Intellectually-honest and intellectually-dishonest debate tactics

 Intellectually-honest and intellectually-dishonest debate tactics

(by John T. Reed)

I welcome intellectually-honest debate. It is one of my favorite ways to test my theories and learn. 

That is the How to Spot Dishonest Arguments and keep your own thinking straightway we were trained at Harvard Business School where all lessons are taught by the case method and my wife and I got our MBA's. When Harvard Business School was founded in 1908, it was modeled after Harvard Law School, which also uses the case method of instruction.

In college, I was on the debate team during my freshman year. Retired general and unsuccessful presidential candidate Wesley Clark was on that debate team as well. He was my “Table Commandant” in the mess hall at West Point three meals a day for a number of months that year.

I have expanded this popular article into a book titled How to Spot Dishonest Arguments and keep your own thinking straight.

 

Fox News used to have various interesting regular segments most notably Tonya Reiman’s body-language analyses, O’Reilly’s “Truth Serum” and “Is it Legal?” segments, and Howard Kurtz’s ongoing Media Buzz which evaluates the truth and journalistic ethics of various public figures, reporters, and analysts.

They need to add a regular segment that does what this article and my Dishonest Arguments book do—identify intellectually-dishonest debate tactics of various prominent speeches or debates—and I suspect it would be more popular and enduring than the fact-check and body-language segments and actually elevate the discourse in America. My book is a mix of logic fallacies, the scientific method, engineering, probability and statistics, decision theory, risk management, behavioral economics, the Federal Rules of Evidence and various other sources.

One of my readers said reading this article changed his life. I was surprised by that. But I find myself returning more and more to it over time. Google Analytics says it is one of my most popular web articles and I have thousands of web articles.

Most arguments and debates are one dishonest tactic after another

About 90% to 95% of the statements made by my opponents to prove that I am wrong have been of the intellectually-dishonest variety. Almost all arguments consist of one intellectually-dishonest debate tactic after another. The general failure to recognize these tactics as intellectually-dishonest and invalid are one of the reasons why our country has gotten so screwed up.

Lest I be accused of intellectually-dishonest debate myself, I hereby explain the difference.

Two intellectually-honest tactics

There are only two intellectually-honest debate tactics:

1. pointing out errors or omissions in your opponent’s facts

2. pointing out errors or omissions in your opponent’s logic

That’s it. Simple! The dishonest list is much longer.

Rules of debate

All other debate tactics are intellectually dishonest. Generally, the Federal Rules of Evidence of our courts attempt to make the argument or debate there intellectually honest. Roberts Rules of Order, which were written by my fellow West Point Graduate (Class of 1857) Henry Martyn Robert, are used to govern debate in many organization meetings. For example, one of Robert’s Rules, Number 43 says,

“It is not allowable to arraign the motives of a member, but the nature or consequences of a measure may be condemned in strong terms. It is not the man, but the measure, that is the subject of debate.”

Some debate organizations have rules like the Code of the Debater from the University of Virginia which says among other things:

“I will research my topic and know what I am talking about.

“I will be honest about my arguments and evidence and those of others.

Federal Rules of Evidence

The Federal Rules of Evidence are also excellent. Here is an excellent summary of the list of objections to questions that lawyers can make in court. Some Federal Rules of Evidence are technical and therefore do not apply outside of a court room, like “beyond the scope” which refers to the fact that in a cross examination, you cannot ask a question that does not relate to the other lawyer’s questions of the same witness during his direct examination.

Politicians, con men

Intellectually-dishonest debate tactics are typically employed by dishonest politicians, journalists, lawyers of guilty parties, dishonest salespeople, cads, cults, and others who are attempting to perpetrate a fraud. 

Below is a list of the intellectually-dishonest debate tactics I have identified thus far. I appreciate any help from readers to expand the list or to better define each tactic. I am numbering the list in order to refer back to it quickly elsewhere at this Web site and in my book. One of the things that my book has but not this article is an antidote for each dishonest debate tactic.

1. Name calling: debater tries to diminish the argument of his opponent by calling the opponent a name that is subjective and unattractive; for example, cult members and bad real estate gurus typically warn the targets of their frauds that “dream stealers” will try to tell them the cult or guru is giving them bad advice; name calling is only intellectually dishonest when the name in question is ill defined or is so subjective that it tells the listener more about the speaker than the person being spoken about; there is nothing wrong with calling your opponent a name that is relevant and objectively defined.

There is nothing wrong with calling someone, for example, a liar when he is, in fact, a liar and that fact is pertinent to the discussion you are in. Don’t tell me it’s ad hominem. That’s #50. You can’t just say it though. You must prove it.

2. Changing the subject: debater is losing so he tries to redirect the attention of the audience to another subject area where he thinks he can look better relative to the person he is debating, but admits to no change of subject and pretends to be refuting the original on-subject statement of his opponent. Political people on TV often use the phrase “But the real question is___” or “What the American people are really interested in is___” as a preface to changing the subject.

3. Stating WHY you are wrong without stating WHERE you are wrong. In other words, they say you are wrong because, but what follows is not identification of errors or omissions in your facts or logic, but rather deficiencies in your background or possible bias. Essentially, these all say that the opponent is prohibited from commenting on the topic in question because of what’s in their resume or not in their resume or because of some possible bias.

4. Questioning the motives of the opponent: this is like tactic number 2 changing the subject; a typical tactic used against critics is to say, “They’re just trying to sell newspapers” or in my case, books—questioning motives is not always wrong; only when it is used to prove the opponent’s facts or logic wrong is it invalid. If my facts or logic are wrong, my motive may be why. But let’s cut out the middleman of why my facts or logic are wrong and just point exactly what the error is. Pointing out the suspicious motive obliquely admits there is no error; it’s just an attempt to insinuate an error by innuendo. Don’t say why I’m wrong; say where I’m wrong.

5. ‘They know too much, your honor. The notion that intelligent, informed persons cannot avail themselves of consumer laws and rules.

6. Stereotyping: debater “proves” his point about a particular person by citing a stereotype that supposedly applies to the group that opponent is a member of. For example, Professor David Romer of Cal did a study that found coaches should go for a first down far more often and kick far less on fourth down; Some coaches laughed and rejected his findings because he is a “professor,” turning the report sideways when reading it, dismissing Romer as “Ivory Tower.” If Romer is wrong, it is because of an error or omission in his facts or logic; not because he is a college professor. Conspicuous by its absence in the coach’s protests is any evidence of errors or omissions in Dr. Romer’s analysis.

7. My resume’s bigger than yours. All the more reason why you ought to be able to cite specific errors or omissions in my facts or logic, yet still you cannot. Your resume being bigger than mine suggests a possible reason why I might make a mistake, but that does not absolve you from having to point out the specific error or omission in facts or logic that I made. The fact that I might make a mistake because of insufficient training or experience is not proof that I did make a mistake, and your trying to imply that it is dishonest.

8. Your resume is not big enough for you to comment on this and my resume is irrelevant to whether I can ban you from the discussion by pointing out the inadequacy of yours. This is an admitted know-nothing banning you from the discussion on the grounds that you do not know enough. 

9. ‘We have to do something’ syndrome: Prescribing and implementing a solution before you have diagnosed the cause of the problem; popular with government elected officials and bureaucrats.

10. Sloganeering: Debater uses a slogan rather than using facts or logic. Slogans are vague sentences or phrases that derive their power from rhetorical devices like alliteration, repetition, cadence, or rhyming; Rich Dad Poor Dad’s “Don’t work for money, make money work for you,” is a classic example. Coaches frequently rely on cliches, a less rhetorical form of slogan, to deflect criticism. Jesse Jackson was the champ of this form of dishonesty, e.g., “Up with hope. Down with dope.”

11. Invalid analogy: Assuming incorrectly that because two things are alike in one or more aspects that they are necessarily alike in other respects.

#12. Motivation end justifies dishonest means: debater admits he is lying or using fallacious logic, but excuses this on the grounds that he is motivating the audience to accomplish a good thing and that end justifies the intellectually-dishonest means. Bad real estate gurus use this one a lot.

#13. Cult of personality: debater attempts to make the likability of each debate opponent the focus of the debate because he believes he is more likable than the opponent.

#14. Vagueness: debater seems to cite facts or logic, but his terms are so vague that no facts or logic are present. A Facebook poster demanded that I debate American “hegemony” with him regarding the Boston Marathon bombers’ motives. I refused on the ground that hegemony was too vague a term. He then “proved” it was not vague by posting the dictionary definition of hegemony. If a word having a dictionary definition proves it’s not vague, then every single word in the English language is not vague because they all have dictionary definitions. Which raises the question of why the word “vague” itself exists. Debates where any party is allowed to use vague terms last forever, are circular, and settle nothing. 

#15. Playing on widely held fantasies or fears: debater offers facts or logic that support the fantasies or fears of the audience thereby triggering powerful desires to believe that override normal desire for truth or logic.

#16. Claiming privacy with regard to claims about self: debater makes favorable claims about himself, but when asked for details or proof of the claims, refuses to provide any claiming privacy; true privacy is not mentioning them to begin with; bragging then refusing to prove the claims is silly on its face and it is a rather self-servingly selective use of the right of privacy. This is also big with bad real estate investment gurus.

#17. Claiming something is secret when it is not a legitimate secret.

The following are not legitimate secrets:

• evidence of wrongdoing

• material omissions

• exculpatory information in the possession of a prosecutor

• your general financial information if you have bragged about how rich you are

The list of things that are legitimate secrets is in this part of my book How to Spot Dishonest Arguments.

#18 Scapegoating: Debater blames problems on persons other than the audience; this is a negative version of playing on widely-held fantasies; it plays on widely-held animosities or dislikes. Hitler’s blaming the Jews for everything that was wrong was the classic example. Politicians blame their opponents for everything that is wrong.

#19. Arousing envy: debater attempts to get the audience to dislike his opponent because the audience is envious of something that can be attributed to the opponent; see the 2012 campaign against Romney.

20. Redefining words: debater uses a word that helps him, but that does not apply, by redefining it to suit his purposes, like Leftists calling government spending “investment.” “Life” and “choice” are words that have been warped by abortion antagonists.

21. Citing over-valued credentials: debater accurately claims something about himself or something he wants to prove, but the claim made is one that attempts to get the audience to over-rely on a credential that is or may be over-valued by the audience; for example, some con men falsely point to government registration of a trademark or corporation as evidence of approval by the government of the con man’s goods or services

22. Claiming membership in a group affiliated with audience members: debater claims to be a member of a group that members of the audience are also members of like a religion, ethnic group, veterans group, and so forth; the debater’s hope is that the audience members will let their guard down with regard to facts and logic as a result and that they will give their alleged fellow group member the benefit of any doubt or even my-group-can-do-no-wrong immunity, also called “affinity fraud”

23. Accusation of taking a quote out of context:” debater accuses opponent of taking a quote that makes the debater look bad out of context. All quotes are taken out of context—for two reasons: quoting the entire context would take too long and federal copyright law allows “fair use” quotes, but not reproduction of the entire text.

Taking a quote out of context is only wrong when the lack of the context misrepresents the author’s position. The classic example would be the movie review that says, “This movie is the best example of a waste of film I have ever seen,” then gets quoted as “This movie is the best...I’ve ever seen.”

Any debater who claims a quote misrepresents the author’s position must cite the one or more additional quotes from the same work that supply the missing context and thereby reveal the true meaning of the author, a meaning which is very different from the meaning conveyed by the original quote that they complained about.

Furthermore, other unrelated quotes that just suggest the speaker is a nice guy are irrelevant. The discussion is about the offending quotes, not whether the speaker is a good guy. The missing context must relate to, and change the meaning of, the statements objected to, not just serve as character witness material about the speaker or writer.

Merely pointing out that the quote is not the entire text proves nothing. Indeed, if a search of the rest of the work reveals no additional quotes that show the original quote was misleading, the accusation itself is dishonest.

This was done to Mitt Romney in 2012 when he said that as a consumer he liked to be able to fire people at service providers, by giving his business to one of their competitors, so they would be more motivated to do a good job. It was taken out of context as proof he liked to fire people in general when he was a boss. In the documentary The Best of Enemies about the William F. Buckley, Jr. versus Gore Vidal debates in 1968, Vidal frequently uses isolated quotes from Buckley that misrepresented by being taken out of context.

#24. Cherry picking. “Cherry Picking” means nothing more than a person has taken one or more items from a longer list. The sneer with which the phrase is used implies that the items chosen were less worthy than one or more that were not chosen. Probably, it would be hard to arrive at a consensus on what should be in and what should be out.

25. Straw man: debater attacks an argument that is easy to refute, but which is also an argument that no one has made in the debate. Obama can hardly get through a paragraph without committing this violation. Straw-man arguments are easy to spot. They almost all use the phrase “those who.” The antidote to the straw-man tactic? Demand the attacker identify one or more of “those” by name. If he or she fails to do so, you are free to state that their implication that such people ever existed is a lie.

26. Violation of non-existent or irrelevant law. This came up a lot in 2017 and 2018 in the accusation that Trump ‘colluded’ with the Russians. Collusion is not against the law except in anti-trust law. Here is a quote form Paul Rosenzweig, a legal expert in a Politico Magazine article:

Collusion is not a federal crime (except in the unique case of antitrust law), so we should all just stop using ‘collusion’ as a short-hand for criminality.

Federal and state prosecutors and civil cases often allege violations of a non-existent and win! When Junk Bond King Michael Milken was pardoned by President Trump I wrote a Facebook post saying I never understood what he did that was illegal to begin with. The following day, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial saying the same thing. They never understood what law he broke.

27. Rejecting facts or logic as mere opinion, preference, personal taste, or like: It is true that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But everyone is not entitled to their own facts or logic. Nor is anyone allowed to characterize a factual/logical argument as merely the opinion, preference, personal taste, or like of the opponent.

Facts are facts. 2 +2 = 4 is not my opinion. It is a fact.

Frequently, when I explain one of my conclusions with facts and logic, my debate opponent dismisses those facts and logic as merely “your opinion.” That is a lie. Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki says incorporating enables you to deduct a vacation to Hawaii as a board meeting on your federal income taxes. He’s wrong. It’s not my opinion. It’s the Internal Revenue Code Section 162(a) which you can read for yourself at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00000162----000-.html.

Whether you can deduct a trip to Hawaii has nothing to do with whether you are incorporated. And you cannot deduct a vacation. It has to be an “ordinary and necessary business” expense. Travel expenses which are “lavish or extravagant” are explicitly not deductible according to IRC §162(a)(2). The fact that Kiyosaki and his CPA co-author differ from my statements on that subject are not matters of opinion. They are either lying or incompetent. I am accurately describing the law.

28. Argument from intimidation: [from a reader] The essential characteristic of the Argument from Intimidation is its appeal to moral self-doubt and its reliance on the fear, guilt or ignorance of the victim. It is used in the form of an ultimatum demanding that the victim renounce a given idea without discussion, under threat of being considered morally unworthy. The pattern is always: "Only those who are evil (dishonest, heartless, insensitive, ignorant, etc.) can hold such an idea." This is reminiscent of the McCarthy era loyalty oaths or groups that demand that candidates take a yes or no position on complex issues. Or the “climate change denier” accusation. This is also the stock in trade of the 21st century black race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

29. Theatrical fake laughter or sighs or eye rolls: This can be wordless, but it says “What you just said is so ridiculously wrong that we must laugh at it.”

Hillary tried this (theatrical laughter) without much success in the 2008 presidential