them. And, forget negotiating serious issues with them because the required compromise will allow them to have a lien on your property.
Now, I admit that we have to be aware that liberals exist, so that they don’t slip something in the drinking water, but we must stop trying to take them serious as people–it is not clear yet if any of them will actually become people eventually. And, I will also admit that the conditions of the past few years has heightened my senses to stay aware of danger in other people–similar to the improved hearing you get knowing there may be a rattlesnake under the porch.
But, I would really, really like to see a gathering of normal people taking charge of the nation’s affairs so that I can get back to trying to work and produce something, without the wacky ideas of the little people–liberals.
Funny how criticism of the Progressive Republican con man Romney has drawn the exact same responses Klavan describes for the exact same reasons. People, do not assume that all hard-core leftism comes from Democrat con men.
One of the main signs of a con is the need for speed. We are all being pushed into a con of a Republican primary by being told that we need to decide now!
Liberals fall time and time for global warming, war on poverty etc because as rush has pointed out liberals want to be known for their good intentions, not the consequences or results of their intentions.
I think it worth mentioning, that our educational system today is dedicated to conditioning children to automatically categorize people based upon the use of certain phrases and/or words. By so doing, they compromise the messenger and thereby destroy the message before it is ever presented. A poor education combined with social conditioning result in an individual who is simply clueless.
So, in effect, the message is never hear. Pro-life, Conservative, Republican, etc, are all easy examples. To criticize the dress of gang bangers, question the result of affirmative action, marriage for gays, etc, all result in immediate categorization as not relevant. Consider yourself a racist, homophobe, or ignorant. Facts are irrelevant.
I just finished reading “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers. (Something I had been putting off for years) When I look at the players on the scene today who are tearing this country apart, it is amazing how little has really changed.