I have an argumentative streak (I love a good argument) I probably inherited from my maternal grandfather and mom. I remember visiting Grandfather one Christmas while in college (my Dad and family were stationed in Germany), and one day Grandfather ranted to me about the evil of abortion. I'm not sure what triggered the discussion, but I meekly objected, "Grandfather, I don't even have a girlfriend." Not to mention I was already pro-life. My maternal uncle, a diocesan priest, was different; he was unflappable. You couldn't goad him into an argument. He had strong opinions (I never met anyone more anti-communist), but once he had his say, he was done with the discussion; he never lost his cool and maintained a good sense of humor. It later surprised me when I attended his funeral mass that he was quite feisty with his fellow, mostly progressive prelates, exchanging contrary opinions.
I can't speak for others arguing with me, but I suppose I can be intimidating and articulate; most friends will try to change the subject quickly. Probably my 3 closest friends have been a devout Protestant, a Jew and a Hindu; the former didn't care for my Catholic faith, and the latter two are pro-aborts. I think I learned early in life that other people have differing opinions and are vested in their positions; even if I had the better arguments, they would not concede and often would respond with ad hominem attacks. Their refusal to abandon what I regarded a flimsy position I did not see as my personal failure; I do not give my opponent power over me in terms of his rejection or state of denial. At a certain point I say the Serenity Prayer:
I'm fairly tolerant of people holding different opinions, less tolerant if they are uncivil and engage in ad hominem nonsense. But if my adversary doesn't get the point or ignores it, like my uncle, I don't like to repeat myself. I will also withdraw from unproductive conversations. Probably the best example of this is a learning experience I had working for the Jimmy Carter campaign in the Austin area. We were knocking on doors and I remember in particular I and others encountered this young couple. The male seemed to be interested, and we probably spent 20 or more minutes discussing Carter's policies in some detail passionately. He then brought the conversation to the close for some personal reason and left us with something like this, "I'm sorry, guys, but Gerry Ford reminds me of Uncle Billy; I just like him better, and I'm going to vote for him." The young couple laughed at us as we left, demoralized, knowing all our efforts had been in vain, we had lost time we could have used contacting other people. Not to mention that other people in some cases sometimes vote for stupid reasons. If I get a whiff that you're not conversing in good faith, that you're pulling my chain, I'll cut my losses and move on. Some people are determined to have the last word, to be argumentative for its own sake. Let them celebrate their hollow victory; I'm not playing the game by their rules..
Now I'm going somewhere with all this discussion. Progressives are obsessed with Trumpkin refusals to accept election results. Trump continues to insist he won the election "by a lot", to allege crackpot election fraud. I've stopped counting the constant nagging/tagging on Youtube videos of many conservative/libertarian videos about election results being indisputable, even on videos not discussing the election, Twitter tagging (before expelling Trump) his tweets.
Speaking of the Twitter ban, I have mixed feelings. I didn't like the preexisting double standard of Twitter of treating Trump by a knowingly different (lower) standard (interview by the Twitter CEO); many of his tweets if I had written them would have gotten me suspended or banned. But banning him over a speech he gave off Twitter or repeating his crackpot "stolen election" conspiracy lies and/or reneging on the terms of his account restoration is intrinsically unfair. I personally don't favor the idea of censoring a POTUS, even if I think what he's saying is wrong. I have confidence in the free market of ideas. I don't have an issue with fact-checking or occasional editorials but shadowing a POTUS and contradicting everything he does or says is not really moderation but a form of advocacy. And when your fact-checking is one-sided from an ideological standpoint (e.g., you rarely hold up progressives to the same standard of scrutiny), this doesn't further conversation and the exchange of ideas.
I've been listening to CNN the last few weeks, and I'm getting more annoyed daily. They have become repetitive and judgmental to a point even a Never Trumper like me gets annoyed. Yes, I know Trump has been in a state of denial of his election loss and his conspiracy theories of election fraud are basically unsupported by credible, substantive evidence. But I don't need to hear it repeated multiple times per hour day after day. It's not news; it's opinion. And rarely have I heard CNN seriously examine the fraud specifics; they just seem satisfied quoting the opinions of people who agree with them.
Me, I've heard Trump's repetitious nonsense more times than I care to hear. No sale. But I don't to Twitter a dozen times a day to debunk him. I and most people know people in a state of denial. I knew when Trump was denouncing Vote by Mail months before the election, he knew it didn't help him and he had a built-in excuse to reject the election. For months before the election, he dodged the question of accepting election results (unless, of course, he won). Unlike CNN commentators, I don't need to repeat this every half hour. I never trusted Trump any more than a used car salesman. His manipulative tactics are obvious to any interested observer. I don't have this obsession to get him to admit the fact they are right and he is wrong. It doesn't matter. Will Trumpkins refuse to accept the truth unless he admits it. Maybe some of them. But you aren't going to win them over by Trump-bashing. At that point, they're no longer listening to you. You are preaching only to the choir.
What got me motivated to write this? A CNN commentator of color had jars of gumballs or other candy on his desk. At first I thought it was some game like guessing how many pieces of candy there are in a jar. But no--each piece of candy was like a Trump "lie". And so if you totaled up all of Trump's lies, you would end up with several jars of candy. We libertarians use a similar analogy, e.g., how high a stack of trillion dollar bills would extend. But the CNN announcer's analogy was more of an ad hominem attack. Stop it already....
