Tax Lawyer's Blog

The Internet is the most democratic of forums. It gives a voice to people from all walks of life, from all educational and socio-economic backgrounds. But it has a darkside. It also gives con-men, child molesters and vindictive slanderers a voice.

People have been known to create blogs under aliases and use them as platforms to defame those who they believe have personally wronged them. More often, though, you’ll find the anonymous slanderer leaving a libelous drive-by comment on someone else’s blog.

But whether it’s a full-fledged blogger or just a serial commenter, always remember that emotionally unstable, insecure people have an equal voice on the Internet.

For example, here is an anonymous comment that was left in response to my blog post titled MSNBC Hypocrites:

Please stick to news and facts. You come of as a whiny d-bag with commentary like this… as does everyone else.

Clearly this commenter did not like the content of my post, which is perfectly fine. Like any other blog, mine is infinitely more interesting when there is a healthy ongoing debate about important topics. I often try to provoke that debate by taking a strong stance on a controversial issue.

But this drive-by commenter rather than telling me why he didn’t like my blog post and where my argument fell short, instead chose to call me a name – a whiney douchebag, of all things. 

By opting to insult me rather than debate me he reveals the following about himself: 1) he is unable to credibly dispute my assertions; 2) he is either too lazy or too inarticulate to refute my arguments; and/or 3) he lacks the confidence to engage in real debate.

Name-calling always reveals more about the character of the name-caller than it does about the character of his target.

I have read many comments on other blogs that levy vulgar, personal attacks on others merely because the commenter disagreed with their views. Unfortunately, it is fairly common for people to personally attack those with whom they disagree simply because they are unable or unwilling to refute their arguments. This shows a lack of maturity and, more often than not, a lack of self-esteem. One shudders to think about the quality of these peoples’ personal relationships.

Some choose to engage in personal attacks anonymously or under a pseudonym. Not only is this immature, it is also cowardly.

I found two excellent statements about name-calling and the use of ad hominem arguments that I thought were particularly apropro:

The name-calling technique links a person, or idea, to a negative symbol. The person who uses this technique hopes that the audience will reject the person or the idea on the basis of the negative symbol, instead of looking at the available evidence.

[Some people try to] sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary ‘attack the messenger’ ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. [They try to] associate their opponents with unpopular titles such as ‘kooks’, ‘right-wing’, ‘liberal’, ‘left-wing’, ‘terrorists’, ‘conspiracy buffs’,  ‘radicals’, ‘militia’, ‘racists’, ‘religious fanatics’,  ‘sexual deviates’, [pompous asses, arrogant jerks] and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.

John T. Reed has written an excellent short article on honest and dishonest debate tactics. Here is an excerpt:

There are two intellectually-honest debate tactics:

1. revealing errors or omissions in your opponent’s facts
2. revealing errors or omissions in your opponent’s logic

All other debate tactics are intellectually dishonest.

Generally, the federal rules of evidence  [used in our federal] courts attempt to make argument or debate intellectually honest. Roberts Rules of Order… 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.”

In a perfect world we would all agree and regularly meet on a hilltop, form a big circle, hold hands and sing an inspirational song .

But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a real one. And that means we rarely, if ever, agree with one another.

So if you want to survive in this world with your ego intact, you simply can’t take it personally everytime someone doesn’t see things the way you do. In fact, you should expect people to disagree with you and be pleasantly surprised in those rare instances when they don’t.

There is nothing wrong with spirited debate. It’s the stuff this country was made on. But allowing honest debate to leak into personal attacks is immature and has the effect of stifling free speech. More often than not it just makes you appear weak, foolish and inconsequential and ultimately serves to elevate the intellectual stature of your opponent by leaving his arguments substantively unchallenged.

It is indeed a good rule to argue against a man’s ideas and not the man himself – no matter how repugnant you find his ideas.

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