A PSA from your friendly neighborhood loudmouth on the value of "rejecting the premise."

[WilliamPitt]

For clarity: I'm not calling out, nor teasing, nor scolding, with this. This is just a good debate tactic, for here and everywhere else, that saves a lot of headaches and meandering verbal tapdancing.

"I reject your premise."

A couple of times today, I saw folks here discussing immigration, and they used the word "amnesty."

That's a crudball winger buzzword to inflame the base. Whatever comes out of the Senate won't be "amnesty" by a long chalk. Using the word validates its presence in our national discussion, and allowing it to pass unchallenged does the same.

"I'm against amnesty for illegal immigrants."

I reject your premise; it isn't amnesty if it takes years and requires specific goals and standards to be met and adhered to."

Another one that I am so totally guilty of using: "Iraq war."

It was an invasion, and is now an occupation. To call the invasion a war is about as accurate as calling the hammering of a nail into wood a war. Plus, "war" summons patriotic images of WWII, Normandy and stalwart leadership. This is a civil war and a slaughter; the word "war" is actually too good for what this is.

Reject the premise. Doing this in any political go-round with a winger has one magnificent additional benefit: after you reject six or seven BS winger premises and force them to argue the facts and merits, they almost always blow a gasket. Fun for the whole family.

:)

[hobbit709]

1. I've been calling it an occupation from day 1.

and an illegal one too.

[Joe Fields]

2. i stopped arguing with wingers a long time ago.

I only argue with DUers now.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Agreed 100%.

[Richard Steele]

4. K&R

[pinto]

5. Good point WilliamPitt,

Reiterating buzz words, or the 'standard handle', from whatever source and in whatever context, help numb - and limit - the discussion, re-framing it in terms someone else has laid out.

I agree with saying, 'I reject the premise", before responding.

We've seen this happen in the last two debates and repetitively on news talk shows, interviews, etc.

Kudos to those public figures who will say, 'Let's step back from that premise...'

[Jed Dilligan]

6. K and R

"We'd be lettin' em off scot free (for five grand and years of bureaucratic step-to-it)"

[musette_sf]

7. K&R

i had to learn this one the hard way... my DH, i fear, honed his "talking points" technique from listening to Papa Bear and OxyRush. he no longer has these bad habits... but it took me a while to understand that in a "discussion" via such technique, that there is no there there, that saying something is so doesn't make it so, and how to respond to such technique with the phrase, "THE PREMISE ITSELF IS SPECIOUS".

[treestar]

8. Good point, Will

A major problem has been letting the RW set the frame. We don't have to play by their biased rules. It is typical of RWers to put a label on something and repeat it until the MSM and half the country accepts it, so they can try to control the debate.

[bigtree]

9. like responding to a Rush Limbaugh quote by asking if he's a comedian

I like pressuring their gaskets

[conscious evolution]

10. Lies Lies Lies!!You have been lied to!

Also works really well.
Don't use it in front of small children though.They tend to get upset by exploding heads.

I reject your premise. I like the way that rolls off the tongue.Thanks.

[rudy23]

11. All those talking points and catchphrases the R's spew out are created by logicians who know how to

rig a phrase, or control the framing of the argument.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

We should all study these every day, so that what has happened in the last 7 years is that less likely to happen again.

[byronius]

12. Excellent link. Thank you.

[byronius]

13. I reject your premise.

You are not a loudmouth, Mr. Pitt.

[rudy23]

14. Brilliant!

There are some who say we should cut and run from this thread. I disagree.

[mopinko]

15. which is why i will settle for nothing less than al gore '08.

he is the only dem that is doing this. the whole book is about this.