Bringing a knife to a gun fight

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Forums > All Posts > Bringing a knife to a gun fight

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2011-10-11 11:33 PM

MarkDavis
Lincoln, NE
Posts: 1

Argueing intellectually with persons presenting emotional arguments is futile and dangerous...much like bringing a knife to a gun fight. The reason the drivel of the right has been accepted is the "facts" presented are not the thrust of the argument, the facts are incidental to the emotional arguments. Those emotional arguments are designed to "feel right" and so the "facts" associated with them are accepted as right also.

Think about those encounters you have had with persons of at least moderate intelligence who have swallowed whole, with out the slightest masication of thought, ideas and facts contrary to the understanding of the most mentally myopic. You see yourself standing there dumbfounded and incredulous as you hear the feculence they present you as "reason".

A good example is the notion that the rich are the job creators. That is true only in that they hire people to fill positions. Those positions are only created when there is an economic incentive to do so, they are created when there is a demand. Any business person knows that demand drives a business, wheather you are selling crack on the street or steak grown in Argentina and sold in WallyWorld. Hiring a sales person does not bring in customers, customers require a sales person. However, the rich and powerful are people Americans identify with and want to believe they will act as gods/parents and take care of them. Emotionally attaching or identifying with the powerful is an everyday phenomenom, the brown noser rejects reason in the face of his fear of being found incompetent. The playground bully attracts the emotionally crippled and fearful.

The right has set the fear with a home based campain of Shock and Awe and only emotional arguements can counter that fear.

Persons smarter than I need to develop counter terrorism arguements for the left. Aguements that will overcome those seeds of fear the right have planted and tended so effectively.

I believe a start is to simply name what has been done, as I have tried to do here.

2011-10-12 07:15 AM

Schmidt
Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 1058

Mark, you are right. I agree with you. I too have experienced the frustrations of trying to argue intellectually with people that are ideologically driven...the facts don't matter crowd. Republicans have been very successful in making sure that much of the debate is about culture war issues for which there can be no compromise with those that are faith based. These middle class Americans are one issue voters and those issues usually have nothing to do with their own economic being, but rather their own religious dogma.

Herman Cain has used the expression "brain washed" to discribe blacks that tend to vote Democratic, but indeed it is many of the middle class and poor Americans that have been "brain washed" into thinking that the top 1 percent are the job providers. Yes it is the "fear card" that the Republicans play again and again so effectively that it trumps all critical thinking. Or if that doesn't work, just call on prayer or talk to God...as Rick Perry has so effectively demonstrated to keep his flock in the fold. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann too...along with a host of others in state and federal government.

How to overcome this? Just keep plugging away. I think the majority of Americans will eventually come to their senses. That hard core 30 - 40 percent or more of the Republican Party can never be won over. They have been permanently "brain washed."

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