One of the biggest lessons I've learned over the past 6 years or so is how so many people just fundamentally cannot grasp the concept of arguing in bad faith.
Like on an intellectual level, people seem to get that lying is a thing that happens but only when dismissing someone as
Like on an intellectual level, people seem to get that lying is a thing that happens but only when dismissing someone as
"lying" is a convenient excuse not to engage with anything they say, or in this sort of Phoenix Wright scenario where lying is something you can catch someone doing because they aren't being clever enough and then their whole evil scheme falls completely to pieces.
But the bread
But the bread
and butter tactic used by every single group of far right extremists- "I want outcome A, for reason B, but knowing how universally unpopular it is, I will pretend to be actually seeking outcome X, because of reason Y, while actually working towards A" just... bounces the hell off
Like the big case in point is I've been sitting here for the last couple days watching people try to pick apart the logic of some random ridiculous statement from "The LGB Alliance," like they're making an argument before a courtroom about how if they're really the advocate group
they claim to be, this statement about gay people never causing any sort of commotion in seeking equal rights shows they don't really know the history of their own movement, and therefore we shouldn't really take them seriously.
That's not how the game works people. We KNOW that
That's not how the game works people. We KNOW that
"the LGB alliance" is a front created by far right hate groups whose actual goal is to eliminate LGBT rights and possibly eventually ramp up to full on extermination with trans people particularly in the crosshairs first as a divide and conquer thing. This is well documented, and
frankly, their effort to hide the fact really doesn't go particularly farther than referring to themselves as "The LGB Alliance." There IS no big elaborate ruse that needs to be unraveled by a master sleuth in a battle of wits. you can just point out that it's totally just three
toddlers in a trenchcoat.
Also? You're not in a courtroom and you're not on a debate stage. The party you are attempting to engage in this long debate and catch off guard isn't sitting down to talk about it with you, there's no judge, and there's no moderator.
From their end,
Also? You're not in a courtroom and you're not on a debate stage. The party you are attempting to engage in this long debate and catch off guard isn't sitting down to talk about it with you, there's no judge, and there's no moderator.
From their end,
here's how this goes: "I am going to come up with some name that sounds like I have the interests of the LGBT community in mind, and then make some press releases under it advocating for a bunch of demonizing queer-phobic crap. A few people will of course see right through this,
but most people never think about this subject at all, and will take it at face value that anyone whose name sounds like a respected organization in the field would sound like knows what they're talking about and won't question a single thing. Plus all our allies get to pretend
we are a legitimate queer rights organization who happens to have views in line with their own and can thus claim us as the one authority worth listening to and dismiss all the real ones as, at best, 'experts not having a consensus on the matter.'"
The audiences they wish to
The audiences they wish to
influence, by definition really, have a very short attention span and will not spend any time at all doing further research, reading the comments, or looking for rebuttals to what they first encountered.
So even if you prove they're talking out their ass, all the people who need
So even if you prove they're talking out their ass, all the people who need
that proof to be presented to them have already left the room hours ago before you're even halfway through assembling it.
The correct counter play is to just get the biggest platform you can, and the click-bait-iest headline you can, and very loudly declare that, in this case,
The correct counter play is to just get the biggest platform you can, and the click-bait-iest headline you can, and very loudly declare that, in this case,
"The LGB Alliance" is a front for a group of rapists and child molesters who want to throw queer people in prisons and force all women to be cooks maids and mothers who can't leave the house without a man's permission.
Cut to the freaking chase. Here's who's bad, here's the meat
Cut to the freaking chase. Here's who's bad, here's the meat
Priority number 1 is to make the score clear to the sort of person you can say that to and not be met with any follow-up questions. Followed by the people who have just the one follow-up question of "really?" that will be satisfied with literally any evidence you have handy that
backs you up. The sort of person who really needs a long-winded explanation and a full list of citations is already going to be on the right side of the issue here, because the creeps arguing in bad faith do not ever bother to waste their time trying to convince them of anything.
Incidentally, the fact that nobody is actually skeptical enough that you would need to start busting open the civil rights history books to convince them some bigot is lying is a good way to spot disingenuous scumbags arguing in bad faith in the first place. Get that early start.
Also if this post in particular doesn't get way more RTs than the rest of this thread put together, you need to go back and reread the whole thing, because apparently my point wasn't sufficiently clear to you the first time out:
