commentary by Luke Pruitt
Editor’s note: Luke Pruitt is a musician from Fort Smith. Link here to follow Pruitt and learn about his new album, “Songs of Home, Pt. 2”
Opinions, commentary and other essays posted in this space are wholly the view of the author(s). They may not represent the opinion of the owners of The City Wire.
Only a year remains until the Presidential election – the special time that only comes once in a leap year, when us little people choose which person in Washington, D.C. has better fooled us into believing they’ll do a bunch of stuff they say they’ll do, but probably won’t, and reward them with a cool house in a walkable urban neighborhood and an entire military to blow stuff up with.
It’s an exciting time in America, but it’s easy for some of us to get a little carried away with our excitement. With social media providing an open platform for so many people to share their political beliefs, things can get kind of messy. It’s easy to lose sight of the goal of online political debate: Convincing those who disagree with us that they are tearing our great nation apart, brick by brick.
I wrote a song about this (Link here for the song, “Two Kinds of People,” or listen to the song below.) but it’s easy to offer criticism without solutions, so I see it fit to provide some guidelines on how best to benefit from our inevitable squabbles over the next year. I hope they are able to help us all in our efforts to eradicate those people who insist on being wrong on the internet.
Guideline 1
Arguments are better made with no paragraph breaks and poor punctuation.
Ambiguity is key here, folks. The more I have to strain my eyes sifting through line after line of clustered, period-less run on sentences and wonder, “Is there supposed to be a comma there?” the more time you have to plot your response to my response – which you’re not going to read anyway. Which brings me to my next tip.
Guideline 2
Don’t read the other person’s response.
Not fully, anyway. Skim it and assume the rest is bullshit. It probably is. I’ll explain this in my next guideline.
Guideline 3
Give no one the benefit of the doubt. They are stupider than you are.
In fact, debate tends to work best if you just lead with this statement. “You are stupider than me.” That way, no one is standing on ceremony. It says right away: “I know more about this than you, and you have to either be a mindless sheep, or your once intelligent brain has been indoctrinated by whatever media narrative has turned you into a mindless sheep. You mindless f&*king sheep.”
Guideline 4
At least once in every 10 or so political discussions, state firmly that you will leave this country if the person you’re voting for doesn’t get elected.
I said at least one in every ten discussions, but feel free to overachieve in this. It’s really the only way people will know you are really serious about what you are saying. Who would want to stay in this sh*t hole after that one guy gets elected, anyway? Only the person you are arguing with ... and that person is stupider than you are.
If you’re in a political discussion, and you’ve already threatened to leave the country, but haven’t told the person you’re debating that they are stupider than you, immediately stop whatever grand-slam of a truth-nugget you are chomping away at on your keyboard, (use the “cut” function so you can paste it back later) and just specifically address the fact that the person you are debating is stupider than you are. Just say “You are stupider than me.” Then, paste your truth-nugget back into the comment box, and finish annihilating whatever stupid, sheep-like argument the stupider person than you is trying to make.
If you really want to win this argument, end your truth nugget with “I wish all you so and so’s would just get out of my country.” That way, the stupider person knows that if your candidate wins, they are free to leave the country and it will not hurt your feelings one bit. This is a pre-emptive move that will render their threat to leave the country useless.
Guideline 5
Remember, there is nothing you can learn from anyone who thinks differently than you.
Which is why it’s really just best to surround yourself with people who agree with you. There are so many things you can learn from these people, like how to respond to that one person over on so and so’s wall who you know is stupider than you, but talks all smarty-pants and presses you to read articles that are really long and say nothing that confirms what you already know is truly true. Which brings me to my next guide line.
Guideline 6
Only read articles from extremists blogs that really piss you off.
Preferably, the article should piss you off because the blogger is so brilliantly pointing out what a huge threat the stupider people who disagree with you are to your way of life. You SHOULD be pissed. You SHOULD be scared. That blogger knows this. That blogger knows that the only way we can really get this country pointed in the right direction is to show our anger by writing angry posts as quickly as possible. No time should be paid to paragraph breaks or to punctuation (See guideline 1). There’s no time to Google those words that you’re “pretty sure they mean what I think they mean.” After all, if it does happen to mean something different, who would know? The person you’re arguing with? No. That person is stupider than you. Just write fast and make sure you post it before the stupider person posts their brainwashed nonsense.
Guideline 7
Agreeing to disagree is for sissies.
And frankly, it’s quite boring. No one is grabbing the popcorn over that nonsense. When someone who is stupider than you wants to “agree to disagree,” you have two options:
1. If you only know them on social media, and not in real life, explain to them (this may be a good time to reiterate the fact that they are stupider than you.) that you wish it was as simple as “agreeing to disagree,” but this is America, and we don’t play that way. You can follow this with an unsubstantiated insult. Here is a short list of insults to start with: Socialist; Muslim apologist terrorist lover; fascist; baby killer; woman hater; tree hugger; capitalist pig; and corporate scum.
There are plenty more, but whatever you call them, make sure to punctuate the insult by telling them again that they are stupider than you.
2. If you know the person on a personal level, use something that you know about them and turn it into an insult. Personal insults are the best way to make sure the stupider person knows that they are the stupider person.
Guideline 8
Try to operate in groups.
Sure, a discussion between just you and the stupider person is fine, but if you can find a group of people who are as smart as you and also know that the stupider person is stupider than all of you, the stupider person quickly gets confused about who is talking to who, and the stupid really shines through the stupider person.
And finally,
Guideline 9
There are only two kinds of people in the world: Those who agree with you, and stupid people.
Remember folks, we only get one vote, so it’s important to stress how angry we are at the stupider people who will waste their vote on the candidate for people stupider than us.