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How not to debate...

To my surprise, a recent tweet of mine reached 1.7K likes and 1.6K retweets. The tweet was:

"Benghazi: 4 die
GOP: 'Let's research this for 4 straight years.'

Gun violence: 400,000+ die since 9/11
GOP: This needs no research.'"

In addition to the 1,700 likes and 1,600 retweets were plenty of comments from trolls. One such troll may want to author the book, How Not to Debate.

He started by saying, "I know you and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, and this is again the case," before posting 2016 death totals void of a source. When I asked for the source, he provided me with it, but in the end, that may have been a mistake, for the source was deemed to not have been at all credible. These numbers came from a far-right "pro-life" group, whose objective it was to paint abortion as the worst of all problems in this country, and due to that, Planned Parenthood in a bad light as well.

This individual then went the conspiracy theory route - depending largely on the anti-Planned Parenthood videos, which were proven to be heavily edited, and due to that, the creators have faced lawsuits. After I debunked those, he went with a few more debunked talking points, like the one which contends almost all of Planned Parenthood's services are abortions. That, of course, is false, for approximately just 3% of them are. When I brought up these fact-checks, he refuted them, saying, "That can't be true."

He then went off in another direction, saying that, due to the Affordable Care Act, the federal government provides funds for abortions and all employers have to pay for the procedure. Once again, this is false, and I pointed to the Hyde Amendment which prohibits the federal government from spending money on abortions. In some cases employers will pay for this procedure, but not in all, so once again, he was off base with that claim.

Giving credit where credit is due, the guy was persistent, but was wrong every step of the way, so that's little praise. I tried closing the argument by playing the middle ground and saying, "How about we try to decrease abortions by increasing our educational standards, contraception access, and employee healthcare benefits, but not taking away women's right to choose, and similarly, let's try to decrease victims of gun violence by passing stricter laws, but not taking away the rights of law-abiding citizens?" He, of course, didn't go for this, and kept saying, "What about the baby's rights? Why doesn't the baby have a consenting voice?"

Well, what about the voice of a woman who was raped and impregnated? What about the voice of a woman whose life is in jeopardy during pregnancy? What about the voice of a child who will likely face a life of pain and suffering if a woman gives birth to him/her? What about the voices of conservative legislators who don't appear to give two sh*ts about children's voices after their born? What about the voice of common sense which has progressively become less common?

One can believe whatever he or she so chooses, but that doesn't make the opinion reasonable. While facts can be used to bolster one's opinion, opinions can't be valid when contrary to facts.

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