Earlier in the week, President Obama badly flubbed when speaking with military troops about a pair of Medal of Honor recipients, one living and one killed in battle. His appalling flub revealed his inattention to the details of being Commander-in-Chief at a time when we are engaged in three wars, one he inserted American troops into by fiat. He claims to have the troops’ backs, but in confusing two of the handful of MOH recipients awarded the Medal during Obama’s presidency, he showed that he doesn’t even know the names of the best of the best; how can he be watching the backs of the rest of them?
Well, this flub didn’t sit well with a leftist, who took to the comments here not to defend President Obama or explain or rationalize his statement, but to attack two Republicans who had nothing to do with Obama’s mistake. Here is leftist commenter CandyO’s first comment:
Most of the Teabaggers here who criticize Obama for making an occasional gaffe look the other way whenever Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann do so, which is just about every time they open their silly mouths.
CandyO probably thought this comment would anger Tea Party supporters and Palin and Bachmann supporters or force bloggers here to go on the defensive, while deflecting the conversation away from Obama’s mistake. That’s a standard leftist tactic — when you score a direct hit on them or theirs, they don’t go into defense, but instead launch an attack on someone else. Because a leftist’s hero is never wrong, except when they stray from the leftist line of thinking.
No one here fell for it, so CandyO guessed that Obama’s flub must have been reported by Fox, and must therefore be wrong on that basis alone:
I’ve wondered when conservatives will learn not to believe everything Faux News tells them to believe.
Problem: Fox (obviously another favorite leftist agitator target) didn’t report Obama’s mistake, at least not first. I saw it on Blackfive, who reported it based on eyewitness accounts. The attack on Fox was an attack on the messenger, and he wrong messenger at that. So I replied to CandyO that this didn’t come from Fox, and CandyO tried again to attack Palin and Bachmann, neither of whom had anything to do with Obama’s gaffe:
Palin and Bachmann don’t make “average slips of the tongue,” they consistently spew misinformation and outright lies.
And I replied with a teasing trap:
Like partying like it’s 1773?
That’s a reference to Palin tweeting to Tea Partiers not to commence partying yet “like it’s 1773,” which enraged liberals from the Dopey Kos on down, who ripped into the ignorant Palin, who turned out to be right: The Boston Tea Party was in 1773.
CandyO didn’t take that bait, at least not directly, but did slam the innocent Palin and Bachmann, again:
Making a gaffe about the name of a MOH recipient is nowhere near as bad as not knowing simple facts about the history of this country. Elementary schoolchildren aren’t taught the names of every MOH recipient, but they are taught about Paul Revere, and know that he DIDN’T ring bells or fire shots during his historic ride, despite what Palin claimed. Nor did the Founding Fathers end slavery, as Bachmann stated.
These women are truly stupid. Those who worship them are even more stupid.
Palin turned out to be right about that too, but never mind: She’s Sarah Palin, so in a leftist’s mind she can’t possibly be right about anything — even when the facts say she is. But remember, this discussion was supposed to be about Obama’s gaffe, and leftist CandyO just kept attacking two women who had nothing to do with his gaffe at all. I finished off the discussion with this:
So your reply to an obvious and terrible gaffe by Obama is slam a couple of women who had nothing to do with it? How sexist of you!
And that’s the last we heard of CandyO, at least in that post. Using the left’s own language and tactics against them does tend shut them up.
So what’s the point of bringing all this up? Well, first, note the total lack of interest in the facts in CandyO’s approach. Obama’s inexcusable gaffe was his alone, and he even apologized for it today, but CandyO only showed up here to try to enrage and divide and distract one of the few sites reporting it. CandyO was not interested, at all, in what actually happened. CandyO was only interested in changing the subject to ground more favorable, hence the attack on Palin and Bachmann, and when that didn’t work, the attack on Fox, and when that didn’t work, the do-over on Palin and Bachmann.
CandyO’s interest was typical of how the left operates. Most leftist are a bit less obvious, but the basic tactics are the same across the issues. They try this childish “I know you are but what am I?” on everything that they perceive as damaging to their side, while trying by sleight of hand to distract from what they’re really up to. They cloak their issue stances as something other than what they actually want, reaching for massive upheaval to create permanent change in their favor through small, seemingly incremental changes that they cast as merely “fair” and “reasonable.” Just as there is no honesty in CandyO’s seemingly bizarre attack on two innocent women who didn’t wave wands to confuse Obama’s mind, there is no honesty in the way leftists approach larger issues.
Here’s an example plucked from the headlines. SecState Clinton, who along with President Obama spent the Bush years undermining the war in Iraq, tried badgering Congress into supporting the non-war in Libya by asking them “Whose side are you on?” Clinton surely knows her record and that of the president when he was in the Senate. His campaign caught fire on the left largely because he was the anti-war candidate. He undermined the Iraq war at every turn, most notably by opposing the troop surge that was key to winning that war. But if you’re a leftist as Clinton is, there is no shame in being so obviously dishonest and belligerent. Words are just means to an end, in this case, the end being whatever it is that Obama wants the outcome to be in Libya. He hasn’t consulted Congress, and the Libya operation makes less military sense while costing more with each passing day, all of which naturally cause Congress to question the war. Rather than answer, the leftist administration deflects and attacks: “Whose side are you on?”
There’s absolutely no point in arguing with a leftist. Their ideology is their religion; like all religions, it’s immune to disproof. And of course, we must remember that they’re our moral and intellectual superiors as well, specifically because of their religion. So why waste your breath?
One argues with leftists not in the hope of persuading the leftists, but in the hope of persuading the undecided bystanders.
The post describes a tactic known as “offense is the best defense”. I also learned it from leftists and try to apply it on them. It’s like a ball game – if one team is always on the offense and the other team is always on the defense, then given enough time the first team will almost inevitably score while the second team can only score by pure luck. Therefore it’s better to always be on the offense. Instead of defending yourself against relentless attacks, it’s best to try and change the game and turn it into an attack that will force the other side to defend itself.
Yep.
“Never try to wrestle with a pig. You both just get dirty, and the pig LIKES it.” It is downright disgusting that we are forced to wrestle with pigs, so that others can finally see that they are, indeed, pigs. The real trick is to not look like a pig yourself.
This is a common advantage to Colon Boyd’s OODA loop theory as well as in the philosophical focus on offense in H2H training.
The goal isn’t so much to wrestle with the pig as it is to get the pig ready for the execution and the cooking and the eating. If we got the pig cooked and in our bellies, then it was worth it. If we got defeated and we ended up in the pig’s belly, then it won’t matter how we look to bystanders at that point.
That is, indeed, a good point, and such opportunities ought not to be spurned. But for self-protection, you must be clear of mind: You’re not arguing with your nominal opponent in the hope of persuading him pesonally of anything; you’re exchanging fire with an entire body of “thought.” That makes it possible to see leftism’s representative as merely a tool, which can help you to focus your approach and rhetoric. (It remains important not to resort to ad hominems and such.)
The Liberal Mind: Psychological Causes of Political Madness by Dr. Lyle Rossiter http://bit.ly/a4RTOS
“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child – miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill disciplined, despotic, and useless. Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats.” – P.J. O’Rourke
This is why I seldom try a logical argument (as defined in a debate) with a leftist.
I start off with a few facts and see if they come up with a factual and logical response, sure, I’ll debate them on that basis.
However, few do… most of the time they use logical fallacies, including the red herrings and such that Bryan mentioned. At that point, I stop trying to argue logically with them, and instead play with them like a cat-toy.
At best, the double standard thing is a two-edged sword, in my opinion. Yes, Sec. Clinton looks like a fool, when questioning someone else’s patriotism after first decrying others challenging hers under very similar circumstances. The problem is that many Republicans are on the other end of both of these arguments, questioning patriotism back in 2003-8, and now doing something that they would have decried then. It’s all politics. The only basis for complaint, as far as I’m concerned, comes when the media starts highlighting Republican hypocrisy and ignoring the Democratic version.
Actually Bush got ripped by the left for questioning the patriotism of others, even though he never did that.
The Republicans were questioning the worth of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? I don’t think so. They were questioning useless peacekeeping missions without an exit strategy or any national interest to America, like Serbia and Libya and the bombing of Sudan.
Would the GOP really have accused Democrats of being unpatriotic if the Democrat position was that Iraq and Afghanistan had no national interest and therefore Congress shouldn’t fund it or authorize its vote? How can that be, the Democrats voted for Iraq. And cheered Afghanistan’s invasion.
The GOP, as we all, noticed the Left’s hypocrisy in being against war when it suited them and supporting it, after 9/11, when it got them votes.
This is no different.
Great post. In its specificity and detail, it perfectly re-creates the frustration and intellectual dishonesty one encounters in any argument with a liberal. This post should be required reading for all conservatives who have to debate liberals either in political campaigns, in social settings or anywhere else. Kudos on a wonderful dissection of the liberal in argument mode.
I just saw a clip of Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy talking to a group of blacks church members about how racist the Second Amendment is (different site). In his “rant” he talks about turning on the TV and seeing Sarah Palin’s Alaska. Then, he asks why Sarah Palin wasn’t at a crime scene with him instead of hunting Caribou. What an illogical, irrational, specious, totally stupid comment for this man to make (I can’t even see why he made it, other than to give another liberal attack against a Presidential candidate WHO HASN’T EVEN DECLARED YET). But, since when does something a liberal say have to make any sense.
Mr. Porretto is, as usual, right. I would add the following. The Left are not our countrymen. They do not speak the same language as we do, nor do they have the same cultural underpinnings that we do. I commend a thread over at BELMONT CLUB:
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/06/23/pageantry/#comments
on the subject. We are two hostile nations inside one set of boundaries. There are ultimately no peaceful resolutions to that situation in history. Because the Left reflexively turns to coercion and force as the ultimate argument [see Algore's call for forced sterilization for all women under 25 in a Tattler thread above]; backing our verbal arguments, we cannot rule out answering in kind if such is forced upon us.
Subotai Bahadur
Sounds from your accounts, that civil war might be the only remaining solution so that should the GOP side win you can purge the nation of its dregs as classified and ajudged by you. I’m sure you must have sound constitutional foundations for declaring who is American and who isn’t.
Briefly: Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Rousseau.
As Thomas Sowell points out in “Conflict of Visions”., the left sees a completely different reality (one that exists in their head, not “out there”), so they’re always on a different page, or more likely in a different book.
How entertaining! Both ends of the pasture are occupied by self appointed intellectual elitists proclaiming “I’m right..and you’re wrong” biased and personalized rhetoric. Funny thing about these critters is, that they each represent the very same factions of ideology that has brought out nation to its current brink.
The constitution left to the majority of the people who and what they wanted for their government and in each and every instance the majority has spoken throughout the centuries and decades.
The operatives and activists strategies on all sides are ones to perpetuate deeper divsions rather than unification and compromise as was the intent and design of the constitutions governance mandates for congress and the other branches.
AS FOR THE OPPOSING PARTIES…..The dems putt along without signficant party division and platform while the GOP is relentlessly involved in inner-party cat fights and ideological platforms. Who on the opposing side is going to throw down their weapons and join a partys fight, who can’t even figure out who they are and what they stand for?
Seems to me the wise would opt to first, fighting the fight within and [then] approach their party opposition with their grand plans and ideology. Having been a republican since ’52, I haven’t a clue who the GOP is today and what they stand for in any unity platform. So, I don’t think its a far stretch to imagine the dems…don’t either when blasted relentlessly with attacks (more often personalized attacks) from folks who are embattled with inner-party fighting. A real recipe for getting the ear and recruiting the opposition, eh?