Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass. Most people are good.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Monday, March 9, 2026

Dealing with MAGA supporters & their empty demagoguery

The metaphor: We get empty, cynical demagoguery, slanders  
and drivel from authoritarian leaders 
in response to huge, real threats and problems
(the Martian heat ray machines)

In response, the crowd eats it up and blithers 
mindlessly back at the demagogues' empty rhetoric 


At BNR, hard core Trump and MAGA supporters routinely attack, insult and/or criticize me. A few minutes ago, I wrote out my view of the situation and posted it to one of my frequent insulters and critics. Their comments was that logic alone can't explain or deal with all of politics. That was a clever attack on my reliance on facts, robust truths and sound (less biased or good faith) reasoning. My response:
Logic alone might not be rationally convincing about all things all the time. But it damn well needs to be explained when it fails. And, when it fails, we are left with personal judgments and opinions. There is a leap from (1) pure facts to (2) true or robust truths (beliefs that most reasonably less biased/partisan people believe are true) to (3) personal judgments and opinions based on the facts and robust truths.

I find that ~99.9% of the time in political disagreements I engage in, the failure of my interlocutors to deal with simple facts and robust truths I assert reveal their weakness, irrationality, bad faith engagement, and/or blind, irrational partisanship of their arguments.

The most common responses I get from people who can't handle inconvenient facts or truths I raise are (a) insults (a form of logic flaw, and evidence of bad faith), (b) deflections (evidence of bad faith), (c) logic flaws (straw man arguments, false dilemma arguments, etc., also and evidence of bad faith), or (d) silence (more evidence of bad faith). I see those a-d responses all the time. I've been seeing it for over 20 years. That's how I know that when I ask someone to show the evidence or truth (1 and 2) they rely on for their opinions (3), they resort to one or more of a, b, c or d.

How often do my interlocutors come back at me with solid fact evidence? That happens in about 1 in every 300 to 400 disagreements I get entangled with.

I got facts and logic (roughly, often sound reason) on my side. Most MAGA people got just opinions on theirs. I believe that is usually why they refuse to engage with the facts and truths I assert in defense of my own judgments and opinions. They shoot opinion blanks, while I shoot fact and truth bullets.

Any thoughts, criticisms, feelings, etc.? Arrogant or condescending? Reasonable? Something else?

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