You might think that any blog post involving serial liar "Jinx McHue" would be pretty much a waste of time. You'd be wrong. Over here, our old buddy Jinx uses one of the sleazier rhetorical tactics from the wanker's bag of tricks, which I think is worth exposing for the wankery it is.
As you can read, the focus of PZ's post is how "Crazy-Assed Racist Bitch" Michelle Malkin is a total douchebag for subjecting anti-war protestors to the tender ministrations of her deranged, homicidal groupies, to which Jinx replies:
And the left never, EVER sends people death threats. Nope.
Now, note carefully what just happened here. PZ never claimed that those on the Left would never, ever do something like this. He never even addressed that point. He (quite correctly) pointed out that what Malkin did was grotesque and vile, as he had every right to do. So, in response, Jinx is saying ... what exactly?
Well, if you read carefully, Jinx is not technically claiming that those on the Left have uttered similar threats, is he? He didn't actually take that position, did he? Rather, he replied with a sarcastic comeback in which he is implying such a thing without actually coming right out and saying it which is, if you think about it, a clever bit of evasion.
In doing what he did, Jinx never actually made a claim that he has to substantiate. Rather, he constructed a strawman, suggesting that what he wrote is the position of his critics, thereby throwing them on the defensive. It's a delightful bit of rhetorical sleaziness -- by phrasing his comment this way, Jinx removes from himself the obligation of actually doing any research to find examples of what he implies, and further implies that it's his critics' job to disprove his position. The position that, as I already pointed out, he never really took.
It's a clever little misrepresentation and, sadly, too many people get suckered by it and start to do Jinx's homework for him. Bad move. The proper response to someone who is as much of a dodgy, little weasel as Jinx is to say, "What's your point? Make your claim, then put or shut up." Jinx and his ideologically-similar wanker colleagues don't deserve any more of a reply than that.
2 comments:
Oh yes, the "they done it first" defense.
It didn't work too well in grade school, either.
Careful, grog. Jinx is not even using the "They did it first" defense because, if he did, we could at least demand that he show us the proof.
Jinx is being even more weaselly than that. His defense is more like, "Oh, yeah? So, like, nobody else ever did it before I did?", suggesting that it's everyone else's job to disprove his position.
It's a whole different level of weaselitude.
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