Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it supposed to be the Trump supporters who were mentally dysfunctional morons?
Consistent with my pledge to confront my Facebook friends and their cronies when they post “resistance” Big Lies, Democratic talking points, fake news and “Orange Man Bad” insults that are no more than gratuitous hate, I confronted a theater acquaintance this afternoons when her response to a post about the border terrorists who were allegedly planning to assassinate Obama and Hillary Clinton. Her offensive comment (I’ll be paraphrasing these), “So I don’t want to hear any more about how some people said mean things to people in red hats.”
Despicable, I told her. You’re trivializing thugs harassing and in some cases assaulting law-abiding citizens based on their political views. That’s seriously undemocratic behavior, and worse, it’s a fascist tactic endorsed by leaders of the Democratic Party. I could have said, but didn’t, that hers was a fair imitation of Rep. Omar’s infamous “somebody did something” minimizing of the Muslim attacks on 9/11, and a dumb use of Rationalization 22, the bottom of the barrel, “It’s not the worst thing.”
Her reply was incoherent. Do I deny that Supreme Court Justices and other progressives have received death threats, and if I don’t think that’s worse than the red hat incidents she referred to, then I should just unfriend her. What? What do death threats to Supreme Court Justices (or anyone) have to do with screaming at old men in MAGA hats? This more #22ing, to a demented level.Then I get the “defriend me” crap. Translation: If you insist on challenging my unfounded, ignorant and unethical comments, I don’t want deal with it. Well, I don’t unfriend people because I disagree with them. Friends don’t let friends post stupid.
That’s not all, though. She ended her “rebuttal” with “We’re on the right side of history,” a verbatim recitation of another awful rationalization on the list, Rationalization 1B. The Psychic Historian or “I’m On The Right Side Of History,” and strong evidence that the writer’s brain sneaked out of her brain while she was asleep. Not only was the fatuous claim popular with the Nazis, the Communists,anarchists, the hippies and more, it’s generally proof that an advocate has no arguments, just unmoored certitude.
Then the Collective attacked. “You can tell a Trump supporter because he uses words like ‘thugs'” said one, and then referenced Jonestown. Huh? What a classic example of dirty argument techniques. First, play the “politically incorrect word” card to change the subject, or try. Thug, however, is a perfectly good word for anyone of any gender or race who bullies and intimidates people in public who are wearing MAGA hats. Then comes one of the reflex responses in the Facebook Borg: If you rebut a bad argument and an unfair or false accusation involving the President, that means you are “a supporter,” ergo “bad,” ergo a “deplorable,” ergo someone whose arguments can and should be dismissed. Do these same people who make this argument also believe that those who defend murderers from illegal and unethical prosecutorial tactics support murderers? I’m sure some of them do.
Another Facebook friend in a different discussion insisted that I would read the Mueller report as supporting impeachment if the President was Obama. Amazing. The bias claim is a weapon of first resort, and I had already explained with quotes from the report—which of course he hadn’t read—why there was no support for “collusion” and why the obstruction claim was weak at best.
What this approach admits, if you think about it, is that if you’re a good, dependable Trump-hating Facebook Borg member, you shouldn’t care about fairness, logic or facts.If you don’t embrace the idea that the President should be buried in false accusations and hate, you’re a supporter of the Embodiment of Evil, meaning that you are evil.
By the way, the FBF who made the ridiculous Obama accusation is a former award-winning journalist. When I documented the Washington Post’s miserable, bias-fueled sliming of the Covington students while ignoring the most basic tenets of the paper’s own ethics standards, he wrote that the only reason I criticized the Post was because they often gave critical reviews to my theater company’s productions. He had no rebuttal to the substance of what I wrote about the Covington fiasco. Just a deflection.
Speaking of deflections, another Borg member, a friend of my acquaintance who made the “right side of history” howler, asked I could be upset about the treatment of MAGA hat wearers when the President “puts children in cages.” I pointed out how that was a false and inflammatory characterization, but that even if it weren’t, Ethics 101 holds that Person A’s unethical conduct isn’t mitigated or excused by Person B’s unethical conduct. I could simply copy that point into about 100 Facebook threads a day. Now, it is undeniably true that President Trump doesn’t comprehend that principle either. Yet the people who hate him so much endorse the same tit-for-tat ethics fallacy that he does.
Yet another Borg weighed in with this: “I’m curious…do you feel the same way about the Tea Party members who spit on Democratic members of Congress?” This was, of course, just another variety of my journalist friend’s accusation of a double standard, but even dumber. First, I pointed out that the spitting accusation was denied by every Tea Party member present when the Democratic reps had to run the gauntlet of protesters on the way to ramming through Obamacare in March of 2010. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver accused a demonstrator of spitting on him, but viral video of the alleged incident didn’t confirm what Cleaver claimed, other than Cleaver’s reaction to a protester appearing to yell “kill the bill” in his face. One Tea Party group offered a $15,000 reward for proof of the spitting.
Nevertheless, I continued, let’s assume arguendo (I love saying “arguendo”) that the spitting incident occurred. Spitting is assault; of course I would condemn it. However, accosting mere citizens trying to go about their business because they wear a Trump-supporting cap and a protester accosting elected officials in a demonstration are not equivalents, not even close. It’s a rotten analogy.
(Wait…what does Jonestown have to do with anything?)
So my travails today make me ask: were these people always incapable of civil discourse, critical thought and intelligent argument, has their Trump Derangement lowered their IQs, is spending all day on social media having their emotion and talking-point based beliefs echoed by virtue-signalling members of the Facebook Borg, is it some combination of these, or is something else at work?
I don’t know. I do know that arguing with people this handicapped is like arguing with a first-grader.
Ethics Alarms 
It’s ” spending all day on social media having their emotion and talking-point based beliefs echoed by virtue-signaling members of the Facebook Borg” for sure….because being a member in good standing of the chosen we-are-noble tribe gives one power and feels so good when bashing the less-than-noble tribe. Definition of noble is in the eye of the beholder.
CBP
Do you think they act this way because the believe that their group is superior in thinking, morality and values. In other words do the view themselves as supremacists?
Wait: idiot supremacists? Sounds like a horror movie.
These are the people who, as they repeatedly tell me, are the true thinkers and the last bastions of reason. Yet all they have to offer is ad hominem and straw man arguments. And perish the thought of any civil discussion or nuance to arguments.
Yesterday, I was defending Obama and Clinton for sponteneously calling the Christians attacked in Sri Lanka “Easter Worshippers” on Twitter.
Then Democrats handed my ass on a platter by every single one of them condemning my attacks on “Easter Worshippers”. ( https://scontent.fbed1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/58114962_2379044058980162_3910007697927307264_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_ht=scontent.fbed1-2.fna&oh=6f447bb4c915311a95b231e82d51b45c&oe=5D2F71BC )
It can not be a coincidence that they all used the same phrase.
I wonder how these same people reacted to that attack on that mosque in New Zealand.
“condemning my attacks”
YOUR attacks? Uh…do you have something to tell us, Rich? 😉
Do your Facebook friends know that Jim Jones and 100% his followers were left-wing socialists? That was their only ideology. They didn’t even have their own unique spin on it, just garden variety commies trying to make the Marxist dream come true.
They were also enabled, defended, supported, and protected by left-wing superstars and California politicians, including Harvey Milk, Angela Davis, and Jimmy Carter. Right up to the point where they murdered hundreds of children.
I know YOU knew that, but apparently they don’t.
Once again: “It’s difficult to win an argument with a smart person, but it’s damn near impossible to win an argument with a stupid person.”
Facebook should run commercials with that as the slogan.
And it is out and out impossible to win an argument with an ideologue. I think Jack’s last sentence says it all.Almost a decade ago I spoke to one of New Jersey’s few Republican congressmen (who have since become fewer). he said that talking to anyone from the tea party was like arguing with a two-year-old about his bedtime.
Talking to these people on social media who are badly infected with Trump derangement syndrome is like talking to an infant. They neither listen, nor comprehend, nor grasp what you are trying to say, and just go right on screaming.
Wow,. this is even worse than what was posted on various political newsgroups on Usenet in the 1990’s and 2000’s.
Jack asked…
Jack calls this phenomenon Facebook Borg, I call it a more generic…
What I think we are seeing is herd mentality, mob mentality and pack mentality, gang mentality, or a hive mind gone amuck. What ever you want to call it, it’s when the hive goes off on tangents and get’s riled based on emotion instead of rational thinking. The “like”, “share” and “#” in social media have helped create this monster mob! Have you ever walked around in protests just to observe the people; I did this with an old Army buddy of mine a few years ago; we walked counter flow to a major protest in our area to observe as many people as we could, asking questions of some, the herd mentality was VERY obvious, it was an eye opening experience. Absolutely everyone is susceptible to mob mentality when immersed in a mob of generally like minded people.
In my opinion, those who’s ideology resides left of the political aisle seem to be more susceptible to mob mentality because they are already attracted to the political left because the political left focuses on emotional thinking instead of rational thinking, group of people that is driven by blind emotions, and being driven by blind emotion is exactly what mobs morph into. Mob mentality, not rational thinking, is at the core of Facebook Borg, Internet Borg, Social Justice Warrior Cult, Progressives in particular, and a vast swath of the political left.
I would be really interested in hearing from our resident Psychologist and Psychiatrist on my stated opinion above.
”herd mentality”
Charles MacKay: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds,
while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
It gets worse.
MacKay made that observation in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds nearly 180 years ago.
Good grief, Mr. Speaks! How did you get those graphics into the Comments? Did I miss this in March? Wow! Can anyone do that thing with their fonts? (Resembles a blog within a blog …. what have we here?)
It’s all top secret PennAgain, we can tell you but then… 😉
The truly depressing part is these people’s ideology is perilously close to a majority in the country. (We’ll find out in 2020.) In short, the indoctrination program has worked. They have successfully replaced proper civil discourse with social and systemic controls to disallow any form of disagreement regardless of how rational and factual it may be. They are the products, projectors and protectors of big lies propaganda. It is not difficult to predict the fate those who disagree will suffer if they gain enough power to take the next step and physically enforce their ideology.
Well said – I dread in advance that we’ll find out in 2020 that the majority has flipped decisively. The incumbent President will have neither the popular nor the electoral votes to win.
But even a TRUMP re-election would not result in “pretty” – just “less ugly” at best. The next Democrat president is going to make a LOT of ugly for all of us. And of course, will be trumpeted as a “historic figure” and “icon” of what some will say is badly needed fundamental change. Oh, there’ll be change, all right. BAD change.
I was trying to discuss something with the Trump Deranged among my Facebook friends yesterday. They were promoting the making of laws to “make our environment better.” I explained that the law they were so excited about would actually cause more harm than good. It went from them telling me I didn’t understand how bad stuff was to telling me that recycling was no good to just deciding to go to ad hominem and straw man attacks about how I would destroy the environment. They never once even looked at my point, which was, “helping the environment is a good thing, but the measure you are suggesting will cause more damage.” The closest thing I got to them looking at my point was, “But European countries do it and aren’t they wonderful.” I swear that every person I know (personally, at least) who has gone to the left, has left reality and is in a dream world. They are now a hive mind, who won’t test the facts. I’d rather debate my anti-vaccine friend than deal with these morons.
I avoid facebook like the plague. The posts and comments are so stupid, they defy responding to. I simply don’t engage. Typical comment from a post that was, of course, deemed to be anti-Trump: “I can’t believe I’m living in a banana republic.” (By a guy who is most likely a refugee from Cuba).By the way, the post that started it was a headline from the Onion saying something about Trump going to Indiana to survey the damage at Notre Dame. All I could think was, “Wait, isn’t the Onion making fun of newspapers? As it usually does?”
And anyway, don’t all the hip young kids think facebook is for grandparents? Or is that email?
Right, and then they do whatever geniuses like Kendall Jenner tell them to do on Instagram.
I have read stupid comments on Usenet newsgroups.
How is there more stupidity on Facebook than Usenet?
What’s Usenet?
I suspect I’d ignore it as well if I knew what it was?
Original Internet incarnation, where discussion groups first spawned. The true wild west of electronic media started in the early 70s (?)
Text only. You did not miss much
My participation in Usenet discussions starting in the late 1990’s greatly influenced my own political views, and also taught me how to reply to arguments.
Usenet is a bulletin board system, relying on NNTP servers, where people can post messages in newsgroups, often crossposting them. I have quoted Usenet messages in the past.
Google groups provides access to newsgroups. I frequently post in this newsgroup.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/Talk.Politics.Guns
Most people don’t understand facts and logic. Most people only understand emotion. Look at the numbers in the Trump Tax Plan post. The people who disbelieved the media are the people who understand facts and logic. That is why there was no shift when the Mueller report came out. Every single person who is able to understand logic and facts figured out this was a witch hunt more than a year ago. The rest either follow the crowd or are influenced only by emotion. Facts cannot change their opinion. When the media bragged about how they fooled everybody, the people they actually fooled WERE HAPPY ABOUT IT.
Look at this article. Scroll down to the 2-D chart on Trump and Clinton supporters. It claims there is no center, but there is a political center (it is right there on the graph) and it belongs to Trump. The Democrats only dominate in the socially liberal/economically liberal quarter of the chart (entered around -0.6, -0.75). What is telling is that there are almost NO socially liberal/economically conservative people left in the country. The Trump voters are centered directly in moderate economically and exist to the very edges of the economic spectrum and dominate the entire socially conservative spectrum. bleeding into the liberal side socially. The Democrats are centered in the extreme ‘loony left’ quarter of the chart. Also note that in 2014, the (0,0) point in the graph would have probably been drawn at somewhere between (0,0.25) to (0.25,0.25). The goalposts have shifted as well. Remember, in 2012, Donald Trump was regarded as a moderate Democrat (say 0.25, 0), but today he is placed about (0.5,0.5). Everyone left in the Democratic party is really, really insane. Look at how many people are on the opposing side (0.6, 0.75) or more extreme. There is your ‘alt-right’, only 5 or 6 points! Look at the Democratic side, its fully 25% of the Democratic Party! The ‘alt-left’t is real and that is the actual threat to the country.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/dems-can-abandon-the-center-because-the-center-doesnt-exist.html
Thank you for this post and your observations. Very insightful!
It’s my opinion that exposure to social media has rotted their brains and destroyed their critical thinking skills.
So, do the Borg resent having their family name used in this way? The Breen family got off easy.
Probably not. The Barrows enjoyed all publicity, and they had a huge approving public of fools who dismissed the reality of their murderous criminal behavior as entertainment and a chance to thumb its nose at authority.
“he wrote that the only reason I criticized the Post was because they often gave critical reviews to my theater company’s productions. ”
Well, what the rest of us want to know, is how often do you beat your wife?
I am daily reminded of the quotation:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
I would add, in deference to Zoltar, “and with the tacit approval of the hive.”
Robert Heinlein?
Not sure he started the quote, but I know he used it in several books.
It describes the Left succinctly these days.
My bad. The quotation is from C.S. Lewis.
Robert paraphrased Lewis, then. Lewis was for more eloquent, and robert made it more accessible, IMHO.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
-C.S. Lewis