I was watching Fox News last night and Alan Colmes was arguing in favor of Obama’s speech to students, saying something like “This isn’t a big deal, he’s just talking about learning to kids” (see No. 1 and No. 2).  That got me thinking about the many non-arguments I’ve heard that sound like legitimate points.

1.  “It’s just a little bit!”

When it comes to politics, this is a favorite of big-government proponents who might or might not realize that they’re simply boiling the frog slowly.  People who say something like “It’s just a little bit of government, you’re being paranoid” aren’t making an argument; they’re only trying to frame you as a weirdo.

If they really believed in big government, why would they just want little bits anyway?

2.  “It’s not a big deal.”

Also from the family of non-argument #1, this non-argument is built around making you sound weird.  Obama’s just speaking to kids about how important learning is, what’s the big deal?  Relax!

It’s also used as a way to justify slow-boiling the frog.  “Well, maybe you don’t agree with more government, but just let us have this little bit.”  When your chief argument is “Relax,” you don’t have a lot of substance going for you.

3.  “Whatever we believe, we should be able to respect each other.”

There’s a lot of this going around because of the heated town hall debates happening recently. Okay, fine. I respect your humanity. Can we please talk about how horrible this health care bill is?

4. “Let’s work together to find common ground.”

You might notice some people sneaking in slow-boil here too. Democrats and Republicans can get together and say “let’s work on a solution we all can agree on,” and then just end up expanding government by a little instead of a lot.

If I think there should be less government, and you believe there should be more government, where’s the middle? Doing nothing – no government action. That would be preferable.

5.  “Let’s just agree to disagree.”

If we didn’t disagree, we wouldn’t be arguing anyway!

6. “I think we’ll all agree, at least, that something should be done.”

Maybe true, but when I think we need to get government out of health care and you think we need government to fix health care, we disagree on what should be done. So saying we agree that something should be done is like agreeing that we both have two ears. True, but not exactly all that relevant.

As TalonJohn posted at the BPN Forums, you can see how liberals treat you when you think the something that should be done is actually getting the government out of the way.

7. “But…but…Bush!”

The phrase “last eight years” gets a little tiresome, especially as Obama’s administration occupies more and more of those “last eight years.”

Have you ever heard a liberal justify what Obama’s doing simply by arguing that Bush did it? As if that makes it okay?

8. “But…but…you!”

People love pointing out Republicans caught being gay because Republicans are often perceived as the anti-gay party. “See,” the assumption goes, “even they can’t help being gay sometimes.” If Larry Craig was caught seeking gay sex, does that mean he believes that he should be able to marry a man? Not necessarily.

9. “Get out of the way, this is a movement.”/ “Don’t you see how popular my idea is?”

If 99.99% percent of people jumped off a bridge, I would still want to be in the .01% who didn’t. Why? I don’t think jumping off of a bridge is an idea with a lot of merit, and whether or not it’s a “movement” won’t really change my mind.

As the conservative revolution gains steam, we should be careful about this non-argument and make sure we actually stand on the merit of our principles and ideas.

10. “What if the mother was raped?”

What the bleep does that mean? If your mother was raped, you’re somehow less of a person? Do you think it should be okay to kill three-year-olds whose mothers were raped?

The baby is alive, plain and simple.