For the sake of argument...

I'm thinking of renaming my blog "For the Sake of Argument". And I fully, freely, exuberantly admit part of me wants to do so just to be an asshole. I think it self-evident that the world doesn't need more assholes; but I think that blustering, barrel-chested fact makes us forget or overlook a corollary: The world desperately needs more of the RIGHT KIND OF ASSHOLE. You know, like Bill Maher and me.

I have a minor and a major point to make here, and I hope you'll bear with me. The minor point is meant to be illustrative of the major point... so without further doo:

Gratuitous conditioning: Buy local! Buy independent! Support employee-owned or at least employee-empowering businesses! Know your sources!

Starbucks CEO sez! That's what the man said! You heard him say that! That's what he said!

There are, I hope you'll agree, a bazillion perfectly good reasons for nevereverever going to Starbucks—starting with their freaking coffee—and yes, the income gap between CEOs and entry-level workers is obscene, across the board: An epidemic of ravening robber-barons vacuuming up all the wealth there is and governing the government of the Benighted States of Amurka—or rather, its evil neo-feudal twin that's been feared and deplored by commie pinko presidents from John Adams and Tom Jefferson to Teddy Roosevelt to... well, nobody to speak of with much conviction in the last century. (The current capo of  the Organized Crime Racket of American Politics [OCRAP] gave a speech in 2011 in the same Kansas town where Teddy delivered his, attempting to ride on those century-old progressive coattails and failing miserably.)

 Let Teddy win!

In general principle and sentiment, no argument from me. But this meme purposely takes "Starbucks CEO says" out of context. In a series of March 2013 interviews, CEO in Question Howard Schultz said a lot of things about the minimum wage increase. To take some examples that seems germane to this meme:

• "I am a supporter of the minimum wage going up."
• "I applaud the President for taking a stance on raising the minimum wage."
• Raising the minimum wage “is the right thing to do in Seattle—and the right thing do in the country.”
• "I do think there ... is a larger gap between the haves and have-nots in America."

These statements, taken together and with no further reporting, seem diametrically opposed to the meme—because, obviously, they're just as free of context as the meme's quote... so let's check out some context:

• “We’ve got to be very careful what we wish for because some employers—and there could be a lot of them—will be scared away from hiring new people or creating incremental hours for part-time people as a result of that wage going up.”
• "I wouldn’t want to see the unintended consequences of job loss as a result of going that high. That would not be the case at Starbucks, but I suspect that most companies, especially small- and mid-sized companies, would not be able to afford it."

(That said, an online survey of starting wages at SB says $8.80 average for barista—higher than the current minimum, but not by much—and still not a living wage. No Starbucks positions except supervisors have even a maximum hourly wage of $15 or more.)

So I'm not defending Schultz, his ubiquitous company, their practices, or their dreadful product. What I am doing here is what I always do: lamenting purposeful obfuscation even (especially?) on behalf of progressive causes. Saying "We should be act with caution in raising the minimum wage, lest a well-intentioned, too-steep hike has unintended consequences that harm the workers and the economy at large" is not the same as saying, "Fuck you, Bob Cratchit."

Yes, I know we live in a world where, to get Joe Asshole's attention, you need to sound-bite and simplify to the point of actual deceit... but oil beef hooked if I'm not gonna complain about it.

And that, dear reader, is what gets me in trouble, time and time again:

• I spent some time tracking down upstream propagators of the wholly fraudulent Tumblbook meme claiming that President Obama said, "No, you can't deny women their basic rights and pretend it's about your religious freedom. If you don't like birth control, don't use it. Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs." [Seriously, how talcum-pudding stupid do you need to be to believe this president said that in public?] Consequently I get banned from at least one leftist site and harangued by various users—as if I were attacking the political sentiment itself.
• Ditto result from my debunking—or rather, my pointing out somebody else's debunking—of the oft-lobbed "freedom v. security" quote from Ben Franklin—a terrific quote but completely devoid of the context generally attributed to it.
• In the wake of the murder of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson, I object to the ubiquitous claims—based on the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement's not-at-all-sensationally titled April 2013 report "Operation Ghetto Storm"—that 313 black persons (or "one every 28 hours!") were "executed" by police or vigilantes in 2012. In fact, the report itself concedes many (many) of the 313 cases it compiles entailed suspects who were armed and who fired on police. I looked the fucking thing up and read it; apparently nobody else did, but that didn't stop any number of people branding me an asshole for questioning the veracity of the "facts" being quoted everywhere.
• [ETA: Steve N—— was kind enough to remind me of my recent "pedantry" (I suspect he means "sophistry") re the Great Facebook-Drag Queen Massacree 2014; apparently, without my noticing, drag queens—that is, a group of people engaging of their own volition in a particular occupation or avocation—have become a protected class of citizen, exempt from any public accommodation's longstanding and explicit policy and against whom ordinary mortals may not for any reason inveigh. So rouge your cheeks and claim your prizes, girls! I'll be over here, inveighing.]
• Then there's my illustrious and carefully cultivated career as a rape apologist—and there are just too many milestones on that road to mention!
• Oh, by the way? Apes are not monkeys. (That one generally just garners eye rolls, not banishments.)

So, wha's up with that? Why do I pick fights with "my own people" (as it were)? Well... somebody fucking needs to. Truth is the only absolute morality. Misinformation is a crime against humanity. For liberals or progressives to decry the outrageous, not-even-truthy distortions of Fox News, or its talking heads, or the various "experts" it employs, or its bevy of professional godfearers, or even the mainstream media, increasingly owned lock, stock, and babble by the ultrarich; and then to promulgate precisely the same sort of horseshit because they work toward righteous ends is inexcusable. Unconscionable. And especially liable to wind me up.

I'm used to the lies, damn lies, and sophistics of the Kochsucking Right; I devoutly believe they are—to the extent that the metaphor makes sense—the villains of the piece. Deception is their stock in trade. What I cannot abide is seeing progressive rhetoric that is near and dear to me propped up on a gimcrack stage and bedecked with all manner of chicanery. Not acceptable. No, you can't pretend abridging women's right to choose abortion is "exercising your religious freedom"; you also can't fucking pretend the fucking president gives a fucking fuck about it. Playing fast and louche with facts because your goals are moral is immoral. We the sensible radicals must hold ourselves to higher standards of ethics in all levels  of journalism—and yes, every political or current events memeshare is an act of journalism.

Thus endeth my lesser point. I do believe my points have reversed rôles. So we move on to this:

I like xkcd. I think it's a smart and funny comic—and I adore the art almost as much as that in Dinosaur Comics. The above is an entertaining dialog about one person intentionally frustrating the other, a perennial favorite among humorous themes...

Trouble is, some people (perhaps including Randall Munroe, the author of the strip; though I can't be sure) truly buy the frustrator's line of argument in re arguments. For some folk, "Can't we all just get along?" is a bleeding mantra; in their worldview, everything would be hunky and/or dory if people just refrained from arguing with one another.

For the love of God, can't we love one another just a little? That's how peace begins!

Let's unpack this freight car full of horseshit, shall we?

First of all, nobody who has ever said "for the sake of argument" in the history of argument ever meant "for the sake of argument". Not literally. (For the sake of the slower among us, perhaps I should also point out that nobody who ever said "I'm just playing devil's advocate" was actually providing legal services to Satan. Not even pro bono.) "For the sake of argument" is often a vacant conversational widget that people employ to wrest control of the floor or the conch, as it were; it's similar to "on the other hand" or "speaking of which" (though of course connoting dissent). It's more substantial than the introductory particles (thus the OED calls them) "well" and "so" with which people tend to bumpstart their sentences—but not by much.

To the extent it does mean anything tangible, "for the sake of argument" is most likely to mean "I disagree with you. I'm too polite or too afraid to say so outright, but I'm going in for a rhetorical gambit now, gonna try to convince you that you're wrong and I'm right. Just watch me. Here goes." Secondary definition: "I'm not sure about this. Let's keep talking about it in different ways and I'll see whether I'm convinced of this proposition or any of its alternatives." Lastly, I'll concede that "for the sake of argument" can mean "For the sake of driving you to distraction because one or both of us are assholes."

What it doesn't ever mean is, "We humans just don't argue enough. Let's argue for a while!" And it certainly does not the fuck mean, "I'm going to say something I believe to be untrue just to create an argument."

(To be fair [another rhetorical whoosit!] I suppose this meaning could be the subtext, say, when Person A desires to break up with or otherwise free hirself from Person B—but even then, we're right back to somebody being an asshole.)

Everything else proceeds from dismantling the wholly specious rhetorical foundation of the xkcd strip. I'm not going to belabor the point.

As to those humans among us who believe the need for cordiality trumps all disputes—borders and property, of course, but also human rights, corporate welfare, cops committing murder, destruction of the biosphere, and so on... Well, vast number of humans believe vast numbers of patently moronic propositions. Fuck 'em if they think we need fewer arguments, not more. I staunchly counter with the proposition that NO WE CAN'T ALL JUST FUCKING GET ALONG, and, seeing that that's the case, we may as well do everything in our power to learn how best not to; and I'll argue thus with sonorous oration till the moon turns blue from cold; and after a while they'll argue back, thereby conceding my point. GSM.