Debate-Winning Techniques for Liberals

By Guy White

Being the humanitarian that I am, I’ve previously created a guide to help people understand if they think and reason like true liberals. In my never-ending quest to help the fellow man, I am now publishing tried and true liberal methods to win all arguments. Once you master these techniques, you will become a true liberal intellectual.

Start by calling your opponent a racist

Suppose someone advocates for lower taxes. Respond with, “That is so racist. Our government is subjugating minorities with unfair tax policies.” If your opponent tries to defend himself by saying something like, “my support for lower taxes has nothing to do with minorities and I don’t see how the issue is related to racism”, look shocked and outraged and declare, “You really shouldn’t be talking anymore. You are embarrassing yourself. I never knew that you were such a bigot.” There’s no need to explain how lower taxes equal to racism.

Call your opponent ’sad’

Normally you will win the argument after step one, but if you opponent doesn’t back down and proceeds to make a reasoned argument with facts and logic, respond with: “It is sad that you really believe that. You should get a life. The fact that you are arguing that lower taxes isn’t a form of genocidal racism is proof that you are a racist who never had a girlfriend except the sister that you screw in your trailer park.”

Always cite your education and that boot-leg 5-minute IQ test you took online

Remember, there’s never a need to argue with facts. Nobody who disagrees with you has any brains. They are all rednecks who didn’t finish high school and never travelled anywhere.

Demand that they be impressed with your phenomenal credentials. In response to the argument about tax policy, just say that you majored in Sociology. That will make everything they say invalid. If the illiterate redneck will surprise you by claiming to be a doctor or a lawyer, laugh in his face and deny that someone so stupid could ever finish high school, much less a professional grad school. Respond that your IQ score is 140+ (or in some cases 180+) and that if you never went to grad school, there’s no way that your opponent did.

Do not doubt yourself. Anyone who disagrees with you is a moron and you must call him on it.

Make things up

Suppose you meet an American who invests in Peru. Now, you don’t know any cities in Peru, nor how much people there make. But you must take a strong position against this bigot.

Arguing that Peruvians are underpaid makes you morally superior to the person employing them, so obnoxiously ambushing him in the middle of a July 4 barbecue is perfectly acceptable and should be encouraged. Try to get a friend or two to yell at this businessman together.

DO NOT say: “I think Peruvians are underpaid.” Think means you aren’t sure. Say instead: “The average salary in Peru in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level.”

If the person you are ambushing knows the real statistics, use all the above techniques: “It’s so sad that you have no life and have to stand here and defend your racist capitalist imperialist actions when I was just trying to eat.”

NOTE: Always make up exact figures.

This is done in case your opponent also knows exact statistics. If you give a round number and he cites an exact number, the uninformed might realize that he’s right. But when both of you have “weird” statistics, you can immediately switch to calling him names if he knows something you don’t.

If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up too. Make sure to do it with a self-righteous flair: “Everyone knows that this information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon’s study for the Buford Commission published on May 9, 1982. Didn’t you read it? Maybe you should not have dropped out of high school to screw your sister in the trailer park.”

Say this in the same tone of voice you would use to say, “You left your soiled underwear in my bathroom.”

Use the most difficult words you’ve ever heard, even if you don’t know what they mean

Smart people use big words. You don’t quite understand the meaning of those words, but neither does anyone else. After all, if someone as smart as you with your 184 IQ doesn’t understand it, how could this dumb redneck? It is not true that professionals and academics use those words only because they are actually necessary in some settings. No, these words are for smart people and you are a smart person!

If you are asked why is it that you feel the need to use a thesaurus for every word, respond with a look of disgust followed by, “These aren’t hard words, lol. It is just that you aren’t educated like I am, so you can’t understand what I am saying.” Once again cite your spectacular IQ score from that 5-minute test you took on some blog.

Always remember: there’s no room for facts and logic in any debate. You must defeat your opponent by showing how brilliant you are and that he’s just not as smart as you are, so he might as well just accept your opinion as fact.

If your opponent realizes that you are using the words improperly, respond with, “I don’t have the time to play these games.” Make sure to use all the following words in the next sentence (yes, all of them in the same sentence): sad, greedy, racist, imperialist, uneducated and incest.

Use meaningless but weighty-sounding phrases

Memorize this list and use each phrase in every sentence. It will further impress your opponent and scare him away from arguing with you.

Let me put it this way

In terms of

Vis-a-vis

Per se

As it were

Qua

Ipso facto

Ergo

So to speak

You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as “Q.E.D.”, “e.g.”, and “i.e.” These are all short for “I speak Latin, and you don’t.” Here’s how to use these words and phrases. Suppose you want to say, “Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don’t have enough money.”

You never win arguments talking like that. But you WILL win if you say, “Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Ergo, ipso facto, case closed. Q.E.D.”

A person with your IQ and education must always speak that way to let everyone know that you are the genius who majored in Sociology.

Only a fool would challenge that statement or the person making it.

Use snappy and irrelevant comebacks

You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points. The best are:

You’re begging the question.

You’re being defensive.

Don’t compare apples to oranges.

What are your parameters?

This last one is especially valuable. Nobody (other than engineers and policy wonks) has the vaguest idea what “parameters” are.

If it is really impossible to argue with your opponents logic, respond with, “you are so linear.”

Here’s how to use your comebacks:

You say: As Abraham Lincoln said in 1873…

Your opponent says: Lincoln died in 1865.

You say: You’re begging the question.

You say: Liberians, like most Asians…

Your opponent says: Liberia is in Africa.

You say: You’re being defensive.

You say: Since the discovery of the incandescent light bulb…

Your opponent says: The light bulb is an invention.

You say: Well DUH!

Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler

This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hitler up subtly. Say, “That sounds suspiciously like something Adolf Hitler might say,” or “You certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler.”