The 20-Step Facebook Political Process

1. Post links to articles and columns from the New York Times, Washington Post, etc..
2. Poorly informed conservative friends post comments reciting arguments proposed by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, etc.
3. Respond with facts.
4. Poorly informed conservative friends change the subject to other Fox News claims.
5. Respond with facts.
6. Poorly informed conservative friends respond with speculative ad hominem claims about the personal character and true political intentions of various liberal figures.
7. Respond with facts.
8. Poorly informed conservative friends get really pissed off.
9. Post more articles and links from reputable sources of information.
10. Poorly informed and increasingly bitter conservative friends start trolling the resulting comment threads.
11. Respond with facts.
12. Better-informed friends start taking your trolling conservative friends to task, then message you privately to ask what's wrong with your trolling conservative friends.
13. Well-informed conservative friends enter the discussion in an attempt to salvage classic conservative principles from the trolling conservatives' nonsense, making limited, rational and interesting points.
14. Trolling conservative friends blow right past such attempts at intelligent discourse to argue things your well-informed conservative friends never said or implied.
15. Well-informed conservative friends retreat to the sidelines.
16. Trolling conservative friends, now besieged by your better-informed friends, begin complaining about being treated unfairly by mean and uncivil liberals.
17. Respond with facts.
18. Trolling conservative friends unfriend you after making a martyred and melodramatic exit speech, then retreat to the outraged comfort of their partisan echo chamber.
19. Other friends, lurking on these conversations, form conclusions.
20. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Comments

[Stephen Stein]

Works a lot better when #1 is conservative FB friend posts something from Fox News, etc. Other conservative FB friends of friends join in, but facts win eventually.

After a few times, conservative FB friend doesn't share so much. :-)

Doesn't work as well if FB friend is Giant fan and you're a Patriot fan, but hey, scoreboard!

[Addison Ingle]

Wonder if your prescription works for this fount of reason:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/26/1068404/-Murdering-Lying-Thieving-Rat-F-Republican-Pieces-of-Sub-Amphibian-Sh-

Quality stuff from the enlightened side of the progressive family.

[Dan]

My suggestion to everyone on my side of the aisle, such as it is, is to stick to reported information. What on earth is the point of a pathetic screed like that?