Tag Archives: Rhetoric

Weasels and a Rhetorical Lesson

I’ve been trying to work on my rhetoric as I’ve never been very good at it, and have troubles with those with higher improvisational, verbalization abilities. So, as a learning exercise for myself and others, I’m going to go over a Twitter conversation I had a couple weeks ago that will illustrate some common occurrences when debating leftist weasels.

To begin with, here’s the background. CRX48 posted this and the homosexual brigade dogpiled him over the course of multiple tweet ‘conversations’.

https://twitter.com/CRX48/status/501701433541296128

Here was one of their responses which played a part later:

If you look at this @homophobiaphobes account, it’s dedicated almost entirely to tracking down ‘homophobes’ (a word which, as we’ll see later, has absolutely no definition beyond a person this homosexual dislikes) and starting 2-minute hates on their Twitter feeds.

That’s the background. At one point CRX posted this:

https://twitter.com/CRX48/status/502873346422611968

To which the homosexual replied:

I replied with this and the game was on:

Remember, homophobe, racist, sexist, bigot, shitlord, etc. have no real semantic meaning, they are not words that reflect a reality reality in any way. They exist solely as ad hominem attacks on people progressives don’t like.

When a leftist uses a word, especially an emotionally loaded word like homophobe, sexist, racist, etc., always get them to define it. Leftists do not beleive in truth; they ideologically hate truth. They don’t beleive words are used to refer to real concepts for teh purposes of communication, but rather they exist as tools of power. If you do not get them to define a word, they will change the meaning of the word to whatever is most convenient to their emotional state at the time.

I ask for a definition, and notice the wording: “Most people use it to mean…”. This is specifically stated so that the leftist can continue to use the word however she wants. A leftist will deliberately try to avoid attaching a real definition to one of their emotionally charged words, because then it will lose its power if they do. Press them; force them to define words. You’ll see why was we go.

This is just the first weasel attempt, plenty more to follow.

Again, the leftist weasel will dodge to avoid having to actually having to do a real debate. Remember, she said I don’t udnerstand what it means then refused to provide what it means. We can watch the lying weasel dance for quite a while:

Lying leftist weasels will absolutely refuse to define their terms when it comes to their favoured shit-flinging phrases. Press, press, press. Never, ever let them use emotionally-loaded words on their terms. They will abuse them like the dishonest liars they are.

Now, there was a second thread occurring at the same time.

Again, the leftist will straight out lie. The whole thing started with the original tweet against public sexual displays, but admitting that would show how much BS her original accusation was. So she will deny.

Warning, the links in these next two tweets range from mildly NSFW to extremely NSFW.

This is in response to the first set of links, linking to some homosexual/fetish street parties in SF. Here we see the leftist through equivocation; she’s very subtlety trying to change the terms of the debate.

Remember, the original tweet referred to “that “pride parade” mentality where rather than keeping private things private they demand we watch. It’s sick.” Obviously a gay fetish parade would count, but because the parade wasn’t specifically labelled ‘pride’ the lying weasel tries to shift the terms to a false rigorous exactitude that never existed. Also note

Always be aware of weaselly attempts to shift terms or to bring into play exactitudes that don’t exist. Failing to notice can lead to a rhetorical trap.

I call her on her dishonesty:

Her dishonesty readily apparent, she switches tactics:

When a leftist is losing she will retreat to disqualifying you for whatever reason. The reason for disqualifying you doesn’t matter, its almost always a dishonest tactics rather than an actual true belief. Never let a leftist disqualify you. If their disqualification was a true reason for ignoring your argument they would have ignored you from the beginning. A disqualification partly through a conversation is always a tactic taken because they are losing.

Also, because the disqualificaiton is always an excuse, never defend against it. It is a sign blood has been drawn, press the attack:

This is to the second tweet of links, which were to homosexual-friendly mainstream news and therefore didn’t show anything R-Rated. These pictures do include fetish gear, public floggings, men wearing only sexualized jockstraps, sexualized dancing/grinding, almost full nudity (for example, one man had no more than a cap on his penis head), shirtless women, etc. But because they do not include anyone actively sticking their dick in someone else’s orificies she counts this as ‘no sexual acts’.

Anyone not completely sexually jaded would realize these are sexual acts, but again, lying weasels will be selectively (and falsely) precise when it suits their ideological needs of the moment.

Also note the subtle shift of terms. I said sexual displays earlier, which she changed to sexual acts. The latter being somewhat defensible through selective pedantry, the former not. Lying weasels will shift terms to cosntruct rhetorical traps, do not let them.

Whenever lying weasels do this, call them on it.

They’ll try to keep going with their dishonesty, keep calling them on it:

Again, the lying progressive weasel will try to define terms to whatever is emotionally or ideologically convenient at the moment.

From here it kind of petered out. I thought I had another closing tweet but can’t seem to find it in Twitter’s interface.

Anyone, the points to take from this: progressives are naturally dishonest and will use words as weapons rather than as reflections of reality used to communicate information. Make them define terms and don’t let them get away with dishonest equivocating or the shifting of terms.

 

Words and Meaning

I’ve been going through the Trivium between other readings as a part of my reading list project. The book start with a discussion of grammar, in which this is asserted early on:

A word is a symbol. Its matter is the sensible sign; its form is the meaning imposed upon it by convention. (p.15)

The use of a word as a symbol is asserted throughout the grammar section, and sometimes it is referenced how the symbol may not represent the same meaning to differing people. The symbol may have ambiguous meaning due to different phantasms (mental images) that people have of the word.

Being more cold-bloodedly rational-minded, I’ve generally defaulted to a view of words where having a fixed, objective meaning, but what if words don’t have an objective meaning? What if words have subjective emotional meanings beyond the “objective” definition of the word itself the word itself?

If a word is simply a symbol of meaning rather than an objective definition, it can symbolize different things to different people.

For example, in this conversation I wrote of earlier, one of the things that set someone off was saying, “rape in marriage doesn’t exist”. By this I meant that Christian marriage is a consentual agreement in which the free giving of sex by both parties plays an integral part, so, from a Christian point of view sex had already been consented to simply by being married. Just like continuous mortgage payments have already been consented to simply by signing a mortgage contract.

What I heard back was a strong emotional outburst about violence and sexual torture within marriage. This derailed the conversation. My attempts to reason about the definitions of Christian marriage, consent, violence, and rape proved fruitless.

In retrospect, the word rape is emotionally loaded for some people. Had I used the phrase “non-consensual sex”, there probably would not have been a similar, unintended emotional meaning attached to the phrase, while still having the same objective meaning. The discussion may have proved more fruitful.

Another one that came up in the discussion thread for that post is the use of “men” and “women” instead of “males” and “females”. I never really thought there was much of a difference between the two, other than the latter being broader and including children as well as adults. But it seems to many, that the former are more “humanizing”.

I could probably improve my abilities to relating with people, especially women, by simply keeping this in mind.

The symbols that are words may have emotional meanings attached to them by beyond what I may intend for them to have.

****

Private Man has commented on something similar. He recommends referring to “traditional gender roles” as “natural gender roles” from now on.

I think it’s a good idea and plan to implement it in the future. While there is a slight difference in meaning, in most contexts I, and most reactionaries, would use the phrase “traditional gender roles”, “natural gender roles” would be equivalent.

Haley had a similar suggestion, that we rebrand submission as deference. I’d have to agree with ar10308’s and Deep Strength’s responses:

Scripture says “Submit” as a command. “Defer” implies that you have the choice to do so or not, yet still be aligned with God’s command regardless if you do not follow it or not. “Defer” still places the wife at the head of the marriage as opposed to the husband.

ar10308 has it correct. Deference, at least in colloquial term of the word, means you tend to “know better” or “don’t want to make the decision” and are just letting the other person have their preference. Sounds like feminism to me.

Although the definition of defer has submit within it, it is not a synonym of submission. Submission to leadership is different from this in the Biblical perspective.

The dictionary definition of defer is:

To submit to the opinion, wishes, or decision of another through respect or in recognition of his or her authority, knowledge, or judgment.
…
to yield (to) or comply (with) the wishes or judgments of another
…
to yield respectfully in judgment or opinion.

While submit’s is:

To yield or surrender (oneself) to the will or authority of another.
…
5. to yield oneself to the power or authority of another.
6. to allow oneself to be subjected to some kind of treatment.
7. to defer to another’s judgment, opinion, decision, etc.

This is a case where the dictionary definitions are almost the same, but the real-life connotations of the symbols are too different to be used.

If this took off, I can see it being used as a cover for sin, sort of like the media portrayals of girls who are  “virgins” because they were anally rather than vaginally penetrated.

Would it be good Christian theology for Christians to defer to Christ?

Defer yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Kind of has a different ring to it, don’t it?