"...Nor will I take their names upon my lips."
Many of the authors I encounter in my daily reading seem to have forgotten, or have chosen to ignore the truth in the old adage that "any press is good press".I have never given half a hoot what Pamela Anderson, nor Sandra Bernhard, nor Bill Maher, nor Bono, nor any number of clebrity talking-heads has to say about most any issue. I expect it's going to be another pseudo-logical sounding, anti-this-or-that piece of drivel, full of invective and vulgarity issuing forth from some skull within the established attractiveness tolerance ratio.
I respect that their individual POV's are unique, and sometimes I agree with their positions, and other times I do not. We are both entitled to our opinions and we are allowed to disagree. What I oppose is the all-too-frequent deployment of ad hominem attacks or deceptions like straw-man arguments and other logical fallacies, to defend their postion.
It is fundamentally false and wastes everyone's time in the vain hope of achieving a momentary hollow victory of deception over reality and truth. Who would choose to defend such a position? Do you desire to be the champion of deception? Is vanquishing truth a worthwhile objective? What is to become of truth? Do you refuse to acknowledge the always proven Veritas Vincit OMNIA?
It is invalid to evade or obscure the truth of a situation, and to conceal, ignore, or fail to acknowledge the evidence, or the potential or actual logic, and validity of an opposing argument.
At issue for me here, is that when I retreat to the sanity and comfort of some conservative or right wing authored material, I am amazed (and appalled) at how often they direct my curiousity to some leftist hack's material. Until a right wing blog I frequent highlighted something she said, I never knew that a person named Janet Garafalo even existed.
I understand that leftist positions are readily mockable and the temptation to pillory them is very strong, but it is counter-productive to draw attention to their messengers. It's cheap and easy wordsmithing, to exploit the Journalism 101 "personal conflict makes a better story" guideline, but we must resist.
Silence is GOLDEN when it comes to mind-share battles. When we refuse to respond directly to their published nonsense, and just simpy ignore them, we limit their audience, their mind-share, and their influence.
Here are a couple of recent examples of how the "ANY Press is GOOD Press" works: Ask anyone on the street, "Who is the current Miss America?" and you will find that almost no one will be able to answer correctly, and many will mistakenly say Miss California. If you ask who Carrie Prejean is.... well you get the picture.
We have Pervez Hilton to thank for making Miss Prejean far more famous than she would ever have been if she was crowned Miss America. We can thank him for creating a new spokesperson and champion for the cause of real Marriage, and for stirring up an unimaginable amount of press on Miss Prejean and the Marriage issue.
When Hussein and the 40 Dems chose to attack Rush Limbaugh by name his audience and revenues shot up nearly 20%, thank you very much. They could have attacked his ideas, but they chose to attack him by name instead. It's a lesson to learn and apply.
When we stick to putting forth our positions, ideals, and ideas and stop flinging the left-wing, side-show yahoo's feces back at them, we can legitimately claim the higher ground. When we acknowledge them, we lend them the power of our own credibility.
If a well-known conservative utters a name, then the audience automatically assumes that name must have said something of value in order to have such a notable figure give them their personal attention. By drawing attention to them, you only help them to gain awareness, traffic, and opportunities to rebut, gain support, and grovel for pity because they have been attacked.
Stop naming names and quoting fools. Certainly we must rebut ideas, and counter points, but do not name the names of the messengers. The messages that emanate from celebrity talking heads, and pretty face endorsers are perceived as popular and pretty too. It's an effective tactic, but packaging garbage and poison in pretty boxes with nicey-nice labels, does not change the contents, but it does boost acceptance. Lipstick does not change the pig, it only changes it's acceptability in the eyes of it's observers.
The effective response is passive resistance. It is a legitimate tactic.
Keep the eyes, and minds of your readers on your message where it will do good, instead of diverting attention, energy and resources away. Let them get their own audience. Use your resources to keep yours.
