I’m a bit political.

 

There, I’m out.

 

It has been noted on occasion that I can also be confrontational, which is true. However, I have a long history of engaging people whose political beliefs are different than mine and keeping relationships intact. Just yesterday on Twitter I was engaged in a heated debate with a guy that began to escalate quite a bit. There was a lot of posturing, some veiled threats and generally not getting along type stuff for a while. Then we found some common ground. Today we talked about going golfing.

 

I mention this to prove that I am not unreasonable when people are genuinely willing to debate. Many people aren’t, however, despite their protestations to the contrary.

 

This is for you.

 

A situation arose earlier today on Twitter that led to this post. A woman who had interacted with me a few days ago began taking me to task for how harsh I was being regarding some of the May Day violence that the #OWS types were engaged in. Hey, I’m old fashioned-I think if you’re wearing a fetish mask and smashing windows with a baseball bat the cops should be able to use you as a percussion instrument if you fight them too.

 

As is my wont on Twitter, I went to an extreme or two. But it was all about the people committing violence.

 

The woman immediately accused me of saying that cops should be able to have their way with anyone engages in peaceful protest.

 

Lie Number One.

 

I indulged that and continued the back-and-forth, with a more insulting tone.

 

Then she began the talking points.

 

To deflect from the very real, ongoing violence of the #OWS crowd she trotted out the “Tea Partiers yelled the “N” word at John Lewis!” myth from the summer of 2010. She sought to distract by getting me to defend something that never happened-a classic lefty ploy that people on the right have fallen for for decades now.

Lie Number Two.

The Lewis story was a lie concocted by officials of the Democrat party and dutifully repeated in the press despite any proof whatsoever. Andrew Breitbart and his people spent a lot of time offering a lot of video proof that it DID NOT happen but the MSM ran with it anyway. It was just one of far too many false attempts to smear a peaceful, legitimate political movement. The same media lap dogs who repeated this lie have all but ignored the painfully real violence associated with the #OWS crowd.

What the Progressive Left needs to understand is that the old model of getting us to chase our tails defending something they made up WILL NOT work anymore. Of all the great tactical moves Breitbart was known for making, challenging a false premise the second it was uttered was far and away my favorite.

For too long, people on our side have been afraid to immediately cut lies off because we’re afraid of being called racist, sexist, thisist or thatist.

No more.

I will talk all day about politics with you until you attempt to change the subject with what I KNOW you know is a lie. How will I know? More often than not, it will be some garbage that has been repeated on MSNBC for weeks on end. Those people are not journalists, they’re unhinged hacks. I know, I get paid to watch them every week.

The classic diversion ploy of jumping to a new subject will be tolerated for a short while, probably two jumps. If the jump involves a talking point lie, we’re done and you’ve lost.

Another rule is one I came up with about two months ago and have adhered to pretty strictly. I will no longer engage anonymous accounts online. If you want to go off on me, have the balls to do so as yourself. It matters not to me if you have to remain anonymous for work reasons, you can go bother somebody else.

These are fairly simple rules. Tell me about the underlying philosophy or personal experience that informs your beliefs. Don’t tell me something that Chris Matthews belched up a hundred times. It’s easier to get along than you think. But you have to think.

If you’ve been referred to this post after an exchange online and find it to be unfair…shucks.