The point is that you can’t fight these people by being decent. You have to let people know that they’re vile, hateful scumbags with no sense of standards or simple human decency. You have to stand up to them and (rhetorically speaking) punch the sick SOBs right in the nose.

Well, that was certainly very shrill and unserious.

Unhinged much, moonbat?

Let’s go to Bill Kristol for a comment. Bill?

I’m in Dr. Sir Brad’s corner, proudly shrill.

After all, Michelle Malkin is merely a concerned demure young lady who has the right to put her stalking skills to good use in pursuit of her First Amendement rights.

Whereas mean liberals are just unhinged moonbats who get all upset because “war” is “bad” and sometimes soldiers must pay the price defending the liberals’s right to say mean and hateful things about someone as defenseless as a general hand-picked by the Bush Administration who never, ever had any intention of playing politics. Liberals should be SO GLAD that they have their First Amendment Rights to say what they want that they will never use them.

Liberals. Hmf.

But check it out.

Maybe, just maybe, something important happened this week. A sea change that can effect the narrative in a way we’ve never been able to before.

The so-called mainstream press has picked up, and are reporting a story about how dishonest, mean-spirited and ultimately un-american the right wing attack machine is. Maybe that frost kid will ultimately be the hero in the restoration of american values, decency and the rule of law.

One big question is, will they back off, or will the flying monkey in full shrill cry sortie out once again at the next target of their inchoate rage? If they do, I predict the press will see it as something of a pattern, and like John Edwards hair or Hillary’s far-left politics, it will create a narrative of it’s own. Should that happen, it will, thankfully, be the end of Rovian politics.

I know, don’t count on it. But it IS happening…

mikey

I don’t get it. Al freakin Franken gave them a blueprint for beating these bullies yeaaaaars ago. You calmly and effectively tool on them in public and watch the inner sociopath spring forth. Effective lefty voices aren’t given positions to speak loudly in public very often today because the people in control of who gets those positions are their ideological opponents, in the media, but why do the Dems have to act like the Washington Generals? Rahm Emmanuel is just as bad as Lieberman, from what I can tell.
You’d think Stephen Colbert shows what kind of success standing up to these monsters helps create. Urgh.

The point is that you can’t fight these people by being calm and reasonable.

Of course you can. Look:

they’re vile, hateful scumbags with no sense of standards or simple human decency.

See, it’s the lack of exclamation points and flame-caps. Calm. And. Reasonable.

Good show.

I just wanna see FOX news report on Pastor Rubberpants.

Why does the left have to take the high road, turn the other cheek and all that bullshit when the right are a bunch of fucking jumbo-sized, grade-A ass-hammers?

What we have to remember is to slap them around with facts and reality and not with the shrill complete crap they try to use against us.

But they still need to be slapped. Slapped hard.

Evidently, the phrase “rhetorically speaking” is lost on cd6, like everything else in this world.

Being polite doesn’t work with psychopathic scum.

Today the Baltimore Sun’s headline read: “Frost family draws ire of conservatives.”

How civilized that headline is and how WRONG.

How about “outrageous hate-filled spew”? How about “astonishing rudeness”? How about “brings out verbal lynch mob?”

“Hang ’em. Publically,”…”Let ’em twist in the wind and be eaten by ravens.”

That isn’t ire, it’s manufactured vicious hate. Sleazy, shallow dimestore Republican outrage. White bed sheets draped over new assholes.

This deserves a few good slaps upside the head, if not a pummelling. If I ran into this on the street, I think I would deal with it physically. Or at least with as much physical energy as I could muster. Balled fists and an in your face warning to fuck the hell off right now.

But no, we’ve somehow reached a point where being civil means allowing bullies to have their way while we stand back and say “dear dear.”

It’s alright for Michelle and Dan and a couple of cretins from Canada to call two decent parents losers and simpletons, to snoop around their house and business asking questions your average cop would need a court order to ask. But get angry at them for it and you get called an “unhinged moonbat.”

“when the right are a bunch of fucking jumbo-sized, grade-A ass-hammers?”

That is more accurate then you think, particularly among the male members of the right.

This is exactly right, and why the Dems have the tag of being the “mommy” party.

Fight back, fight hard, fight with the truth and at least a little decency, and take your fucking chances, you Democratic morons.

Well done, as always. And, for the record, I like K. Drum a lot, because there is room for non-shrillness in the debate. Just not as policy or politics.

I think you’re both right.

I think the way to beat these ideological fact-allergic Republicans, is not to hate them back – it is to fight them with hard facts and direct reason.

For the picture above, that’s like punching someone directly in the face, as opposed to the conservative demagogue’s method of waiting until their opponent’s back is turned, punching them, and then hiding behind the referee while screaming “He’s being mean to me! He’s unhinged!”

After all, when one side is only offering facts and reason and the other side is only offering fear and hate, sooner or later the people get what’s going on and side with facts and reason.

Such a thing is happening right now – that’s why Bush is at 30%.

Tsk, tsk. We have unrelenting mockery on our side, and that is enough. Or so I am told.

Has he never seen Cliff Schechter on with these nimrods?

So, Glennzilla posted a link a while back to an online book by Bob Altemeyer:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/

I’d encourage people to read it, because it’s a useful window into the authoritarian mindset.

One thing it mentions that has stuck with me is this: when you analyze the behaviour of the authoritarian *follower*, they do in fact thrive on conflict and feelings of victimization. Attacking them does vindicate their own belief system.

Altemeyer provides evidence that the best way to get them to re-examine their own attitudes is actually to make common cause with them; to find areas and projects to work together on, and to thereby undermine the dehumanizing propaganda they are fed by the authoritarian leaders.

I don’t have it in me, though, to find those common causes. I get pissed off, too, and I do wonder if it is really worth it to try and bring them out of the fearful mud they prefer to wallow in.

Glennzilla posted a link a while back to an online book by Bob Altemeyer: The Authoritarians.

It’s a fascinating glimpse into the authoritarian mindset.

One thing from it has stuck with me: a section which discusses the process by which authoritarian *followers* can have their minds changed. They thrive on conflict and playing the oppressed victims, so attacking them only reinforces their belief system. The way to forcing self-examination and re-evaluation is to establish common cause with them and to thereby undermine the stereotypes they’ve been fed by their authoritarian leaders.

I can’t do it, myself. I get pissed off, and I wonder if it’s really worth it to even try to drag the dead-enders and bedwetters out of the fearful mud in which they prefer to wallow. The world would probably be a better place, I suppose.

apparently, mr drum has never been physically confront by rightwing bozos and threatened with violence, or he would not think the way he does.

Right on, Cid. Cliff S. reams these morons properly, every time I’ve ever seen him.

No wonder the corporate media gives him so little airtime.

I think the way to beat these ideological fact-allergic Republicans, is not to hate them back – it is to fight them with hard facts and direct reason.

I really wish I could believe this. Sometimes I think that the only thing these people truly understand is a baseball bat upside the head.

I’m usually a lurker, but this Frost thing has made me seethe with rage. Michelle Malkin should be ruined by this, but she won’t be. She’ll still get paid to write her spew and be invited on Fox News. It’s the same thing with Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and the other vile scumbags.

You have to at least stand up to this nonsense because, to paraphrase Amanda at Pandagon, their actions aren’t about fact-checking or truthfulness, they’re about oppression, in the attempt to keep anyone else from sticking their necks out.

The other choice is to bend over and take it like a Montgomery minister…

Well, there’s different ways people can be considered “beaten”, you know?

You’re right, in that Malkin will probably continue to have a job. But the Malkins of the world are becoming more and more discredited to the American public in general.

The Rt Rev’d Rocket has a point. I get tired of taking all this crap from grown up versions of the the kids who were too dumb to be effective bullies. But look at the electeds: can’t they take a leaf from the S,N! playbook and make these idiots look ridiculous? How hard was it to find where the thugs used children as props or shields?

I’m starting to think that things are at a breaking point. The 29%ers are back into a corner and like any animal, they’re losing their composure. Will what passes for a journalistic tradition report on cheap shots and stalking as what it is?

Maybe Scaife’s girl problems will cut these losers off . . . this is all subsidized thuggery, after all. Nice work if you can get it.

Personally, I favor the cock punch.

After all, when one side is only offering facts and reason and the other side is only offering fear and hate, sooner or later the people get what’s going on and side with facts and reason.

No, they don’t.

Like it or not, people respond to passion. Eugene Debs was more convincing, more sincere, more human, and more sympathetic than some fucking Michael Kinsley or Kevin Drum could ever be.

It’s a moral *duty* to hate people who behave as Malkin does.

All hate is not equal. Hating Malkin and her fellow fascists is not “the same as” *their* hating on a 12 year old child.

Effective liberal pundits would have facts and passion: affected disinterest a la Kevin Drum does not equal saintliness.

And to conclude the point about Debs, he was also right on the issues, had the facts, was rational.

But also, he had the air of *righteousness* about him.

And better that (substance + style) than Kevin fucking Drum’s “I respectfully disagree with your belief that microwaving live puppies is a wholesome experience the whole family can enjoy” schtick.

I hate Kevin Drum.

The short answer is keep pointing out exquisitely appalling actions and speech and most people will get it. Spewing forth from your lizard brain is spewing from your lizard brain, it doesn’t matter if you are provoked or your cause is that of the angels. Malkin is hanging herself by a rope of her own design – there’s no need to get as inflammatory, as shameless as she does. There’s something to be said for pointing out the utter depravity of her actions without going nonlinear.

If it makes a person feel better to type invective in the comments section of their fave blog, that’s a social service but reading it lately is just not helping me feel better about human reasoning and capabilities. Also, pay attention to what Drum is quoting from: the theory is that, regardless of the underlying worthiness of your cause, appeals to rage attract the portion of the populace and the portion of the individual psyche that is small, mean and tribal. I don’t think there’s a faster way to a lynch mob mentality and a less effective way to counter one. Best case scenario, all the peasants pitchfork each other on the way up to the castle and the actual monster escapes.

Heck, you lib’ruls can be plenty mean too. Wasn’t this site recently laughing at that Liberty Univ. preacher creature who expired wrapped in two wetsuits w/ a dildo rammed up his ass? Heck, Jesus would undoubtedly say don’t throw any stones.

Surely people like him & “Wide Stance” Larry Craig (it coulda all been a misunderstanding, right? As could the rumors about Larry for the past 20 yrs) are as mainstream as the Frosts, and . . . uh . .

Never mind.

I think public mockery, coupled with equally publicly documenting the process by which they come totally unglued works best. Most people recognize irony and hypocrisy when they see it. The public is pretty tired of their selective outrages by now. The wingers have displayed such traits admirably as of late. Unfortunately our supposed “leaders” in the Congress capitulate all too often.

HTML: If every country had a Eugene V. Debs every generation, the right wing would have no chance. That man helped bring the US Socialist Party to its peak in a time when all the instruments of state and media were arrayed against him. We need more like him — activists with eloquence and passion, with the honesty and humility of spirit to not extend it into demagogy.

Thank you for remembering Eugene Debs. Bloodless liberals like Drum and Kinsley would be demonizing him as a bomb-throwing anarchist.

I’m definitely pro-anger.

People fucking well should be angry. Nothing could be more obvious than that. It’s true that if you misuse anger, you wind up like the spit-flinging crackpots on the right. But it can also sustain people in long, hard-fought political struggles, like the one we’re in right now. Anger is necessary and we need plenty of it.

In that sense, I suppose I should thank the modern American right. They’re really great at pissing me off.

It’s a moral *duty* to hate people who behave as Malkin does.

I pretty much agree, but I’m wary of hate. I’m too good at it.

I hate Kevin Drum.

I like Drum. But he’s wrong about this stuff.

Effective liberal pundits would have facts and passion: affected disinterest a la Kevin Drum does not equal saintliness.

Affected disinterest is what the Washington Monthy pays for Kevin to produce. ‘Tis why Brookings wanks like Amy Sullivan are also on the payroll.

Great pic, by the way – although I’d have gone with something from Leonard-Duran II. I would love to hear Malkin utter, “No más.”

I think Drum is confusing two things.

There is the general idea that liberals shouldn’t pitch their policy prescriptions the way Republicans do – with a fear campaign, hysterical attacks on straw men, and driving by the houses of people they disagree with. That’s fine.

But Drum then conflates that with the Broderian admonishment that liberals should avoid incivility and bipartisanship by never standing up for what they believe in, because that makes wingnuts cry.

The second that the WaPo editorial board agrees to stop giving a pass to wingnutty bullshit that gets people killed in stupid wars is the exact same second I agree to stop calling them assholes.

And to conclude the point about Debs, he was also right on the issues, had the facts, was rational.

And better that (substance + style) than Kevin fucking Drum’s “I respectfully disagree with your belief that microwaving live puppies is a wholesome experience the whole family can enjoy” schtick.

Amen to this. Being polite might work if tens of thousands of people stood simultaneously and said in unison “I respectfully disagree…” but when you’ve got one politician on a podium facing a wingnut you’ve got to have thunder and conviction in your voice. We don’t have to be evangelical to use the prop, the voice at the lecturn.

For all of Clinton’s failings I have to say I admired his ability to let his voice rise occasionally and overpower the idiot on the other side. That is desperately needed.

People like the Frosts can’t count on their entire neighbourhood meeting Malkin at the door. It’s too bad we don’t have communities like this anymore. We should.

In the meantime, I’m with Mencken. Be rationale, stick to the facts, but have some passion, too.

We need to be sharp, sensible, withering in our use of mockery, passionate in our defense of the good. But we have to do more than this — we have to stand up and confront these pig fuckers nose to nose at every turn. We need to show them for the hateful little cowards and fucks that they are. And yes, if pushed, we need to throw the proverbial cock punch — either metaphorical or real depending on the circumstances.

But we cannot pretend that these assholes will be defeated by dispassionate paeans to sweet reason. .

Fuck civility. That concept can adopt a wide stance and take it up the ass just like a certain hypocritical senator we all know and love. These assholes are interning people without charges, engaging in or apologizing for torture, advocating censorship, and allowing their followers to suckle on a steady diet of fake outrage.

Well my outrage is real. I am really pissed off that they have actively contributed to the erosion of our culture; that they have replaced humanitarianism with militarism, that they have hijacked perfectly respectable terms like freedom and life for their own self-serving and nefarious ends.

Michelle Malkin is a self-loathing racist bitch with delusions of integrity. Bill-O is a pathetic liar who, in lieu of presenting facts, hurls his figurative feces at everyone and anyone who attracts his attention. Ann Coulter is a lizard.

Fuck them! Fuck trying to reason with them. Fuck trying to gentle them. They want a clash of civilizations? They want to polarize the discourse?

Let’s see how they fare when they get what they want.

Affected disinterest is what the Washington Monthy pays for Kevin to produce.

Sadly, yes. Charlie Peters can fairly be thought of as the grandaddy of Sensible Liberals. Ol’ Charlie’s brand of “liberalism” as Brad DeLong once self-aggrandizingly put it, sought to put a reality-based critique on the [supposed] excesses of the Left.

CS: a demagogue is by nature a liar and usually a bigot. KD thinks demagoguery is only about temperament.

All this goes back to the Kleiman post. Idiots and moral cowards like Drum and Kleiman have a psychological need to ignore the depravity of the Right. Calling spades spades would simply crush their worldview. Thus for Kleiman Jane Galt’s declaration that protestors should be beaten with 2x4s was not a consciously fascist utterance from a despicable human being, but merely “a bad idea.”

Drum and Kleiman are the sort who think that torture needs to be discussed and debated rather than condemned and political war declared on all torturers and torture advocates.

They’re like those waffling, second-guessing German Xtian Democrats in late 30s who, when finally seeing the evil they’d tolerated and tactically aided for so long (because the alternative, the Left was SO MUCH WORSE) were compelled to think, “wait, I think gas chambers and genocide might be poor national decisions to make without discussing them first.”

I can’t stand them. They make me want to puke. That the Right has been allowed to get to this point of depravity (which they’ve never *not* been capable of) is precisely due to the weeniefied indulgence of a “liberal” movement with way too fucking many Kevin Drum types in it.

This discussion is strange to me. Here we are, at a blog which mocks those who are idiots (remember, the Photoshop of Malkin going down in flames? From three posts ago?). And this discussion seems to be about tactics. Well … how about making the rest of the class laugh at the ones who are up front, spouting nonsense? Tearing down those who spout idiocy is a powerful, powerful thing.

And then teh Kevin Drums can come in and implement a sensible policy.

I guess what I’m saying is, you all are doing good work. Good works. And, I’ve been drinking some and I no longer remember what my point is.

And, I’ve been drinking some and I no longer remember what my point is.

That malkin going down in flames post is teh awesome. That’s what your point was, and a damned fine pointy point it was (and is).

Genuinely nice people – compassionate, level-headed, reasonable, thoughtful people are repelled by nastiness and have a difficult time dealing with it. For the most part we just don’t know how to. So what we do is “take the high road” or avert our eyes and pretend they have no power or don’t reflect the culture. I hear this time and again in Canada from liberals who say “oh don’t take her seriously” about people like Kathy Shaidle, even though most of our governments now are right-leaning and our social programs are rapidly being trashed because of people like Kathy Shaidle.

Like all psychopaths, wingnuts will play the victim card when they’re accused and confronted. When they bat their dewy psychotic eyeballs and wipe the crocodile tears and act hurt, nice people cave every fucking time. it just floors me.

They’re like those waffling, second-guessing German Xtian Democrats in late 30s who, when finally seeing the evil they’d tolerated and tactically aided for so long (because the alternative, the Left was SO MUCH WORSE) were compelled to think, “wait, I think gas chambers and genocide might be poor national decisions to make without discussing them first.”

That the Right has been allowed to get to this point of depravity (which they’ve never *not* been capable of) is precisely due to the weeniefied indulgence of a “liberal” movement with way too fucking many Kevin Drum types in it.

“Liebermansraum,” anyone?

Well, we’re here having fun mocking terrible ideas put forth by people we completely disagree with. 🙂 And they deserve derision.

But what really pulls me here is seeing the joy of reason applied to stupidity and senselessness, in a satiric form.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t be angry, or that there’s anything wrong with an angry response. But I do feel that it’s the facts and logic and reason that’s what’s really effective. Just responding to venomous, vicious blather with equally vicious, venomous blather isn’t nearly effective. The people on the left I find really effective, are those who combine their anger with a clear and strong argument based on facts. Al Franken, Janeane Garofolo, Jon Stewart, and Kos and the late Steve Gilliard – all quite direct and confrontational, but also very fact-based.

jim,
I liked your comments a lot. Fact and Reason is so American. It is this cultural respect for rationality that drew me to the States in 1990, such refreshing contrast with European prejudices, pretentiousness, and fascination with abstract intellectual concepts… It just completely boggles my mind how the country went insane in the matter of only a few years…

HTML Mencken wrote (regarding moderate liberals):

I can’t stand them. They make me want to puke. That the Right has been allowed to get to this point of depravity (which they’ve never *not* been capable of) is precisely due to the weeniefied indulgence of a “liberal” movement with way too fucking many Kevin Drum types in it.

This is hate all right. It’s not how I feel, not only towards moderates but even towards the jerks on the right.

I despise people like Malkin, but I don’t really hate them. ‘Hate’ implies a sort of negative respect or recognition of importance, and that’s not how I see these scumbags. The Malkins and Limbaughs and Bushs of the world strike me as smears of garbage, disgusting but not really significant. It’s the bitter, reactionary crap they’re promoting that I hate – that’s the threat, that’s what I want to destroy. Obsessing on individuals is a distraction; it becomes easy to think that the only obstacles to overcome are a few detestable people. A tendency to personal hatred is characteristic of the right, and it’s one of the right’s greatest weaknesses.

As for hating squishy liberals, I just don’t see it. It’s true that they were too weak and should’ve fought back harder. It’s true that their politics ain’t my politics at all. It’s true that I don’t want them to be the dominant force on the left. But for all that, I don’t see them as the enemy, certainly not at all in the same way I see the wingnuts as the enemy. You obviously very, very strongly disagree, but I think you’re making a mistake.

It’s good to remember that there’s a difference between righteous anger and just plain ol’ anger. The former:

Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

The latter: well, you know, just go through the comments section of your choice, pick something out. It will probably have the word “ass” or “psychopath” in it.

Of course, I also think that goodness, decency and reason don’t always win. They frequently lose, more often than not, even. If they didn’t, none of us would be here. And I also think there’s very occasional value in just giving someone what they’ve got coming.

But mostly, I stick to the small jokes and the dry irony. It’s much more socially acceptable than the other stuff I’m good at.

http://agonist.org/ian_welsh/20070716/when_all_they_understand_is_fear_or_force

I despise people like Malkin, but I don’t really hate them. ‘Hate’ implies a sort of negative respect or recognition of importance, and that’s not how I see these scumbags. The Malkins and Limbaughs and Bushs of the world strike me as smears of garbage, disgusting but not really significant.

Not really significant. Tell that to the dead people in Iraq, for without these insignificant scumbags, they’d still be free and alive.

Not really significant. Tell that to the dead people in Iraq, for without these insignificant scumbags, they’d still be free and alive.

Jesus.

I’m saying that these assholes are moral dwarves. I’m certainly not saying that the damage that they’ve caused is insignificant. On the fucking contrary – what they’re doing is beyond catastrophic.

Even nobodies can cause immense damage. Hitler was a pathetic little creep puffed up by megalomania and look at what he did.

Just a note on Bob Altemeyer, here’s an interview with him: Electric Politics Link

As for civility; civility begets civility.

Person wants to argue, even argue passionately against socialism? Fine. Be. My. Guest. I’ll be there to argue with equal passion, and I won;t say one mean thing about your mother.

Start lying, implying slander, name-calling, violence, threats, and harassment; then the gloves come off. The facts will still be there, but expect it to be served on a bed of kickass with a fucknozzle garnish.

HTML: Back many many years ago, when the word “feminism” was still used without irony, somebody wrote to Miss Manners (Judith Martin) and asked how a lady could demand equal rights without being… unladylike. To which Miss Manners responded that, while demanding things for oneself might be called “unladylike” by people who wouldn’t know a lady from a blue-faced baboon, there is a long and proud history of Great Ladies fighting for other people’s rights. Therefore, the proper argument was not: How dare you assume that I can be treated as three-fifths of a man! but: How dare you assume *women* can be treated as three-fifths of men!

While I have never had much trouble demanding my own rights, I’ve also found that invoking Miss Manners can be a great comfort to those of my fellow feminists/progressives/decent human beings who weren’t born, or raised, to delight in ferocity. Not every moonbat-inclined person can be Eugene Debs, but most of them can imagine emulating Murrow’s “At last, sir, have you no decency?”

Part of our job, as progressives and Naturally Ornery People, is to rally our less courageous more socially inhibited fellows in the battle against Reichtards and Talibangelicals. And if it sometimes seems like we’re wasting an awful lot of energy hand-holding and second-thought-reassuring… well, that’s when we allow ourselves the indulgence of switching to Napoleanic tactics and smacking around the occasional Kevin Drum for providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

Kevin Drum is an idiot…can’t we all just get along? – fuck them hard, is what i say

You can’t be civil with the authoritarian right. You can’t be nice. You have to be harsh.

One important tactic that hasn’t been tried much on the tube is to continually point out how much they resemble the Taliban or another ultraconservative Islamic sect.
I think It’ll work because:
1. It is obviously true.
2. It really will make their heads explode.

With a lot of what I hear, I don’t understand how people can be this naive: Using “reason” and giving an inch (“I’ll grant you that point”) to a sociopathic liar doesn’t clothe you in shining armor of righteousness and reason for all to see, it just makes you appear squishy, vacillating, and weak. You don’t reason with someone who doesn’t use reason. It’s like debating a shark – he’s not going to understand your point, and people are going to be more impressed by your blood and gore in the water than by your marvelous correctness, “Wow, that shark may not be articulate, but he sure made mincemeat out of that other guy…what was his name again?”. Being right without any passion for your position may make you think you’re using reason, but if you don’t believe enough in your position to fight for it, why should anybody else be swayed by it? While Drum may actually believe in something, you’d only divine what exactly it was by reading his work assidulously, and even that may not be enough. Passionless punditry is one huge reason we have our current situation, and it’s long past time for some passion. If the public see you draw a line in the sand and you show that you mean it, they may again take notice of you and give you respect.

It’s not about getting as angry and hateful and ugly as they are, but it is about politics, which is gaining leverage and using it, AKA power. Tell the people who created the unions or got a minimum wage law or that it was all about being nice and soft. Wrong.

Hurling invective at people like Malkin can be somewhat satisfying, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it change anyone’s mind. The targets have a very simple and effective response at their disposal: They can just ignore any substantive arguments, point to the invective, and dismiss the critic as a foaming lunatic. Their fans will, of course, go along with the idea; they’re predisposed to accept their leader’s arguments anyway, and dismissing the critic will bolster their beliefs while allowing them to feel a sense of self-righteous superiority. If you don’t believe this, take a look at the commenters in Malkin’s thread about debating Ezra Klein. They see her as a champion of facts and reason who stands valiantly against an unending stream of left-wing bile. They really believe this, you know.

So what works? As far as I can tell, only the strangling grip of facts and reason. You have to say, over and over again, that these are the facts and these are their implications. You have to catch people when they start changing their arguments without acknowledging that they’re doing so.

It involves an enormous amount of time, effort, and persistence, and it’s utterly impossible to do in the soundbite world of radio and television. The Internet is a much better place for it, but even then it’s sometimes hard to pull off–you can’t do it at National Review Online, for example, because they don’t allow comments, and on other sites people will just skip over longer posts.

Of course, some people will simply refuse to change their minds no matter how much evidence you present, and others (like Coulter) have no interest in substantive debate and just want to sling mud. As far as I can tell, you just have to ignore both of these groups.

Wiat. Or, better, wait.

Isn’t the central issue here who one is talking to at any given time?

If talking to the wing-nutz, civility is pointless, and evaporates in a second when, quite civilly, they lie to your face. So, yes, fuck them. It’s as mndean says above. THEY NEVER ARGUE IN GOOD FAITH. They deserve vituperation, scorn, mockery, and all the tricks–irony, metaphor, bathos, litotes, etc.

But if Drum’s point is to persuade third parties by dialing down the heat, it’s defensible, but then my question is, in what context? If I’m at a dinner party and someone wingnuttily defends, say, Petraeus (I’m making this up), and an interested third party seems to be sympathetic to that case, it’s obviously self-defeating for me to excoriate the speaker and, by implication, the third party. But who would do that? Who is that insensitive?

I guess the question is always, when we respond to these scum, whom are we talking to? Who do we think the audience is? Obviously, here, it’s each other. When is it otherwise?

I don’t see any of this as changing the minds of the wingnuts, either the ones with power or the ones who seethe in the comments sections of blurgs. I see it as mocking them, ridiculing them, yes with facts and reason on your side, so that the “audience” gets that they are worthless hate- and/or warmongers. Maybe the audience is teh em-es-em, or blog lurkers, or memeorandum watchers. Let the audience work itself out. But, by all means, pull their pants down and laugh your ass off at them.

Quite right. Swift Boat Veterans, anyone?

It’s still good to refute them on the facts, and on principles. But it’s always good to call bullshit, and it’s essential to stand up to bullies. It’s not as if these people will ever have a twinge of conscience and stop of their own accord.

I’m quite sorry for what the Frosts are going through. I do hope, though, as with Terri Schiavo and Michael J. Fox, the rest of the nation gets a good look at what the right-wing is all about, because this is their ugly soul laid bare.

we can’t beat conservatives at their own game.

Gaaach. Kevin Drum, Framing Moron.

What exactly does he mean by “beat conservatives at their own game”? No, I don’t think we are going to achieve useful progressive goals by demagoguing people with stunted social maturity and poor critical thinking skills–Is that what he means? Or is he implying that progressive goals can only be achieved through wingnut levels of mendacity? Does he understand that for the readers of Malkin, CYankee, et al. the incompetence and pig-ignorance are features? It makes them feel comfortable. Only a moron can lead them.

Maybe he thinks that the non-wingnut agenda really is to develop a sense of “Grievance and victimization.” Drum always gives me that creepy Joke Line feeling of “I’d be on your side if it wasn’t hard. And against the establishment. And if I showed the respect to understand your movement in more than cartoon terms.”

Meanwhile, kicking the Malkintents in the shins is effective. Their followers are authoritarian personalities and you are kicking them right where it hurts–in their Leaders. Their sense of victimization is strong, but nowhere near as strong as their Fear of Losers.

mndean,
In your analogy with the shark, what are suggesting, to attack the shark back and try to bite it? No, the reasonable things is to step back and explain to everyone that this a species with lower inteligence, primal instincts, and carnivorous diet; and while it may have its place in the food chain, it is preposterous to expect any sensible and constructive things from them.

Plus, I completely don’t get why you think we can’t be passionate about reason. Passion and Reason are far from mutually exclusive, heck even in medieval times there were people who were so passionate about reason that they scrificed their lives for it. We have to passionately protect reason, respect for reason is embedded in the American psyche, the last few years notwithstanding… If we cannot triumph with reason, then, really, there is no hope for America.

It seems to me that junior Broders like Drum are not the rightmost wing of our side but the leftmost wing of theirs. Maybe it’s because I’m not an American but these powderpuff “liberals” strike me as centre-rightists similar to the “wet” Conservatives in the UK or their equivalents across Europe. You just can’t “compromise” with screeching fucking lunatics. You have to meet fire with fire. If they could be convinced by rational debate, dude, they would not be screeching lunatics in the first place.

I liked your comments a lot. Fact and Reason is so American. It is this cultural respect for rationality that drew me to the States in 1990, such refreshing contrast with European prejudices, pretentiousness, and fascination with abstract intellectual concepts… It just completely boggles my mind how the country went insane in the matter of only a few years…

Yeah, Krassen; thanks.

Sometimes I think the Clinton era was just too successful, and it freaked people out just a bit too much. They couldn’t believe that things could actually be good, and had to try a different path….

Well, we’re here, and we’ll just keep representing the passionate and pragmatic streak of American thought, and move ever forward.

No, the reasonable things is to step back and explain to everyone that this a species with lower inteligence, primal instincts, and carnivorous diet; and while it may have its place in the food chain, it is preposterous to expect any sensible and constructive things from them.

Krassen, the truly reasonable thing would be to step back from the shark, and then shoot it with an explosively-tipped harpoon gun. Otherwise, it would just jump at you again, and eat you. And then you would not be able to deliver your speech about how this was an animal with lower intelligence, primal instincts, etc. You have to defend yourself, and cause the shark to respect you by causing the shark pain and injury. To try to debate before doing that would be sheer folly.