Online Debate

After years of careful research, I think I have managed to determine what the rules are for arguing online.

1. You as an individual are fully responsible for every other human being on the planet that shares your ideology in any way. Which is why it’s so important to determine the politics of crazy people who opens fire at other people, as it could implicate 50% of Americans as murderers.
2. If you share any qualities or ideas at all with a bad person, you become identical to them in every way. So for instance all failed art students are now genocidal white supremacists.  Even the black and asian failed art students.
3. All good hearted people are 100% consistent across all beliefs. Therefore if you can find even on portion of a statement that appears to contradict another one, they are wrong about everything. Forever.
4. Only media sources that say things that you already agree with can ever be considered unbiased. Therefore, anything else can immediately be discounted as spin/lies/propaganda. Furthermore, since lies and propaganda have been positively linked to historically bad regimes, Rule 2 turns all disagreeing media services into Nazi’s and or KGB field agents, depending on their political bent and/or your understanding of 20th century history.
5. Given Rule 4, it is perfectly valid to dictate to your opponent what his argument and/or beliefs actually are.
6. It is impossible for two reasonable people to examine the same evidence and draw two separate opinions. Therefore if someone has a different opinion than yours they are either stupid or lying. Most likely as a complicit member of a conspiracy to destroy their own country.
7. You should always use your own knowledge as the standard for determining what everyone else should know. Anyone who knows less than you on any given subject is clearly an idiot.
8. If someone expresses a belief in something, then they also logically believe in every single extended permutation of that belief no matter how extreme it is.
9. 100% of all human beliefs can be expressed in a binary fashion.  Therefore if you love something, such as your country, the bill of rights, or even chicken fried steak, then everybody who disagrees with you on any subject hates all of those things.  And they want to destroy them.
10. If you do happen to share any qualities with a bad person (Rule 2), ideology with a bad person, (Rule 1) but somehow, by some freak chance do not share every negative quality with that person it is up to you to demonstrate that you do not, in a manner that informs every person who disagrees with you without necessitating any effort, empathy, or imagination on their part.
11. It’s not prejudice to assume bad things from a social/racial/economic/professional/religious group if one or more of them can ever have been demonstrated to have done a bad thing.
12. Anything you  assert is always assumed to be the unadulterated truth until proven otherwise.  Anything someone else says that contradicts your assertion will be assumed false and must be proven by quoting a valid source (Note: See Rule for for a list of valid sources)
13. If somebody get’s tired of the debate, they lose and everything they claimed is proven false.
14. Given Rule 4, Rule 5, and Rule 6, it is perfectly valid to mock an opponent for your assumptions about what incorrect sources they have chosen for their “research” into the subject being discussed.
15. The reverse of Rule 14 is never true.  It is impossible for another person to correctly infer, surmise  or otherwise deduce any belief you have not explicitly stated.  It is also an insult to you if they try.
16. If someone, most likely through chicanery or entrapment,  manages to demonstrate that you are guilty of something either directly or by the application of one of these rules, you may nullify your own guilt by the demonstration of a similar lapse by either your opponent or someone who’s beliefs and/or associations align with them. Which of course puts you on an immediate and superior moral footing.

I’m sure that readers will be able to come up with several rules that I missed.  Just like I am sure that someone will treat these rules as a partisan attack on their belief and/or confirmation of their partisan belief’s superiority.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Just kind of babbling. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.