Periodically I check in on the dialogues between a white female Democrat, “Karen,” from New York City, and a white male Republican from Texas, “Obadiah.” This is the latest of their exchanges. Imagine it taking place on Twitter, in the wake of the recent, disputed election.
KAREN: I assume as a patriotic American you’re going to accept the results our national election, and accept the peaceful transfer of power. Or are you going to crouch on the White House lawn with your assault weapon? Maybe try to stop the 82nd Airborne from dragging Trump out of his hole like Saddam Hussein?
OBADIAH: It’s right nice to hear from you again. I hope you’re doing well, too. And the answer of course, is “No, nope, and hell no.” It’s reassuring to hear that you’re fantasizing about hanging the president, though.
KAREN: Why am I not surprised? You angry white males have been willing to tear America apart before. I remember when your kind wouldn’t accept the election of Abraham Lincoln.
OBADIAH: If you mean by “my kind” Democrats, you’re way off the mark. It’s your party we have to thank for the Indian removals, the Civil War, Jim Crow, lynchings, filibusters of the Civil Rights Act, and more black kids aborted than born every year. But go on ahead and ride that high horse down the Yellow Brick Road to the Land of Oz.
Damaging and Dividing the Country?
KAREN: So you don’t think it damages and divides the country to try to cancel the votes of millions of Americans of color?
OBADIAH: Despite everything thrown at him, Trump got a higher share of the non-white vote than any Republican in decades. This after four solid years of the media bleating lies about him being a white supremacist, and all his supporters either Nazis or Uncle Toms. But no, I don’t think it hurts the country in the long run to demand a clean election. Not when there’s every reason to assume, right off the bat, that the Democrats were likely to steal it. When someone shows you by his actions he’s a liar, a thief, and a cheat, it’s only good manners to believe him.
KAREN: That’s an ad hominem argument. It’s a logical fallacy. Ever heard of those?
OBADIAH: Yes ma’am. They’re the go-to comebacks for every half-educated know-it-all on the Internet. Most of whom haven’t actually taken a logic class, or read Aristotle’s Rhetoric. An ad hominem argument can be a fallacy, if the character flaws you’re citing about a person aren’t relevant to the conclusion. So if I posted a recipe for Bolognese Sauce by Mario Batali, someone like you might say that I shouldn’t, because of the #MeToo charges that he harassed his waitresses. That would entail a fallacy, since a man’s morals don’t vitiate his command of pasta sauce. They might mean you don’t send your daughter to work in his restaurant. But he can’t grab your behind from between the lines of his cookbook.
But what if Mr. Batali had published a book for dads on how to raise their sons? Or a book on how to manage restaurant staff? Maybe a marriage manual? That would be a horse of an utterly different feather. If you recommended such a book, I’d be right to wave you off. You’d be citing him as an authority on a subject where he’d clearly disgraced himself. His character would matter there. That’s a completely legitimate argument against his “Ethos,” or moral character. Anyway, that’s how Aristotle put it, but I doubt he even managed a Greek diner, so maybe we shouldn’t trust him.
The Democrats’ Four Years of Dishonesty
KAREN: And how have “the Democrats” (since we’re lumping people together) proven that they’re “liars, cheats, and thieves”?
OBADIAH: I’m mighty glad you asked. Because we don’t have all day, I’ll confine myself to the past four years, starting on Election Night, 2016.
First Democrats claimed that Russia had somehow hacked the U.S. voting machines, to help Trump win. When that strand of spaghetti slid right off the wall, they declared themselves “The Resistance,” making Trump and his people … the Nazis, marching into Paris. That was nice. A real civic-minded, patriotic approach to losing an election. Then they held a “Pussy Hat” March on Washington to counter the inauguration. Again, keeping things classy.
Then Democrats in the FBI entrapped Gen. Mike Flynn, trumping up charges that he’d violated the dead-letter Logan Act (never enforced against anyone else in 200 years) by taking a normal phone call from a Russian official. This to get him out of office, so he couldn’t clean up the Deep State.
Then Democrats in that same FBI used information from illegally unmasked wiretaps that Obama had put on the Trump campaign to gin up a story that Trump had somehow colluded with Russia. James Comey went from meeting with Obama and Biden to meeting with President Trump, and lied to him about the FBI’s investigation of him. Then he leaked the meeting to the press.
Democrats leaked, and treated as credible information, the made-up Steele Dossier, a campaign document Hillary Clinton’s machine had paid for. They managed to hornswoggle Jeff Sessions into recusing himself, so more Democrats in the Justice Department could drag out this nonsense investigation for years. That culminated in the Mueller Report, which amounted to a whole lot of nothing. But the Justice Department did manage to wreck the lives of George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, for the crime of joining the Trump campaign. The DoJ sent commandos to arrest Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, who had nothing to do with Russian collusion, since it didn’t exist. Their real crime? Daring to work for an outsider like Trump.
Democrats in the media tried to wreck the life of a high school boy named Nick Sandmann, for showing up at pro-life rally, and smiling while white.
Why It’s Logical, Christian, and Charitable to Suspect the Election Was Stolen | The Stream
KAREN: I assume as a patriotic American you’re going to accept the results our national election, and accept the peaceful transfer of power. Or are you going to crouch on the White House lawn with your assault weapon? Maybe try to stop the 82nd Airborne from dragging Trump out of his hole like Saddam Hussein?
OBADIAH: It’s right nice to hear from you again. I hope you’re doing well, too. And the answer of course, is “No, nope, and hell no.” It’s reassuring to hear that you’re fantasizing about hanging the president, though.
KAREN: Why am I not surprised? You angry white males have been willing to tear America apart before. I remember when your kind wouldn’t accept the election of Abraham Lincoln.
OBADIAH: If you mean by “my kind” Democrats, you’re way off the mark. It’s your party we have to thank for the Indian removals, the Civil War, Jim Crow, lynchings, filibusters of the Civil Rights Act, and more black kids aborted than born every year. But go on ahead and ride that high horse down the Yellow Brick Road to the Land of Oz.
Damaging and Dividing the Country?
KAREN: So you don’t think it damages and divides the country to try to cancel the votes of millions of Americans of color?
OBADIAH: Despite everything thrown at him, Trump got a higher share of the non-white vote than any Republican in decades. This after four solid years of the media bleating lies about him being a white supremacist, and all his supporters either Nazis or Uncle Toms. But no, I don’t think it hurts the country in the long run to demand a clean election. Not when there’s every reason to assume, right off the bat, that the Democrats were likely to steal it. When someone shows you by his actions he’s a liar, a thief, and a cheat, it’s only good manners to believe him.
KAREN: That’s an ad hominem argument. It’s a logical fallacy. Ever heard of those?
OBADIAH: Yes ma’am. They’re the go-to comebacks for every half-educated know-it-all on the Internet. Most of whom haven’t actually taken a logic class, or read Aristotle’s Rhetoric. An ad hominem argument can be a fallacy, if the character flaws you’re citing about a person aren’t relevant to the conclusion. So if I posted a recipe for Bolognese Sauce by Mario Batali, someone like you might say that I shouldn’t, because of the #MeToo charges that he harassed his waitresses. That would entail a fallacy, since a man’s morals don’t vitiate his command of pasta sauce. They might mean you don’t send your daughter to work in his restaurant. But he can’t grab your behind from between the lines of his cookbook.
But what if Mr. Batali had published a book for dads on how to raise their sons? Or a book on how to manage restaurant staff? Maybe a marriage manual? That would be a horse of an utterly different feather. If you recommended such a book, I’d be right to wave you off. You’d be citing him as an authority on a subject where he’d clearly disgraced himself. His character would matter there. That’s a completely legitimate argument against his “Ethos,” or moral character. Anyway, that’s how Aristotle put it, but I doubt he even managed a Greek diner, so maybe we shouldn’t trust him.
The Democrats’ Four Years of Dishonesty
KAREN: And how have “the Democrats” (since we’re lumping people together) proven that they’re “liars, cheats, and thieves”?
OBADIAH: I’m mighty glad you asked. Because we don’t have all day, I’ll confine myself to the past four years, starting on Election Night, 2016.
First Democrats claimed that Russia had somehow hacked the U.S. voting machines, to help Trump win. When that strand of spaghetti slid right off the wall, they declared themselves “The Resistance,” making Trump and his people … the Nazis, marching into Paris. That was nice. A real civic-minded, patriotic approach to losing an election. Then they held a “Pussy Hat” March on Washington to counter the inauguration. Again, keeping things classy.
Then Democrats in the FBI entrapped Gen. Mike Flynn, trumping up charges that he’d violated the dead-letter Logan Act (never enforced against anyone else in 200 years) by taking a normal phone call from a Russian official. This to get him out of office, so he couldn’t clean up the Deep State.
Then Democrats in that same FBI used information from illegally unmasked wiretaps that Obama had put on the Trump campaign to gin up a story that Trump had somehow colluded with Russia. James Comey went from meeting with Obama and Biden to meeting with President Trump, and lied to him about the FBI’s investigation of him. Then he leaked the meeting to the press.
Democrats leaked, and treated as credible information, the made-up Steele Dossier, a campaign document Hillary Clinton’s machine had paid for. They managed to hornswoggle Jeff Sessions into recusing himself, so more Democrats in the Justice Department could drag out this nonsense investigation for years. That culminated in the Mueller Report, which amounted to a whole lot of nothing. But the Justice Department did manage to wreck the lives of George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, for the crime of joining the Trump campaign. The DoJ sent commandos to arrest Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, who had nothing to do with Russian collusion, since it didn’t exist. Their real crime? Daring to work for an outsider like Trump.
Democrats in the media tried to wreck the life of a high school boy named Nick Sandmann, for showing up at pro-life rally, and smiling while white.
Why It’s Logical, Christian, and Charitable to Suspect the Election Was Stolen | The Stream