How To Be Right: The Art of Being Persuasively Correct (2015)

10

HIJACK THE LANGUAGE

Words are weapons. In careless hands they’ll shoot you in the underpants. Control of the language doesn’t just shape the debate, it smears the opposition through subtle, sometimes imperceptible shifts. The choice of verbiage can link a present belief to the past, relegating your opinions to a hateful, hellish point in history.

A recent example, from last November, features Brian Stelter, the host of CNN’s oddly titled Reliable Sources, interviewing Weather Channel cofounder John Coleman. Coleman had made news for claiming that the climate change hysteria is mostly that: hysteria.

Stelter opened the segment referring to Coleman as a “denier.” Not a skeptical scientist (which Coleman is). But a “denier.” So, where have you heard that word before? (It rhymes with “holocaust,” as in “holocaust denier.”)

Stelter didn’t invent this smear—it’s been around for a while. But by using it on CNN, he took it mainstream.

Call a global warming skeptic a “denier,” and you link him to Holocaust denier nutbags. But just because I condemn this gimmick, doesn’t mean you cannot use it for your own personal amusement.

Terror Denier: When President Obama referred to the January 2015 attack on a Jewish market in France as “random” the same week his White House stated that global warming is a bigger threat than terror, it could lead only to one conclusion: that our president and his minions are “terror deniers.”

If there is one true Islamophobe, it’s Obama. He’s so terrified of pissing off Muslims, he thinks modern terror is just an iteration of the Spanish Inquisition. He’s so scared of Islamic condemnation, he won’t even draw Muhammad Ali.

Science Denier: When experts deny the pause in global warming and instead point to imperceptible increases in temperature that can be canceled out by margin of error, call them this. Then ask them if they believe in evolution.

Justice Denier: Anyone who sees justification in looting. These are usually white liberals living in comfortable neighborhoods far away from where the looting they encourage takes place. How long do you think your average literature professor would be okay with looting if the looters were trashing his office and carting off his leather easy chair and Noam Chomsky action figures? The more removed the violence, the more they romanticize it.

Race Denier: Anyone who denies that President Obama is half-white, or that Clarence Thomas is really black.

Hygiene Denier: Anyone who dates an activist.

It’s pretty cheap: Stelter portrays Coleman on par with those who deny the Holocaust. It’s subtle, casual, and—in Stelter’s well-manicured dome—considered clever. But we get it: calling Coleman—a reliable, decent human being who’s followed the science—a denier makes him a nut who would perhaps also deny that six million Jews died at the hands of Nazi Germany. If I were in some studio and a host called me a denier, I might punch him (which might explain my absence from Reliable Sources).

Liberals use language as propaganda, designed to stain their adversaries permanently. It beats facts or coherent arguments. Stelter could have marshaled evidence, but he chose to call Coleman a “denier,” which firmly exposed Stelter’s own bias and his willingness to protect it.

The Hitler comparison isn’t new. And as those of you who were early fans of Red Eye know, at the end of every monologue on the show, I would say, “If you don’t agree with me, then you, sir, are worse than Hitler.”

I did that to mock that reflex, thereby eliminating that avenue of response. Instead they would have to respond with facts. And if they had none, they just went silent. Or tried to find something worse to compare me to (Christmas, capitalists, bunnies).

Codesmears

Here’s how tolerant people speak—and what they’re thinking when they use their own coded language.

That’s the first weapon in this battle: calling them out on their vicious mindset and insidious behavior. It was something Andrew Breitbart was great at: stopping the path of attack before it took hold, calling adversaries on their little games.

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“Denier” is but one example of the left’s use of language to beat you back, and down. They hope that by using such inflammatory rhetoric, you will spend more time defending yourself than actually pursuing your point of view. You cannot persuade people if you’re too busy trying to convince them you’re not a Nazi.

Race is another fantastic tool at their disposal, and often their last line of defense. When all else fails, call some right-winger a modern-day “Bull Connor,” which works only if everyone forgets that the Birmingham, Alabama, police chief was a Democrat (and most people do).

I was once called “Bull Connor” by a leftist, and let it slide because I thought it was an old football player (it made me think of Bronko Nagurski). But let’s face it—most people do think he was an old fullback. Still, either way they get the inference: redneck.

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Mutations of language abound. Usually all of these hilarious, misleading creations are perpetrated by the left. The right rarely tries to alter language, but perhaps it’s time we should. I mean, if liberals can change the language, why can’t we?

Look how the left has undermined common sense with incoherent, toleratic bullshit:

★ Terror has become “workplace violence.” True, the massacre at Fort Hood happened at “work,” but don’t insult our intelligence and deprive the victims of what they need to get on with their lives.

★ Abortion is no longer the active elimination of a future life—but a “choice.” A choice used to be soup or salad. Now it’s fetus or no fetus. Oddly, even dismemberment of the unborn child is now folded into this “choice.”

★ Minimum wage becomes “living” wage—adjusting what normally would be acceptable to a sixteen-year-old pimple-heavy, hormonally infected cretin like myself in 1980, to something designed for a wage earner supporting a family. It’s a nice little magic act—shifting the purpose of something that’s pretty helpful for one group of people to something downright harmful to those it wasn’t intended for.

Business owners used to be lauded for hiring kids in their neighborhood—giving them their first job, getting them off the streets, and keeping them out of trouble. Now they’re pilloried for not paying a “living wage.” It’s this kind of horseshit that gives horseshit a bad reputation.

★ “Undocumented.” The fact that this has been adopted in the media as a replacement for “illegal” illustrates the media’s overwhelming feelings on amnesty, and also a lack of vertebrae. Calling an illegal alien an illegal alien is so horrifying, we should edit out any mention of “alien” in ET. “Undocumented” implies that if you simply entered a name into a ledger, it would all suddenly become legal.

★ “Militarization.” An old chestnut from the Occupy Wall Street Days, and later the catchphrase of 2014—it was used by various minions in broadcast news to describe the appearance of the police force looking to confront rioters in Ferguson. Yeah, they looked pretty intimidating—but that’s the point, you idiots. Scary beats meek. “Militarization” is simply a whiner’s description of “very prepared.”

★ White privilege. This now-popular buzzword means that any achievement by a white person is based on racism. Seeing the world as a gigantic racist plot in which every Caucasian is evil is a form of hysteria, one that undercuts the real fights against legitimate racists.

★ “Whistle-blowers.” In the old days we called them traitors. But as we’ve come to politicize everything, including national security—which has dissolved our natural (and necessary) unity against outside threats—people who made our country less safe (Snowden, Greenwald, WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning) are portrayed as heroes. Or “whistle-blowers.” But who exactly are they blowing the whistle on? Probably the only sane country left on this planet.

★ “Overseas contingency operation.” Their most tortured locution. Write in with the correct definition of that on a cocktail napkin and I will send you a eight-by-ten illustration of me making out with a unicorn.

Liberals pervert language for two key reasons: to recast their side as more appealing, and to paint you as the villain. How could you be for militarization? How could you condemn something as innocent as gun control? What kind of monster would vote against a living wage? Give them a break: they’re “undocumented”! What kind of chauvinism is that? Since when is an official, signed Mexican driver’s license not a “document”?

You need to use their own strategy of reconfiguring language to suit your needs—which is to shackle their destructive aims and thwart their progress.

FOR EXAMPLE:

★ Replace “pro-choice” with “pro-boy.” Using China as an example, being pro-choice is really “pro-boy.” When couples have more control over abortive decisions, whom do they pick when it comes to gender? We already know. China is busting with young men looking for women—who aren’t there. It’s like an enormous English boarding school. Because they were all aborted. The next time someone says they’re pro-choice, say, “Congrats, you’re also ‘pro-boy.’ ” And as science becomes even more precise about exactly what that mass of cells resting in your womb is, imagine the other “choices” you will get to make.

★ “Islamophobia” describes a reaction by many to the violence perpetrated by radical Islam. A better term, of course, would be “psychophobia”—a fear of beheaders and other intolerant violent monsters. Radical Muslims are no different from spree killers—your fear is simply a reflection of protection of others, including like-minded, decent Muslims. In that regard, why not call yourself “pro-moderate” to describe your appreciation for Muslims who don’t try to kill us? And the real bigotry is Americanophobia—as expressed by countries whose leaders shout “Death to America!” And certain world leaders who tolerate it.

★ Replace “backlash” with “coplash.” We hear “backlash” to describe a violent reaction that rarely comes—usually after a terror attack. “Muslims fear a backlash against their community after the bombing in Boston,” etc. However, we rarely are admonished against a backlash in order to protect, say, cops. No leader says, “After the Michael Brown death, it’s important not to strike out at law enforcement.” Often it’s the opposite. Progressive politicians instead will say a singular police act represents a “deep-rooted problem.” Oddly, Islamic terrorism is never ever called a “deep-rooted problem,” but something detached from this religion of peace. One event in Ferguson taints an entire profession; Islamic terror is erased by comparing it to the Crusades. A terrorist is just a bad apple; one bad cop represents the entire barrel. In the case of the cops, the backlash often does occur—as it did when a lone lunatic inspired by the relentless media coverage of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths shot and killed two cops eating lunch in their patrol car. Two minority cops, by the way.

★ “Gun control.” Perhaps one of the dumbest phrases known to man, it shifts responsibility away from stopping criminals to stopping law-abiding citizens. Gun control has no effect on thugs; it only hinders the rest of us. It’s a joke. The best way to wrest gun rights from this stupid and pointless debate is to recast it as a force equalizer for women. Gun control is actually antiwoman, for it makes it harder for women to protect themselves in cities like New York. No more “gun control”; call it the “gun ceiling.” Say that it’s time to truly reduce sexual assault by encouraging women to arm themselves. Men have 50 percent more muscle mass than women. Guns cancel that advantage out, handily. Guns make armed women and unarmed men equal. Gun control is really just “women control,” and we must fight that with every fiber of our being. The best spokesman for guns is a woman. An armed, unafraid woman.

★ Replace “e-cigarettes” with “cancerasers.” Finally, in the current fight over e-cigarettes—which are fast becoming the most effective solution in eliminating actual smoking for good—we need to make this clear: there is no such thing as an “e-cigarette.” A cigarette is full of tar and other crap that kills you. If a vaping device is a cigarette, then so is a kazoo.

I’d call them cancerasers. If you replace cigarette smoking with vaping, it may be a major step toward a longer, healthier life. Right now, if you have loved ones who smoke, getting them onto vaping will mean they will be around longer than if you just let them puff away. (On the other hand, maybe that’s why you want them to continue smoking.)

You ever notice how the media soften the truth in the interest of tolerance?

Here’s what they say, and how you recast it as fact.

MSM: Militants Take Revenge on Their Occupiers

Reality: Zealots Kill Tourists at a Bar

MSM: Prison Poet Publishes Book on His Personal Suffering

Reality: Murderer Suckers Another Lonely Editor

MSM: Graffiti Artist Shows Promise

Reality: Thug Destroys Perfectly Good Wall

MSM: Campus Rape at Epidemic Levels

Reality: Blogger Fails Statistics 101

MSM: Noose Found on Door Knob Seen as Hate Crime

Reality: Hoax Brings Attention to Troubled Soul

MSM: Oil Pipelines Raise Questions of Transport Safety

Reality: As Opposed to What? Trains? Camels?

MSM: Movie Touches on Themes of Race and Gender in Unsettling Ways

Reality: Movie Is Unwatchable Tripe

MSM: Radicalism Fueled by Youthful Discontent

Reality: He’s a Fucking Terrorist

MSM: Actor Has Social Message He Wishes to Share

Reality: Actor Made Bank, Now Craps on Capitalism Because He Feels Self-Important

MSM: Hillary Reflects Experience of a Qualified Statesman

Reality: She’s Entitled to This, So Give It to Her

MSM: It’s a Gun-Free Zone

Reality: Please Shoot Us