How to Lose an Argument with the Left

The Water is Rising
Let us not forget: South Florida, like New Orleans, is a swamp.

In Uber Tides, I made the point that the Man-Did-This Community would assert that Anthropogenic Global Warming caused the high tides we experienced last week, not the spring tide conjoined with a Supermoon.

Here’s an example.

Dissenter: But of course rising sea levels wouldn’t have anything to do with a super high, high tide I’m sure.
Me: It would be good to actually read the piece and the comments before quoting your mantra.
See, I live right in the middle of where I have to worry about my pedicure in this unusually high tide. Want to tell me how much the rising sea levels have raised the water at my sea wall? I want an actual number. Did actual mean sea level rise an inch or a foot? Did it rise a tenth of an inch or ten feet? Actual sea level, not the height of the tide.
Dissenter: You know, if you bothered to read something other than what suits your prejudice, you’d know that the coastal communities in many parts of Florida are busy raising the level of the streets because storm surge is a lot higher than it used to be. The ocean isn’t a bath tub.
Me: Data please. How much has the mean sea level risen? An inch or a foot? Did it rise a tenth of an inch or ten feet? Actual sea level, not the height of the tide, not the amount of storm surge.
Dissenter: sad…you can’t figure out this is the same thing….I’m not your librarian, go find out for yourself. You don’t want to know. You’ve already got your gospel.

Braaaaap. Typical wrong answer.

Calvin ArguingSee, folks making this kind of argument make an assertion. They refuse to back it up with data. They blame the other guy for not being willing to do their homework.

That’s not the way to play. If you claim rising sea levels partly cause a super high tide, you must have data on rising sea levels, right? You do have the data, right?

OK, I guess not.

It shouldn’t be hard to find, particularly for a scientist. But all I have ever seen from the general AGW argument is “the sea is rising.” I have never seen anyone say “the sea in the Florida Keys has risen by x inches since 1991.”

I do have some interesting data from climate.gov but finding a definitive measurement of sea level value has escaped me.

That seems odd. I can tell you with certainty that Lake Champlain is exactly 94.18 feet and a chilly 47 degrees as measured at the USGS gage in Burlington Harbor. I can tell you with certainty that Lake Okeechobee‘s current lake level is 14.98 feet. And I can tell you with certainty that searching for “Atlantic Ocean Water Level at Miami” or “Florida Straits Ocean Water Level at Marathon” or any of a number of other terms turns up 4-500,000 results warning of Tidal Flooding and Sea Level Rise but not one single actual data point for the current average sea level at Sombrero Key (Hawk Channel), or Miami Beach, or any other coastal location.

I can only posit that the AGW alarmists are afraid to publish the data because it would contradict their story line. Because it wouldn’t sell newspapers. Because it wouldn’t fund government grants.

And that’s how you win an argument today: make up a crisis and then tell the other guys to prove you’re wrong.

Show me the numbers. Until then, let us not forget; South Florida, like New Orleans, is a swamp. Storm surge, high tides, and other weather events will continue to inundate the land we humans kind of stupidly live on.


Rug Chewing and Other Epithets
In another recent discussion, I mentioned that I did not like it when “a right wing rug chewer” called me a “baby killer” back in the 90s (I’m pro-choice) and that I don’t like being called a “racist” or worse by the anti-Trumpers today.

The first, very first answer? “Rug chewer? Really? No… you’re not a racist. You’re just an as***le.”

No discussion of why the lefty loons love to play the race card for anyone who might (might) vote against Mr. Obama or vote for Mr. Trump. Just an epithet.

Gekko discussed slang, cant, idiom, argot, code words, and the like, the special words that people use to make it explicitly tough for outsiders to understand.

That first answer deliberately took a non-traditional meaning of one phrase to twist the discussion away from the Left consistently playing the race card.

And that’s how you win an argument today: make up a politically correct disparagement and divert all attention from the facts so no one notices how wrong you were.


Invoking Hitler
“Who is posting this crap?” a friend asked. She had found page after page of Obama-and-Hitler-similarities.com links.

Good question.

She had asked after I made the point that there are still a lot of “Trump is Hitler” comparisons floating around from my uber-Left friends and commented that one official corollary to Godwin’s Law is that, once the Nazis are invoked, whoever played the Hitler card has fallen straight into horse puckey and lost.

Friend: “Where do you see this plethora of Hitler? What media do you base this on. Please give references.”
That is the way to run a discussion. I had made a claim. My friend not only hadn’t seen what I referred to, she didn’t really believe it.
Me: “Where? Facebook. Here’s an example from today; there were plenty more before the election.” [link omitted; it’s easily found in this thread]
Friend:, referred to a NYTimes article about Protests of Mr. Trump’s Election: “Read it–very little unruliness. No Hitler references, but I see some parallels on my own…”
Me: “It’s interesting that the ‘All the News That’s Fit to Print’ NYTimes is so often the ‘All the News That Fits Our Politics’ NYTimes. I found the references to arrests and violence in the Wall Street Journal.
“And, no. You won’t find the Hitler references in the Mainstream Media unless they happen to appear on protester posters. It is very much a social media phenom. In fact, Godwin’s Law specifically refers to Internet discussions (it was formulated back in newgroup/BBS days).”
Friend:Please send links so I can make my own assessment.” [Emphasis added]
Me: “Search on ‘trump compared to hitler on social media’ no quotes. Lotsa cites. [That search turns up about 1,130,000 results in 0.74 seconds, including stories from NPR, the Washington Post, and even the oh-so-politically-conservative Newsbusters.]
“And just read the rest of this thread if you want to see the Hitlerian examples up close and personal.”

Perfect. I had made a claim. My friend wanted me to back up my claim. I did. She looked for other examples. We both learned stuff. The whole discussion could have ended right there.

The thread got away from us, though, as my uber-Left friends

• Blamed the messenger (“are you trying troll liberals, because you think we’ve never heard of Godwin’s rule?”)
• Suggested that “Godwin’s Law does not apply if they really are Nazis.”
• Called me names for bringing it up (no, I’m not going to repeat that part).
• Claimed that no one ever made the comparison.
• Claimed “it was nonsense against Obama” but isn’t when used against Trump. (“The comparisons are too blatant to miss.”)
• And used the perfect counterclaim that “I know a Nazi when i see one.”

One of the great dissents in the thread was, “Well. It *did* start out with several misrepresentations. First, it implied that people on the ‘uber left’ are comparing Trump to Hitler. Not true. People in the middle are making that comparison.”

And that’s how you win an argument on the Left today: make up a diversion or make up some facts or blame the messenger. If you noticed, nowhere in that discussion did anyone actually refute the fact that my uber-Left friends still make a lot of “Trump is Hitler” comparisons.

And all we can do is shake our heads.


I hate hate hate fighting these same alligators over and over again when all I came to do was drain the darned swamp.

 

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

Republicans distance themselves from Mr. Trump because he says “bad things.”

Ms. Clinton not only supports but covers up for Mr. Clinton who says “good things” but does far worse.

So.

The question to voters is simple:

Do you want someone who is politically incorrect or someone who says whatever you want to hear while she sneaks and scurries around behind your back to hide the foulest of crimes?

The bums who need tossing first are the hypocrites throwing rocks from both sides of the aisle.

 

Lives Matter? Really? Are You Sure?

The Student Government Association ran a Black Lives Matter flag up the University of Vermont flagpole on Thursday. Not everyone is saluting. Flags representing other groups have flown from the same flagpole.

A number of dissenters think “All Lives Matter” in ultra-diverse Vermont and especially should at our public ivy.

Establishing a diverse and inclusive culture is a priority at the University of Vermont. In fact, UVM holds that diversity and academic excellence are inseparable.

But only black lives matter.

“The #BlackLivesMatter flag that was casted on UVM’s campus yesterday makes me proud to be a Catamount.” Cassidy Derda (@m1ss5cass) tweeted Friday.

“Casted”?

“The University of Vermont is a place to learn and to teach. It is not a cloister — it does not live in a vacuum. It is both in the world and of the world. Its mission is to educate people for leadership in society.”

“Casted”?

But in the UVM society only black lives matter.

Or do they? Really?

“My body filled with lots of joy to know that my predominantly white university is paying tribute to the deaths in the black community,” student Akilah Ho-Young posted on Facebook. Turns out that I’m not black, my voice doesn’t matter.

Black lives do matter, but those raising flag do so to shut down discussion.

“Sometimes it does,” Liz Arden said. “Often it’s done to raise awareness of the injustice perpetrated by ‘roidal cops and others.”

That’s what all the protesters, including those at UVM, would have us believe. The effects are different.

“But it is so easy to co-opt the flag,” she said.

I have no problems with pointing out injustice but, sadly, the we-need-to-protest-the-injustice people have been co-opted by the KILL THE COPS! people. Here, for example, the Black Lives Matter “protesters” chant “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon!”

The statistics are interesting. About 1.0 white person per 100,000 kills other white people. Likewise about 1.0 black person per 100,000 kills white people. About 0.1 whites per 100,000 kill blacks. About 5.4 blacks per 100,000 kill other blacks. A Washington Post real-time database tracks fatal police shootings. As of this morning, 1,697 people have been shot and killed by on-duty police officers since Jan. 1, 2015. 827 were white and 430 were black. The remaining 440 were divided into other or unknown races. The Post says it’s “impossible to calculate the percentage of police shootings that are legitimate.”

“I’ve seen statistics like those,” Ms. Arden said. “Poor people are easy prey. Poor people in reach of criminals are even easier prey. So it’s not surprising.”

Sure.

But the welfare state keeps people in poverty so that’s not the solution and in the meantime, cops have to respond to the crimes that have been committed and the big news is that black on black murder is about five times more likely than white on white. Where do you think crime prevention efforts should go?

How about we say Crime Matters?
This year, I’ll prosecute the rioters and looters and illegal aliens and traitors and cops who unlawfully kill whites and the blacks who kill cops while you prosecute the cops who unlawfully kill blacks.
Next year we switch.

UVM president Tom Sullivan stands behind the student government’s decision to display the flag.

I wonder if students could fly the Tea Party banner there or raise the flag for “Illegal means Against the Law” or for “Christians Have Religious Freedom, too.”

 

Run It Up the Flagpole

This is a special “extra” feature for Lives Matter? Really? Are You Sure?, an outtake from the original story above.

The UVM Student Government Association ran a Black Lives Matter flag up the flagpole on Thursday. Not everyone is saluting. The black flag is flying next to the American flag and the Vermont state flag in front of the UVM student center. Flags representing other groups have flown from the same flagpole.

Many dissenters think reported that an organizational flag should not be flown at the same height as the American flag, period. Especially at a place of higher learning.

The United States Flag Code establishes the rules for display and care of the national flag of the United States of America. It is a federal law, but the penalty for failure to comply with it is not enforced.

 

When the United States flag is displayed with the flags of states of the union or municipalities, and not with the flags of other nations, the federal flag, which represents all states, should be flown above and at the center of the other flags. The other flags may be the same size but none may be larger.

Displaying flags from different causes is probably OK in the UVM context but UVM itself, in providing the pole they ran it up, obviously violates the U.S. Flag Code.

Now back to the Black Lives Matter protestors…

 

The Intolerables

Ms. Clinton says half of Mr. Trump’s backers are “desperate for change” but the other half are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.” She said the GOP candidate has elevated “what I call the basket of deplorables” — I guess that would be the Walmart people — and “that’s a bad thing.”

Looks like Ms. Clinton wants to be president of the 1 or 2% alone.