I have a new theory about these left-to-right converts that seem to be popping up all over the internet like a plague crop of pod people.
You know those arguments you have with Annoying Liberals, where you ask a question or suggest a hypothesis and they shoot back with some comment that begins, as many of Noam Chomsky's do, "Any intelligent person knows…" or, "Well-informed people have known for years…" but then they don't actually say anything that doesn't boil down to "you're wrong"? They just have an opinion, and it's The Smart Person's Opinion. But it's never specific. It's never, "Any intelligent person knows that cars produce more than half of their pollution during the manufacturing process," or even, "Any intelligent person knows that George W. Bush wears a rubber clown nose to bed."
Instead, it's always something like, "Any intelligent person knows that the Bush administration is full of wealthy criminals."
Which may well be true. But it's also too vague to argue against. What are we calling "wealthy"? Who are we calling a "criminal"? What's "full of"? More than half? One third?
You see where this is going.
Because for a long time I thought it was just an idiosyncrasy of Ryan's debating style: his occasional "consider the source" and "that's just crazy" rebuttals. But then I went over to A Small Victory which is basically just a giant standing wave front of, "Left-wingers are irrational ideologues! They're crazy! They make funny faces when they get mad! No sane person would vote for these lunatics!"
You start following comment links from her page, it's more of the same: personal attacks, generalizations, sarcasm and hyperbole. And it all sounds… well, vaguely familiar.
And not in a good way.
I'm working on better fine-tuning my rebuttals. A lot of times, I fall back on "crazy" because I'm just lazy. You tend to hold up an argument so long, I just lose interest.
Posted by: Ryan at May 27, 2004 12:08 PMYou tend to hold up an argument so long, I just lose interest.
Yeah. I'm trying to be more unilateral in my thinking, instead of always trying to get people to clarify their points or recognize contradictions in their arguments. That'd shorten those debates a lot.
Anyway. Believe me when I tell you that ASV helped me recognized you for the miracle of restraint and reasoned thinking that you are, Ryan.
Posted by: Joshua at May 27, 2004 12:33 PMi think you both argue very well.
Posted by: leblanc at May 27, 2004 12:35 PMp.s. take a look at the last line of your "multiculturalist" post again.
not unlike.
Posted by: leblanc at May 27, 2004 12:38 PMnot unlike.
You think? I did use the phrase "intelligent people", but more as an attempt to establish dialogue than a smackdown. Nor did I use it to suggest that the points I had laid out were true on the face of it, and that all intelligent people already agreed with me. What I said was that any intelligent person would consider the more reasoned points of their opposition.
I don't know. Both uses suggest that there is such a thing as an intelligent person, which I grant you can be a problematic proposition. But I think they take the idea in different directions.
I have to say, all the name-calling and factless pontificating on either end seems like it would fit in just as well in a heated debate about Star Wars or the latest expansion to Counterstrike. I mean, isn't sophomoric debate pretty much par for the course online? Why should politics be spared?
Posted by: flamingbanjo at May 27, 2004 05:25 PM