Saturday, March 18, 2006

Bad form vs. Good content

There are three good ways to thwart a good argument.
First claim that your right to dissent is being denied.
Example,

A: Moon is made up of blue cheese.
B: Spectrographs shows that spectrum of material moon is composed of is different from spectrum of blue cheese.
A: So, you deny that I have a right to dissent, you fascist!

The second way can be used by status quoits to suppress any debate.

Ask rhetorically the relevance of debate to unrelated topic, for example poverty alleviation or economic growth, and then declare discussion is waste of time.

A: Aryan Invasion Theory is incorrect.
B: Why are you discussing this? Would it alleviate poverty? Or for that matter get rid of my body odor?
A: Err…
B: See, you are wasting precious air time, which can be better used to discuss foibles of glitterati.

Third one is the most brilliant,

A: I find the ad campaign of TOI in bad taste.
B: So you think it is illegal! or a sin! You bleeding heart leftist!