Stupid partisans

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I want to share the insights from a little social experiment of my own.

Liars and bullshitters piss me off, so I stopped the false politeness in face of their impoliteness* entirely. 

So I looked up evidence to refute their misinformation (lie), provided the link and then I proceeded with something like 

"That was a LIE. xy told a LIE. xy is a LIAR."

There were up to four or five such responses of mine to some particularly offensive liars at once. Some people seriously tell five falsifiable lies in eight lines and proceed to call you a retard.

The reactions were interesting.

Long story short; the reactions taught me to doubt that they were plain liars or bullshit artists. Their attempts to counter what I said/wrote lacked logic, relevance, and were often goalpost-moving.

My conclusion was that these people aren't simple liars or bullshit artists. They were stupid partisans.

The reaction was not like

"Oh, he brought arguments. Now I need to counter with arguments."

and it was not like

"Oh, he may have convinced some bystanders. Now I need to be convincing in my reply."

Their attempts to counter were very clearly like

"Oh, he hit me. Now I have to fling whatever shit back, hit him as well. Ugh, caveman, ugh!"

Even those who admitted to stand corrected on one point (of several) proceeded with just more lies (and non-arguments based on faulty thinking). It was obvious that they weren't intelligent enough to even only understand the evidence for their lying.

So how could discourse be won against stupid partisans, to push society onto a better path?

Frankly, I gave up on those who are already stupid partisans. I doubt that anyone ever fully recovers from that. We might push back hard against propaganda/indoctrination that turns stupid people into stupid partisans. That's not going to be easy (possible), for the indoctrination doesn't originate from a handful sources. Some 'zombie' lies lingered for forty years after being debunked over and over again after being obvious BS even when they were new. They showed how difficult it is to get rid of old poison, and new poison is certainly in the making at all times. It's no wonder that history is a string of failures, and progress is usually coming from few people pushing along anyway.

So on a positive note, let's help those few who drive progress!

Meanwhile, people with a large platform (such as TV personalities should be held to a high standard; they must not allow their audience to be lied to. I've observed that people who don't shy away from exposing liars get treated much more respectfully and not be lied to the face in interviews. See Jon Stewart's old interviews with known serial liars and propagandists, for example. Indoctrination of stupid people with bullshit cannot be prohibited, but there's no reason to leave doors wide open for it.

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

P.S.: You have not paid attention to how countries get into wars if you don't see how this blog post relates to  "Defence and Freedom".

*: Lying is impolite and offensive. Telling the truth is NEVER offensive (impolite maybe). Most of all the Americans have the terrible cultural defect that they consider it bad manners and prohibit to call out liars, while they tolerate lies if they like them. Look what this got them into. 'Karma is a bitch.'

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