Defining Censorship Down

Disagree with someone on the left and the likely response will be one of the following:

1. You'll be accused of racism.
2. You'll be accused of censorship.

Both, of course, are classic logical fallacies, the first a transparent ad hominem attack, the second a more subtle but tasty red herring.

Such fallacies, often accompanied by associated, vicious slanders provide leftists with convenient and useful diversions from the unwinnable argument at hand. All such verbal slights of hand conveniently serve to distract attention from the leftist's indefensible claims. The leftist, after all, being a dialectician rather than a logician, cannot in actuality defend the party line, which is based on dogma rather than logic. So he simply diverts the argument via false, temperature-raising attacks on his opponent.

Each of the above responses conveniently wraps Marley's Chain around the leftist's opponent. This creates a powerful diversion by focusing on the alleged character flaws of the questioner. (Note how often, and how successfully, lefties pull this on the cable talk shows.) In short order, the initial challenge doesn't have to be answered while the opponent is caught in an endless loop of defense. Game, set, and match.

The best response to Red Herring #1, of course, is not defensive denial, but an immediate challenge demanding proof for the accusation.

In discussing the ongoing scandal of Washington Post "military blogger" (and hard leftist) William Arkin's odious attack on our troops, Power Line's John Hinderaker has one of the most efficient responses we've yet seen to Red Herring #2 above, which was employed by Arkin in an alleged apology for his rant. We share it with you here to provide you with some efficient small arms fire the next time you run into one of these scoundrels at a cocktail party:

One more time, Bill: pointing out that things you write are wrong and employ bad arguments isn't the same as trying to "censor" you.