The Last Witness Debate Primer, Volume 1
Last updated - 4/12/98
I am sorry if this style will throw some people off (mainly those who wish to merely read this as a book), but I personally am
tired of seeing an excellent quote and then have to travel to the back of the book to find the source of the quote! I will seek to
attach as MANY sources as possible, always listing Biblical references last since such references do not mean much to some
people who view the Bible as a fairy tale, but are very useful not only for yourself but also other Christians. By the way, since I
am mostly an on-line debater, you will notice some phrases that you may be unfamiliar with. Here's a quick sampler: Why oh
why do I include these? Not only does it take me more time to filter out possible language/phrases you are not familiar with, it
is good to get in practice with actually using these; they save time, believe me!
:) Smiley; IOW I am trying to be cute.
IOW = In Other Words
TLDS: (A Witness original, it means Typical Liberal Double Standard and refers to the constant use of a double standard by
Liberals. It will never fail; they will apply it left and right (mostly left!)until you point it out and sometimes even after that! :)
BTW I recognize that there will be some people who do not agree with every one of my stances, so this books is my
opportunity to personally bring these issues to you as I see them and hopefully by the end of the book you will revert from your
ignorant ways. (G)
1. Recognizing Liberal Tactics (Offensive and Defensive)
2: Abortion
3. Affirmative Action
4: The Theory of Evolution
5: Homosexuality
6: The Death Penalty
7: Original Intent vs. Judicial Review
8: "Right to Death"
9: "Separation of Church and State"
10: School Vouchers
11: Women in the military
12. Taglines
13. Sources
RECOGNIZING LIBERAL DEBATE TACTICS: OFFENSIVE
I was tempted on just having a blank page but that brief novelty would have not justified the price of this book to you, so here
goes:
NAME CALLING: Get used to "Homophobe", "Extremist", etc. In my years of debating Liberals I have been labelled by
ALL of them. "Nazi", "Hatemonger", I've been called all the bad ones and a few of the really bad ones. Liberals just can't stand
to stick to the issue. Why? Because it is very hard for them to intellectually defend issues that to this point they have won using
emotional appeals and it is so easy to get us on the defensive if they make a personal attack instead of sticking to the issue!
And if you yourself are guilty of this, SHAME ON YOU! You are admitting that you do not have the sufficient knowledge to
defend your stance on the issue and so resort to the well celebrated fourth grade techniques of name calling. You might as well
stick out your tongue; you are about that effective when you take an intelligent debate and steer it into a name calling contest.
Something else; cursing is a no-no, even if you aren't a "goody two shoes". A good friend of mine from a small fishing village in
Korea by the name of Chiun summed it up perfectly: "Cursing is a form of helplessness." And he is right (rarely is Chiun
wrong!) Cursing, as well as name calling is merely an electronic bumper sticker that says, "I am helpless! I cannot make an
intelligent rebuttal of my opponents' comments so I am going to call him names. Maybe if I can
get this person mad, they will forget about what we were talking about!" Steer to the higher ground; if you can stick to
the issues without calling names, you will come out on top. Seriously, I cannot emphasize this point enough. Whenever you
encounter name calling and labelling, you are facing a situation where your opponents can't get you on the defensive with
legitimate debates concerning the issue at hand, so they will attempt to put you on the defensive any way they can. This is also
a good stalling tactic for them, because while you're explaining that you are not a member of the Nazi Party, nor have you ever
been a member, they will either move to another issue or continue to hammer on a point where they believe they have found a
sensitive spot in your debative armour. Take that fake arrow out of your armour; you aren't on trial here (at least you should
not allow yourself to be!); this is (or at least SHOULD BE!) about the issues.
DEFENSE TO SUCH A TACTIC: If you see it, point it out publicly and make an appeal to stick to the issue. Don't expect it to
actually work against your opponent, but everyone else will notice.
2. PERSONAL ATTACKS: Along with name calling, you will no doubt find that the Liberals debating an issue (pick just about
ANY issue) will be the ones who are attempting to link their opponents to Hitler or some other favorite Liberal historical
personna weapon. You are thinking, "What are they doing? I thought we were debating the worthiness of the death penalty
and all of a sudden they call my ideology 'Hitlerian' and attempt to make me (and anyone who thinks like you) ideologically
Hitler's twin!" This is a personal attack; again, they have steered from the ISSUE (very scary ground for most Liberals!) and
have used personal attacks in an attempt to get you on the defensive since they obviously have had no luck while sticking to the
issues! If they attack you, know that they have either run out of intellectual ammo (re: you are winning) or you have literally
made them think to the point where they are angry at themselves because, blast it; he IS right but they aren't going to admit it
and so they will attack you. STICK TO THE ISSUES.
DEFENSE FOR SUCH AN ATTACK: Again, publicly point out what is going on and make a call for a debate on the issues.
DEFENSIVE
TLDS: A Witness original phrase, it simply refers to "Typical Liberal Double Standard". It came as a result of experiencing
double standards from most if not all Liberals whom I have debated over any serious period of time. They will apply one
standard for them and then change it when it becomes convenient and ONLY in the situations they personally approve of; if you
were to attempt the SAME "exclusions to logic" they do, you would be incorrect merely because they disagree with you.
SHUNT: That is, they take your attack and re-route it, by either telling a story, making a comment to another question of yours
or ignoring it outright. Don't let them wiggle out of it; if they start telling a story, say, "That's nice but you did not answer my
question" and it is a good idea to quote your original question because no doubt they will "forget" what it was. If they ignore it,
you can post them again with a copy of the original question along with a friendly reminder that you really wanted them to
answer the question.
ABORTION
Arguably the most divisive issue in the United States since slavery, abortion brings out extreme emotions from both sides of the
issue. Let's look at the two sides: Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. Let's start with some familiar territory, that of Pro-Life. Until
1973, the Pro-Life viewpoint was the law of the land, so for the vast majority of time in the United States, abortion was
legally wrong.
But let's look at why the Pro-Choice side stands for what it does. One of the most illuminating things I have ever heard was
from a Pro-Choice rally that was aired on television (don't shield yourself from these things; you would be surprised how funny
some of them are!). The woman at the podium stated that for too long, the Pro-Life side had misunderstood the stand of the
Pro-Choice crowd; they are not for killing babies; they are fighting to protect the reproductive rights of women and then she
went ahead and (good for her! She won a Witness Admiration Point) stated that for too long the Pro-Choice side
misunderstood the Pro-L:ife side; they didn't want to control women's reproductive rights; they just wanted to stop the legalized
killing of babies. And what do you say at this point? She has just cut through all the hype, all the clutter and arrived at the
heart of the debate; mainly that both sides ignores the reason the others promote their ideology. We all do it, and as soon as
we find out we are acting in this manner, we need to take a breather and figure out where we really are and what we are doing!
But as you will find out, there is no such thing as a Pro-Choice person who agrees 100% with another Pro-Choice person any
more than anyone on the Pro-Life side agreeing 100% with anyone else on the same side.
Even the Pro-Life camps hold differing views:
ZERO TOLERANCE:
That of holding to the belief that abortion is wrong in ALL cases and must never be legally allowed. (Witness TIP: It is very difficult
to defend an absolute; when you use the word "all", then you are most likely asking for trouble.)While some Pro-Lifers
might agree to this initially, with discussion on the issue, most of even these will support abortion for at least one reason or
another, such as life of the mother, or if the baby will be born without a brain. This is a very small portion of the Pro-Life
movement and not to criticize you if this is your belief, but if it is not your belief, don't let the other side attempt to label you as
such. There are problems with defending this belief, namely, it places the life of the baby above the life of the mother.
RAPE OR INCEST:
The most highly used excuse to allow abortion, at no time in the history of the United States have rape or incest ever
exceeded five percent of abortions. The main fault with this argument is that it starts out by saying that at conception a
preborn human is protected under the Constitution but because his father is a rapist or incestor that his Constitutional rights are
either revoked or ignored. Try that argument with any other situation. Example: You are the produce of a rape pregnancy;
does that mean that you have no right to life? That is, if someone were to shoot you in the head fifty times, would they be
violating the law? If you have no "right to life", then there would be no crime committed (at least not murder) and the Liberals would
suggest that such a thing would be preposterous, but that is EXACTLY what they are proposing, unless they concede that
simply because your father was a rapist, you still have a right to life.
Now let's get to why you are really reading this; to look at the other side, the Pro-Choice camps. Always refer to them by
their chosen name even though you might not agree with the name; it only makes you look bad if you refuse to even
acknowledge their self appointed title; not that you can't use their name against them at times, but since you wish to be referred
to as Pro-Life, you should refer to them as Pro-Choice; believe me, it will help in the long run. The Pro-Choice camp has even
more situational "what-ifs" than the Pro-Life side. I will list the arguments that have been given to me over the years as why
abortion is justifiable:
I. Only "Human Life" is protected by the Constitution and before birth (or during pregnancy),
until "x" is achieved, the fetus is not human life.
My response is that I don't know of a single scientist that would declare a preborn as anything other than alive (even
at conception if they are cornered since at conception it is not dead and it is not non-life (like a rock for instance) and
if it isn't human, of what species is it? Are they really arguing that there is a species change in the womb?
Specifically when does this occur? Let's get real! And if you hear (and you will) that "no one can determine when life
begins", simply ask them on what grounds then do they condone abortion; don't they know they could be killing
human life especially since they don't seem to know? Science is supposed to err, if on any side, to that of caution. An
archaeologist will, if in doubt, gingerly dust a worthless relic to that of a legitimate artifact; simply because he doesn't
know whether what he has is worth any value.
A. "It is not alive because of viability concerns"
This is the most popular of all reasons to allow abortion. That the unborn baby cannot survive outside the mother's womb.
This argument has a great deal of support among people who consider themselves Pro-Choice and haven't even thought about
why. At face value, it even seems reasonable, but has some major problems, such as:
1. If viability is THE determining factor on whether something that genetically is considered human,
then under those same standards, people in comas or unable to care for themselves would not
be considered human and, again, should be able to be legally scalded to death, killed by tearing their
limbs from their body or crushing their skull and sucking their brains out. Does anyone literally
believe this? (TLDS) Of course not, so they have to attach another "reason" to allow abortion, or
go to another tactic or start calling you names you insenstive man you! (And if you're a woman, they
will say that you have not had your eyes opened or some other esoteric phrase that attempts to
make all your comments worthless.
IOW: Viability is not a legitimate issue since it would also place people who are already BORN within the same "non-human"
status of a pre-born. And if they are claiming viability, they must take the bad portions of this "logic" against what they
perceive is the good.
2. Viability keeps getting moved to earlier and earlier periods in the pregnancy. What will happen when technology makes it
possible to save a pregnancy from any stage, even immediately after conception? Viability goes out the window, but don't
worry; they've got a million excuses.
B. AGE
C. QUALITY OF LIFE
This is the one that puzzles me the most, especially from Liberals who go out of their way to link themselves with the poor; this
basically says that the baby, if allowed to be born MIGHT be abused, or might not have a good quality of living. So? Even IF
that were so, who gives me, you or anyone else the ability to kill someone because they don't live up to your standard of what
"quality of life" is? Can we all thank God that someone with the level of wealth of Donald Trump or Bill Gates doesn't decide
that? We'd all be without Constitutional protection of life.
D. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Not to try to oversimply it, but the abortion debate comes down to location. If the preborn is located
in a different location (outside the womb) ALL debate comes to an end whether it is protected
by law or not.
For more information on abortion and the Conservative standpoint (this is not just a Christian issue as much as they would love
to make it because then they could ignore the issue itself and then attack you because Catholics at one time were running
governments or whatever they wish to push off on you.)
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Note; never ever take the easy way out and just say "evolution" in a debate; always include the correct descriptive limitation of
"theory" to it, since many evolutionists will be making the HIGHLY erroneous claiml that "evolution is a fact".
Names that Liberals will attempt to label you with: Flat Earther (that you are somehow like people who believe the world
is flat)
1. The Theory of Evolution is NOT a fact. If it were so, then it would be so easily proven as to render any arguments against it
as ridiculous. This is what is attempted but when you actually see what kind of defense that the proponents of the Theory of
Evolution use you will wonder why you were so worried in the first place.
UNARGUABLE FACT: Facts do NOT change! If the theory of evolution WERE fact, nothing would ever change about it,
but every other year there is a change here or there concerning this theory.
SOURCE: For additional information on a much more grand scale than this lil' Witness can produce in these paltry pages,
contact the Institue for Creation Research at:
ICR
P.O. Box 2667
El Cajon, CA 92021-0667
They have tons of information on this subject; they are a dedicated Witness Source!
5: Homosexuality
6: The Death Penalty
The first thing Liberals try to do when attacking you on your stance of the Death Penalty, is
to somehow link that with your views against abortion (remember, they won't stay on topic!). Ask them
if they want to discuss abortion, that's fine, but we're talking about the Death Penalty right now.
And think about this:
* If society views the worth of the life of the killer as equal as that of the victim, then the result will be the same; that is, the
killer will die. If society views the worth of the life of the killer as LESS than that of the victim, then the result will be worse for
the killer, again, the killer will die. ONLY if society views the life of the killer as worth MORE than that of the victim is the
outcome better for the killer and the killer lives.
And the constantly verbalized Liberal argument: "Oh life in prison without parole is worse punishment than the death penalty" is
a pure crock. IF that were true, then WHY do all of these convicts use every protest and appeal they can to get out of the
death penalty? Don't they know that is BETTER for them?
7: Original Intent vs. Judicial Review
8: "Right to Death"
9: "Separation of Church and State"
Again, the Liberal Constitution God (tm) Thomas Jefferson will be invoked several times.
And
this time, the wimpy French will actually help you, since he was busy overseas in France when the Constitution
was written and debated. He had nothing to do with the Constitution. Many people confuse his work
with the Declaration of Independence (which he was majority author) with the Constitution, which he
had nothing to do with.
10: School Vouchers
11: Women in the military
12. CULTS
A. MORMONISM
First establish whether or not they believe that the Bible is equal, less or more reliable than the Book of Mormon; then ask if
there was a contradiction between the Bible and the Book of Mormon, which one they would accept. If they say there are no
contradictions, you have them. Two immediate contradictions: The very first verse of the Bible contradicts the Book of
Mormon. Everyone knows it..."In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth." The problem with Mormonism
theology is that they believe that "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become". In other words, they believe God
was once a man on another world (they call "Kolob") who was a good Mormon there, so when he died, he became a God and
his God gave him the Earth to rule. The problem is that if this is so, then how could he POSSIBLY have created the heavens
and the Earth? He was a man living within the realm, which was already created, so the Bible is either lying by saying that God
(our God from the planet Kolob according to the Mormons) created the Heavens since they were already in existance when he
was a mortal. Secondly, there are many scriptures in the Bible that state that God was the first and last God that, and you
cannot seriously read Isaiah 45 and think that there are other Gods; that God had a God and that we will be formed as Gods
later if we are good Mormons; this specifically goes against verses like Isaiah 43:10b: "...before me there was no God formed,
neither shall there be after me."
TAGLINES!
These are some of the funniest ones I have seen lately; use them at your leisure. The Witness originals will be preceded by an asterisk.
* Reality and "what should be" are two brothers who live very far apart.
* "Petty crime?" There is no such thing!
* Bill Clinton went to Oz to get a spine! What happened?
Without the right to possess guns, your mighty flag may as well be only white!
Highly suggested reading: The Witness Recommended List
The Holy Bible, by God
The Constitution of the United States, by just about everyone BUT Thomas Jefferson
Original Intent, by David Barton: Wall Builders Press
The Tempting of America, by Judge Robert Bork: FREE PRESS
Creation Science: ICR
Back to The Last Witness' Home Page
E-mail Me!
tlwitness@juno.com