How the Right Can Use Compassion to Out-Argue the Left

[Geee]

National Review:

So, how do you win an argument against someone who thinks you’re evil? Who thinks you’re greedy, selfish, wrong, racist, and, like I said, evil? Don’t ask me, I’m evil (but sexy).

 

But last week, I was walking with a friend of mine, a real-estate guy named Joe — and he asked me what I thought of Andrew Cuomo. I said that I thought he was weak, and waffling way too much on fracking (which is partly responsible for a welcome move toward energy independence). I believe we should be fracking, and helping out the rest of New York State, not just the rich-ass Manhattanites. My buddy then said, “But fracking is dangerous!” I asked him how, knowing full well the information he was about to give me. I had heard it before: fracking causes earthquakes, pollutes groundwater, causes your tap water to ignite, makes you grow breasts that shoot out a fiery spray of milk and peppermint-flavored lava.

 

I was about to bite his head off, but then I pulled back, and realized the only fault he was guilty of was not reading beyond the Times editorials (plus his head didn’t look very tasty). He’s not in the media business — so he doesn’t have to read the crap I read. And he’s got a new wife, a new baby. Unlike me, he has a life. So I argued from false mixed emotion.