A Tale of Two Protests: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore the Delusional

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

How can you deal with people so deluded as to ignore what they see and believe things that there is no proof for? We see riot police dealing with violent protesters and we're told it was mostly peaceful yet when we don't see violence, we don't see arrests, we don't hear racial epithets, we don't see spitting we're told that it's an ugly protest.

At this point how can we have a reasoned debate with people so far into their delusion that they can't believe their lying eyes? Their narrative of events is so sacrosanct that they can't deal with normal rational rules for evidence and proof.

Comments

[weswilson]

I watched the entire clip. I thought the presentation of the Tea Party protest was much kinder than the presentation of the immigration rally. "Ugly" does not necessarily imply violent.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Yep, just as hyperbolic and stupid as when the Teahadis do it.

[thies.livejournal.com]

so according to what I learned from anti-teabaggers these guys are totally racist

[readherring.livejournal.com]

Protests used to have meaning?

[gillen.livejournal.com]

"How can you deal with people so deluded as to ignore what they see and believe things that there is no proof for?"

I say this all the time, yet we're still supposed to treat the religious as if they aren't insane.

Oh, is that not what you were talking about?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Well played sir.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

WIN

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I kinda expected that.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

A timely warmup to the next weekly topic.

[paronamasia.livejournal.com]

I liked how he said the cameraman was shaking the camera to make it look worse. I thought it was pretty obvious that the cameraman was running around to keep up with the other people who were running around. Most of the movement the tea party cameraman had to catch seemed to be flags and fist pumps.

Personally, "pro-illegal" anything sounds questionable to me.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Gotta love conservative TV pundit anchor hotties.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Hahaha oh god Herr Flick.

"Not ze stockings with ze little zwastikas Helga?"

[thies.livejournal.com]

Must suck when Nazi comparisons have gotten old and you got nothing to top it with.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Except maybe with a few Nazi icons radiating enormous amounts of originality.

[drcruel.livejournal.com]

>>how can we have a reasoned debate with people so far into their delusion that they can't believe their lying eyes?

When they make sanctimonious posts, I generally post something smarmy to illustrate their pomposity.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

How can you deal with people so deluded as to ignore what they see and believe things that there is no proof for?

So where *are* those WMDs in Iraq?

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

Actually, they found several hundred, (between 500 and 1000) in various weapons caches. A couple of Sarin rounds got used on our troops in IEDs.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Because if we don't hear racial epithets, and we don't see spitting, it didn't happen.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Since the claims are that the chanting was very audible and repetitive, and yet no one caught it on any of the hundreds of cameras there that day... the claim is false.

Because we have video of the spitting incident and because it didn't happen... it didn't happen.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

What I've gotten from this post:

[Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] asks, "Hey, guys, why do we have this double standard for what constitutes a "violent and ugly protest?"

"Shut up," they explained.

[caerfrli.livejournal.com]

do you really need the explanation to be more full or are you just screwing around?

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

So a riot breaks out at an immigration rally because protestors got stupid when a man was arrested for stealing an ice cream cart. (http://www.statepress.com/2010/04/23/immigration-protest-at-capitol-growing/) At previous tea party protests, people are arrested for storming Congressional offices (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/strange-scene-10-arrested-as-tea-party-watchers-heckle-police.php) and not arrested for using homosexual and racial slurs.

I didn't see the media all over that tea party stuff, despite those protests having the explicit seal of approval from the Republican Party. I didn't see the Fox "anchor" call out the conservative guy in that clip for lying about the number of arrests at tea party rallies. Yeah, media coverage of the two has been different, just not in the way you claim.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'So a riot breaks out at an immigration rally because protestors got stupid when a man was arrested for stealing an ice cream cart.'

Gotcha... greatly minimize what the left does while complaining about the minimal under exaggeration the right-wing does.

You forgot to mention how the cameraman made the scene look violent by shaking the camera around. And those weren't bricks...they were roses. Yea...that's the ticket. Now you can go home to your wife... your wife Morgan Fairchild.

[penguin42.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that fox news is the one trying to create a narrative here by comparing the two incidents (and the media coverage thereof). Have any major news outlets other than fox news ever compared the immigration riots with the tea party protests?

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Most worthless post ever. Basically you just said: No, YOUR MOM!

The left does wrong in demonstrations, the right does wrong too, Fox news will ALWAYS be on the side of the conservatives, this is common knowledge, you will always claim people on the opposite side of your political views are delusional, and policraticus will always be sweetmouthing you.

yawn...

[telemann.livejournal.com]

policraticus will always be sweetmouthing you.


Heh, this.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

First, are you hoping easily offeded people are going to whine about your icon so you can Godwin them? Just asking.

Second, I'll admit that both parties have their violent elements.

And I'd like to add that it doesn't make much difference who is more violent. Both conservatism and liberalism still suck in many ways. "Well, our party sucks a little less" arguments are fail.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

The icon is Donald Duck as Hitler. It's my "UnAmerican" icon. I use it when I make main topic posts that I know will elicit derisive replies from "true Americans".

The thrust of this was how rosy eyed liberals tend to view their own opposition while being overly critical of the opposition... while decrying bias towards conservatives. How do you deal with these folks?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

The whole story with the immigration protest they're talking about is that someone in favor of the laws (wearing an American flag bandana and a t-shirt that said "Because I Can Do That") was hurling insults at some of the protesters. He was led away by police and instead of just letting them do their job, the anti-immigration law crowd followed the guy and started hurling water bottles at him and the police (not empty bottles either; on video it shows one officer hit in the head and you could hear it). One protester (not sure which side he was on) was "collared" by a police officer. After someone actually was arrested, things got worse. There were volunteers with the protesters who were actively trying to get people to calm down.
Fact of the matter is that you don't see that with the Tea Party groups, but comparing the immigration law protests to a Tea Party event in March really isn't a great comparison.

[light-over-me.livejournal.com]

How can you deal with people so deluded as to ignore what they see and believe things that there is no proof for?

Basically, you can't. You can debate with them, but when someone has already made up their mind in advance, there is little that can be done other than to agree to disagree. It's a debate that isn't "winnable", and it's a mistake to expect any sort of resolution. So better not to get too caught up in a repetitious debate cycle, because ultimately it will never go anywhere. How to deal with that situation is to simply present your reasons and facts as best you can. You put the facts out there and rely on them to be strong enough to speak for themselves, to the casual and reasonable observer.

The possible exception, I find, is when you're debating with people you actually know personally, like friends or family members-- this is because they are more likely to have a basic level of respect for you, and thus they are more likely to really listen and not automatically assume you're an idiot/bigot/racist/etc, even if they don't agree. You can more easily reason with people you know and have a mutual respect for.

Good point.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It was pretty obvious that most of the people in that crowd did not have violent intent in the fracas in Phoenix. A handful of them were lobbing missiles. That certainly fits the description. I seems odd that the Faux News pundits failed to see what was right before their eyes. I suppose they see the group the way the Klan would: a few people throwing things means that the whole crowd threw stuff.