Watching the debate over torture play out on faux news, as well as various other places, I notice something. The wingnuts wield a lot of short, snappy sound bites and talking points that make good headlines. Liberals tend to be more measured, more thought out, and more longwinded.
I notice a number of themes recurring, and a number of repeated questions used by GOP to frame the debate. The questions are framed in such a way to make the situation awkward for the liberal receiving the question.
Jesse Ventura has been demonstrating the direct approach to handle BS like this. That isn't the only way to do it. We can also use the socratic method to give the wingnuts a taste of their own medicine.
The difference between us and them, however, is that we have a strange little thing called 'facts' on our side that will stand up to scrutiny.
Jump over and see my take on a lot of these. Perhaps one of these will help some of those liberals surrounded by yelling wingnuts.
- GOP talking point: Play up the 'reaction to an attack'. This is phrased like: "Buildings were exploding, we were under attack..." etc. The words "imminent threat" often show up.
Response: "Waterboarding was so inhumanly evil it was a capital crime for a country even when its cities were burning and its civilians dying by the tens of thousands. Are you really suggesting that Al-Qaida is a bigger threat than the US military, which the Japanese were facing in WWII?"
This strikes at both the wingnut's national pride, as well as common lack of knowledge of history. For a one-two punch, follow up with:
"And that repudiates both the double tenth trials and the far east tribunal. Call up the families of Nieman, York, Farrow and the rest and tell them that the Japanese did the right thing to torture them. HOW CAN YOU BE OK WITH DEFENDING THE TORTURE OF AMERICAN TROOPS?"
Even raising a voice and getting a little shrill will serve to drive home the point and attract the attention of sound bite grabbers and headline writers. I would love to see the headline: "Is supporting waterboarding supporting torture of American troops?"
- GOP Talking Point: "Torture made us safer" and "Torture saved lives"
Response: "Are you really saying that not a single jihadi was recruited based on the Abu Ghraib images? How many American troops have been killed by fighters recruited because of our torture policies?"
This moots the secrecy defense that they "can't tell us" or that the military "can't release" information about prevented attacks. The way to challenge this talking point is to fire back with the unintended consequences angle.
- GOP Talking Point: "We were afraid"
Respond with "So you are cowards who can't think rationally in the face of danger?"
Naturally, wingnuts will rankle at this. They usually invoke the expansive "we" to try to imply that 'all Americans' were afraid. Don't let them get away with this:
"More than a year after 9/11, in Jan 2003, less than a third of Americans supported an invasion, and it wasn't until the Bush administration lied to the American people that it happened."
Respond to fear-based words with coward-derived words. Respond to "mistake" based equivocations with "lie" based responses.
- GOP Talking Point: "Patriotism!" or "Unpatriotic" or "Anti-American"
Respond with "It is not un-american to have the prudence to avoid jingoism".
Relabel the "patriotism TM" meme with "jingoism".