Don’t Argue With Liberals – It Only Encourages Them

Non-lawyers often ask me, “What is the best way to argue with a liberal?” This is silly, because there is no best way to argue with a liberal. They're beyond argument. You might as well argue with your terrier. Take it from someone who argues with his hideous terrier all the time.

But if you do choose to argue with a liberal, understand that your purpose should never be to change the liberal’s mind. You're not going to change the liberal’s mind. Instead, if you choose to argue with a liberal, you should do it for one of two reasons – to either win over people who have not yet made up their minds, or to support people who already have begun to understand the truth.

The truth is that conservatism is an ideology that is in accord with natural law and basic human decency, while liberalism is merely the summit of a slippery slope leading down to the hellish depths of collectivist misery.

Liberals aren’t going to like to hear this manifest and demonstrable truth. So you’re going to get called “racist,” “sexist” and “homophobic,” even if you’re a conservative black lesbian.

What you are not going to get is an argument. An argument is a collected series of statements designed to establish a definite proposition. Arguments involve the presentation of facts and evidence from which one draws a conclusion. Implied within the concept of an argument is the potential that one might change his conclusion. But liberals start with the conclusion.

They don’t change their conclusions based on the facts and evidence; they change the facts and evidence based on the conclusion they want. This is why a 105 degree day is irrefutable proof of global warming, while a 60 degree day is irrefutable proof of global warming. As is a -20 degree day.

Liberals are only concerned with argument, or what superficially appears to be argument, as a rhetorical bludgeon designed to beat you into submission. They aren’t trying to change your mind. They don’t expect you to agree with them. They don’t even care whether or not you grow to love Big Brother.

They just want you to shut up and let them run rampant. If you understand that, you'll be fine.

There are two basic tactics to choose from when responding to a liberal pseudo-argument, defense and counterattack. Without getting too detailed and infantry-nerdy on you, think of defense as simply preventing a loss. You're holding your ground. The counterattack, however, lashes out to seize the initiative and defeat your enemy.

Both have their uses. When you defend, you are generally responding to the pseudo-argument the liberal is making. A liberal will start advocating some nonsense and you reply to what he says. You may choose to use examples of liberalism's many failures to illustrate how collectivism is a prescription for disaster. For example, some pinko starts crowing about how eight million suckers signed up for Obamacare. A good defense might involve raising the question of how many of those eight million have actually paid for it.

But the problem with defense is that it treats a liberal "argument” with a respect it doesn't deserve. You dignify liberal silliness with a response when all it deserves is mockery and contempt.

This is why I prefer to counterattack. When you counterattack, you ignore the proposition offered by the liberal and refuse to respond on the liberal’s preferred terms. In fact, you don’t even need to address the same subject the liberal is talking about. Your goal is not to undercut the liberal’s assertion. You're going to counterattack to undercut the liberal himself.

There are many good reasons to choose the approach of treating the liberal like he is a terrible person with terrible ideas who seeks to impose a quasi-fascist police state upon America, including the fact that it's all true.

Let’s try a counterattack battle drill. Some doofus with a “Capitalism Is a Patriarchal, Cisnormative Hate Crime” t-shirt starts babbling about “privilege.” The undecideds start listening, their jaws drooping slightly. Some of the more conservative ones are silent, not wanting to be labeled racist by some geek whose grandfather came from Oslo. You need to act. So you causally inject the question, “Hey, why are you an eager and active member of a political party that made a KKK kleagle a beloved Senate Majority Leader?”

Then you mention that you’re a member of the party that fought slavery and didn’t turn hoses on civil rights marchers. Then you finish by announcing, “Well, I’m going to stand with Dr. King and judge people by the content of their character.” It’s optional whether you then get up, scream that the liberal should have issued you a trigger warning about his racism, and leave.

But be careful – the liberal may totally spit in the next latte he sells you.

Some people might question whether this kind of Alinsky-esque tactic means we are stooping to the liberals’ level. Except the liberals’ level is six feet underground, where the victims of collectivism lie buried. Anyone not willing to take the fight to them simply empowers their liberal fascist fantasies.

If you're trying to win an Oxford Union debate with a liberal, you’ve missed the point. This isn't about the Marquess of Queensberry’s fussy little rules. This isn't about some sort of extended-pinky exchange of ideas over a fine glass of port. This is about fighting for our way of life and our fundamental rights against the intellectual heirs of Stalin, Mao and Hitler.

Attack. This is about winning. First prize is freedom. Second prize is tyranny.

SOURCE

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Forget About the Fed – Let’s End the Reign of Liberalism Instead

Despite the fact that the Federal Reserve has been pumping trillions of dollars into the economy with their Quantitative Easing program, our nation has seen anemic economic growth. In real dollars, the Fed (mostly under the leadership of Ben “easy money” Bernanke) has injected about $2 trillion into financial markets. This money (according to people who read Keynes as if he penned the economic gospel) was supposed to increase liquidity in the system and multiply, thereby creating jobs and prosperity. According to the theory of that guy who once said “we’re all dead in the long run”, the free Fed cash was supposed to result in massive job creation, and intense credit growth…

Of course, this hasn’t happened. In fact, despite the $2 trillion of “free” Fed monies, our ailing economy only managed to grow about $1.1 trillion in that same time span… So, to be clear: The Fed printed up $2 trillion worth of cash, and handed it to Wall Street. Stocks climbed steadily, and the economy only grew by half as much as the Fed had printed… This is apparently what happens when Liberals run the government.

Which brings us to the main point (I know, I know… “Finally”, right?):

Sure… End the Fed. But before we tackle that challenge, maybe we should end the reign of Obamanomics? After all, it seems that the Federal Reserve has pretty much exhausted every trick in the book to inflate the economy, and the economy still isn’t growing. Go ahead and give Wall Street more Fed dollars, but it’s a pretty big chore to get the economy going when policies from DC are killing jobs, and Eric Holder is making a killing out of suing banks.

Our biggest problems, today, aren’t monetary. They’re fiscal. The real problem with today’s “recovery” isn’t a lack of money or consumer demand… The real problem seems to be the guy living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and most of the 535 “leaders” who help craft fiscal policy at the US Capitol.

All the free Fed money in the world won’t change the fact that Eric Holder is suing banks left and right, while his Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is making mortgages a nightmare for the average lender. Barack Obama’s FDA isn’t exactly making energy any more affordable, and Obamacare is basically giving businesses a very legitimate reason not to hire people. Besides, if we truly live in a consumer-driven economy, it seems like the biggest thing we’re missing in this “recovery” is job creation.

So while the Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars into the markets, the US economy has limped along. The fact that trillions in “free money” has been so ineffective at priming economic growth should tell us something: Lack of capital is not the issue.

Unreasonably loose monetary policy is no substitute for a congressional budget, or an informed fiscal policy. America is ready for an explosion of economic prosperity; but as long as the government continues to tax, regulate (oh good… more carbon regulations are being announced today), and infringe on the sovereignty of business, things are unlikely to get much better.

Whatever possible benefit the Federal Reserve could have had on the economy has been largely offset by the disastrous Obama policies of regulation and micromanagement. The truth is, the economy can only handle so much progressivism before it collapses under the weight of bureaucrats. So while I’m completely in favor of “ending the Fed”, the long run can wait. The real solution to today’s economic woes can be found at the ballot box this November.

 SOURCE

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Scandal Exhaustion

By Alan Caruba

Listening to President Obama respond on May 21 to the latest scandal regarding something about which he knew and did nothing—the mess at the Veterans Administration—was such a familiar event that I have reached a point of exhaustion trying to keep up with everything that has been so wrong about his six years in office. As he always does, he said was really angry about it.

Writing in the May 20 Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin said, “Forget ideology for a moment. Whether you are liberal or conservative, the Obama presidency’s parade of miscues is jaw-dropping.”

Stacked against the list of Obama scandals and failures, Rubin could only cite the Bush administration’s 2005 handling of Hurricane Katrina, the seventh most intense ever, and, as anyone familiar with that event will tell you, the failure of FEMA’s response was matched by the failures of Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and the New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Bush had declared a national emergency two days before it hit the Gulf coast.

Rubin concluded that the Obama administration scandals “reflect the most widespread failure of executive leadership since the Harding administration”, adding “The presidency is an executive job. We hire neophytes at our peril. When there is an atmosphere in which accountability is not stressed you get more scandals and fiascos.”

Obama spent his entire first term blaming all such things on his predecessor, George W. Bush, until it became a joke.

One has to wonder about the effect of the endless succession of scandals and fiascos have had on Americans as individuals and the nation as a whole.

While it is easier to lay all the blame on Obama, the fact is that much of the blame is the result of a federal government that is so big no President could possibly know about the countless programs being undertaken within its departments and agencies, and all the Presidents dating back to Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive initiatives have played a role in growing the government.

It is, however, the President who selects the cabinet members responsible to manage the departments as well as those appointed to manage the various agencies. Kathleen Sebelius, the recently resigned former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, responsible for the implementation of Obamacare, comes to mind. She had solicited donations—against the law—from the companies HHS regulates to help her sign up uninsured Americans for Obamacare and signed off on the millions spent on HealthCare.gov and other expenses leading up to its start.

There are lists of the Obama scandals you can Google. One that continues to fester is the attack on September 11, 2012—the anniversary of 9/11—that killed an American ambassador and three security personnel in Benghazi, Libya. It has been and continues to be investigated, mostly because of the lies told by Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of “What difference at this point does it make?” fame. Clinton was asked what she had accomplished in her four years as Secretary and was unable to name anything.

Eric Holder, our Attorney General, continues in office despite having been held in contempt of Congress, professing that he knew nothing about “Fast and Furious”, the earliest scandal involving a gun-running scheme to Mexican drug cartels by the ATF presumably to track them, but they lost track and many were used in crimes including the killing of a Border Patrol agent.

Holder also told Congress that he was not associated with the “potential prosecution” of a journalist even though he had signed the affidavit that named Fox News reporter, James Rosen. as a potential criminal. Holder was also in charge when the Justice Department culled the phone records of Associated Press reporters to find out who they deemed was leaking information.

Keeping track of the solar power and other “renewable” and “Green” energy companies like Solyndra that received millions in grants and then rather swiftly went bankrupt became a fulltime effort and, of course, there was the “stimulus” that wasted billions without generating any “shovel ready jobs” qualifies as a fiasco.

In the midst of the recession that was triggered by the 2008 financial crisis various elements of the Obama administration continued to spend money in ways that suggested their indifference. In 2010 the General Services Administration held a $823,000 training conference in Las Vegas, complete with a clown and mind readers.

An Agriculture Department program to compensate black farmers who allegedly had been discriminated against by the agency turned into a gravy train that delivered several billion dollars to thousands of recipients, some of whom probably had not encountered discrimination.

The Veterans Affairs agency made news when it spent more than $6 million on two conferences in Orlando, Florida, and is back in the news for revelations about alleged falsified records concerning the waiting times veterans faced amidst assertions that many died while waiting for treatment surfaced. This was a problem of which the then-Senator Obama was already aware, but six years into his presidency it still existed despite his early promises to fix it.

Obama has been the biggest of Big Government Presidents since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, and Obamacare put the federal government in control of one sixth of the nation’s economy while putting the government in charge of the care Americans expect to receive. Obamacare will dwarf the problems associated with the Veterans agency.

Meanwhile, we have been living with a President who is so indifferent to working with Congress that he has gained fame for his use of executive orders such as the decision to not deport illegal immigrants. His aides have promised more executive orders.

All this over the course of the last six years has left Americans exhausted by the incompetence and wastefulness of an administration that now presides over the highest national debt in the history of the nation and the first ever downgrade of our credit rating.

It has also left them angry if they were conservatives and disillusioned if they were Obama supporters. The Veterans Administration scandal is likely a tipping point for the independent voters and even for longtime Democrats who will want a change.

It is increasingly likely that the November midterm elections give the Republican Party control over the Senate as well as the House and then to hope that it will begin to rein in the spending and save the nation from a financial collapse that will rival the one in 2008.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc

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