Saturday, March 10, 2012

Odd debate moves and attempts to avoid criticism

In this short piece, I'm going to list a number of tactics I've encountered personally or seen employed by others in a discussion or argument.

1. Using your name as a means to connect with you when their argument fails. You may have dealt with this kind of tactic. Person X says 'But (insert your name here).......', with their argument re-stated and your name actually becomes the beginning piece of their argument. I find this move to be very annoying. I love my name but it's being used as a way to get me to lower my defenses so the other person can slide in a set of premises they do not intend to work for. It's a common theist tactic which ultimately doesn't get them anywhere. 

2. LOL'n, and/or 'my tweet/comment was just a joke'. This move is offered after some questions or push back is given to something they have said. Since they cannot handle the heat and cannot defend their own words, you are the problem. You may receive various comments such as 'you guys took it to the extreme', 'you guys are hostile' and so forth, if you continue to ask questions with no substantive replies. Notice those last few comments contain ZERO critiques against the question or argument. They are merely armchair psycho-analytics whereby they attempt to interpret your mood. 

Example 'Black women don't love themselves because of the way they wear their hair and the clothes that they wear'. If you challenge this thought or any which looks like it, be prepared for a barrage of foolish comments.  

3. You don't follow me so why are you tweeting to me. This person has invoked a special set of rules to shield them from questions and criticism. First, you can only comment, retweet or criticize if and only if you follow them. Second, if you do not follow them at all, DON'T TWEET TO THEM, unless you are in agreement with what they have said. After their rules are stated they tend to retweet those people who support whatever nonsense they spouted. This move is commonly deployed by a lot of dumbass patriarchal men and their retweets are of the women that co-sign their bull shit. Advocates of this position fail to understand how the medium works. Anything you tweet is subject to replies and retweets despite who is following you or not. They should lock their accounts, get off the network, or just not tweet. 

4. Bringing up irrelevant but true facts to support a silly conclusion. It's probably easier to think of this as one word; non-sequitor. For instance you're having a debate/discussion with someone you know or with a stranger on the internet. They say something like "The New York Giants won the Superbowl earlier this year therefore God exists". It's true that the NYGiants did win the Superbowl earlier in the year but that says nothing about whether 'god exists'. Most non-sequitors I've seen are not that easy to spot. They tend to have multiple and sometimes true premises but those premises don't support the overall conclusion in any way. I'll give 2 longer examples

Barack Obama is the President of the United States. Andrew Breitbart is dead. Therefore, the U.S. government had Breitbart eliminated because he criticized the President's domestic and foreign policies. 3 things are true. Barack Obama is the President, Breitbart is dead and Breitbart did criticize the President's foreign and domestic policy but the conclusion made is that the government 'took out' Breitbart. No evidence suggests that's the case in any way. 

Beyonce is married to Jay-Z. Kanye West has made a lot of money from his musical career. Therefore all three of them, well 4 if you include Beyonce's baby are all in a secret society which worships the devil called the 'Illuminati'. What's true? Beyonce is married to Jay-Z and they do have a baby together. Kanye West has made a lot of money from his musical career. What's concluded? One marriage between two popular artists in their field plus the success of another artist is used to make a case for devil worship and their participation in a secret society. You may think no one argues like that. I wish I could tell you I am wrong but I cannot. 

5. Respect means not offering criticism and if you do, you are violating my right to free speech and expression. This person has a very crude understanding of free speech and forgets it goes both ways. You can express yourself but so can I. Not only are they displaying a hyper-sensitive disposition to their own words being criticized, they are also telling you that 'respect' to them means that you keep criticism of any kind to yourself. If you are on a public forum, your comments are subject to scrutiny by anyone who sees them. This notion of 'respect' is laughable and ought to be ridiculed for the steaming pile of whiny shit waving that it is. 

6. You are cursing and I find that to be very offensive. There's a difference between saying ' I don't give a fuck' and 'fuck you'. The first is directed at something you've said which is probably irrelevant and does not establish anything but wastes valuable time. The second is directed at you. This person would rather comment on your word choice and possibly make snide remarks regarding your intelligence because you dare say ASS, FUCK, MOTHERFUCKER and so forth than to offer a coherent argument aimed at the discussion. If they had a better argument, your word choice would not be a point of concern.

This list is not exhaustive in any way and feel free to add or correct me on it. I'm sure I'm leaving out a number of other silly, stupid and inane moves. The six I've listed usually work in conjunction with each other and after you think you've killed one, it's proponent will resurrect it.