Saturday, May 4, 2013

Breitbart Rule 9: Don’t let them pretend to know more than they do

Just as we should not pretend to know more than we do, as I had discussed last week, we should not let the Left pretend to know more than they do. Hence Rule 9 in Andrew Breitbart’s Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Revolutionaries:

9.) Don't let them pretend to know more than they do: This is really the converse of the last rule. Your opponents will pretend to be experts if you don't, but that's okay, because you can always puncture their balloon with one word: why. Asking them to provide evidence for their assertions is always fun, and it's even more fun asking them to provide the sources for that evidence. Attacking the fundamental basis of their arguments if fun, too - if they tell you health care is a right, ask why. Liberals don't have a why, other than their own utopianism and their dyspeptic view of the status quo and America. Reason is not their strong suit - emotion is. Force them to play on the football field of reason.

As Andrew said, there is one word which we can use to puncture the false narrative propagated by the left, and even a few kooks on our own side. That word is why, a simple three-letter word with a lot of power and oomph behind it. If we ask why they think that, then they will have to come up with a reason. As we all know, reason is not their strong suit because they always rely on emotion. Granted, the kooks on our own side say their strong suit is reason, but in the conversations I have had with them, it seems like they do not have a reason except “Read the Constitution!” and “We need to get back to the Constitution!”

THIS is where doing research and knowing what we are talking about comes into play. The more research we do and the more we know, the better we can be at puncturing the false narrative that is out there. I know that in my own conversations at first I had not had a lot of good research on my side to puncture their balloon, but over the past year I had read and listed all of the sites and articles I had read. This way, if people say something that I know is false, I go right to a certain article and show them where they are in error.

This is also handy in the classic “He said, She said” cases as well. One thing I had been doing since 2006 is saving every conversation I have with people, whether in a chatroom or even on instant messenger. This way if they say something which they had been corrected on in the past I can go right to the file and say that this had been talked about before and that they were wrong then and are still wrong.

We have the tools to force our opponents to play on the football field of reason. The thing of it is do we have the WILLPOWER to confront them and force them to play on that football field of reason, or are we afraid to do it?

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