thoughtmechanics

I have put together a comprehensive description of what I consider to be the new Hydra, foisting itself into the discourse of intelligent discussion: The political blog troll.

Conversation by the PBT is usually irrelevant, repetitive, will often fall off topic, will split hairs by arguing extensively over trifles or fine distinctions, will not argue the issue and instead perorate with Devil’s Advocate reasoning.

Constant comments by the PBT are usually in the form of a disagreement with the positions taken by the authors of the blog, and are designed to overtake the discussion. They will usually do their best to always have the last word in a debate and will usually have the attitude that any argument that comes from the [insert ideology here] must be wrong. In short, they are usually right-wing or left-wing ideologues. Now, that’s not to say that disagreement, even debate, is a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s one of the best learning tools around–but only when the process is taken up by reasonable people.

The PBT is one big logical fallacy after the next. The most common ways that they argue are with ad Hominem personal attacks, red herrings, Tu Quoque responses, and straw men arguments. Another popular technique by the PBT is to ignore the main points of your post and instead focus/attack the weakest part of your argument. Many times, they will just ignore your argument all together.

Another characteristic of the PBT is that these people usually don’t have their own blogs and instead hang around other blogs to try and derail the commentary. This is typical of a PBT. They seem to have so much to say, but are unable or unwilling to create their own forum for political discourse (or at least link to one) and even when they do, it usually ends up being an anonymous or a first-name-only blog with little or no credibility.

Other methods along these lines are when the PBT links to a site like rushlimbaugh.com or michaelmoore.com, or worse, it will make up a “fake??? URL and unknowingly link to an actual web site, which causes even more problems.

Arguing extensively with the political blog troll will do you about as much good as booing at the Special Olympics. The best way to deal with the PBT is the way you’d deal with any other blog troll, and that is to not provide it with food. In order to rid yourself of the PBT, you have to starve it so that it will try and find food somewhere else.

But this is not an easy thing to do. A smart PBT will often disguise its remarks in the form of an intelligent argument, but once you take the bait by responding with a thoughtful rebuttal, the PBT will then employ its techniques and do everything it possibly can to “win??? the argument, often forcing the discourse into a downward spiral.