How to Argue With a Lefty

Kurt Schlicter has a good piece at Big Government on how to make a difference in the war for constitutional conservatism, and how to fight the trolls that are sure to follow you if you're effective.  The whole thing is good, but this part stood out for me:

The proper way to deal with the leftist opponent – whether a Twitter troll or a Facebook fool or some dingus who calls into a radio show – is to quickly assess the opponent. Is he smart or dumb, evil or just misguided, ignorant or superficially informed, emotional or calm? Note how the substance of the opponent’s argument is not a consideration – you are not going to change his mind so don’t bother trying. Rather, your initial assessment needs to determine who you can best use your opponent’s statements to swing undecideds our way and to remind our own folks that they have it right already. It’s judo – use their own statements to knock them down and pin them for all to see.

My favorite tool is humor because it is the most devastating weapon – a couple decades in the infantry taught me to hit hard and keep hitting. An effective attack using humor renders them utterly ineffective – if people are laughing at them, they will never take them seriously. Witness Breitbart’s constant retweeting of the most vile attacks on him – he laughs at his opponents, driving them into a frenzy. Moreover, people remember humor. Fortunately, our lefty friends provide us a bounty of ammunition.

Humor is particularly effective to point out the hypocrisies and logical chasms that characterize the leftist world view. Remember, the goal is not to convince the opponent himself he’s wrong – if he had any sense he wouldn’t believe his pinko nonsense in the first place. It’s to swing those who have not made up their minds and to support those who have. A 140-character cutting dig at some liberal disconnect – one of my perennials is pointing out that a hallowed icon of the party that paints itself as the vanguard of racial enlightenment was a Ku Klux Klan kleagle – is worth a whole article on how Republicans really aren’t racist.

I don't find myself in these skirmishes too much, probably because this blog isn't well known enough to attract a dedicated troll following like those that plague many of the bigger conservative sites, but occasionally I'll get somebody looking for a fight. One recent Saturday some guy showed up in my Twitter feed who was mightily upset by something I had posted to Twitter. I has written this (and for context, at this time riots were going on in parts of the world because a Koran was burned in Florida):

Thinking about burning a Bible today to see if Christians anywhere would riot and kill. Probably just be a waste of a good Bible.

It was pretty clear my pointed sense of humor completely escaped him and he declared that my post was the most offensive thing he'd ever read. Now, I could have gotten into an argument with him or otherwise tried to defend my post, but instead I just posted this back to him:

You're welcome

Oh boy, he just came apart. Started calling me all kinds of things and proclaiming his outrage. After a couple of his comments I posted this:

You'll get over it.


Try Thesaurus.com. Your tweets are boring.

The meltdown continued for several more Twitter blasts from the guy until I posted this:

Currently enjoying a complete meltdown by @deleted . Lefties are so cute when their heads explode.

He couldn't get me to engage - I just mocked him. What was particularly interesting within minutes after that post he had deleted every Twitter message he sent me and had slunk off into the Twitter underbrush.

Nothing would have been gained by engaging this guy, but by using humor and mockery to deflect his anger back at him he was completely disarmed, and in fact based on his decision to delete his many messages to me, he completely surrendered.  Ridicule can be a very powerful weapon and is far more effective than in-your-face argument.