We’ve been playing moral equivalence fallacy game for so long, it’s gotten boring. I just got a new game from Parker Bros. It’s called “Adverse Selection.” It’s a lot more fun.
You pick either the Donkey (lib/dem) or the Elephant (Rep/Con) playing piece. divide up the fallacy cards and rol to see who goes first.
Whoever goes first searches recent news headlines until they find a member of the opposite political party who they argue is a bad person or who has done something wrong. That person must argue how the one person’s sins actually indict the whole group/make the whole group guilty/evil or otherwise despicable.
The opposing player has to listen carefully while watching his fallacy cards. When the person arguing makes a fallacy that matches a card, he plays that card ending the turn. Now that player has to pick a person of the opposite political system with a similarity to the person just played and argue that that person is worse and therefore the guilty/evilness/hypocrisy/etc of his opponent is far greater. He keeps going until the opposing player gets to play a fallacy card.
It keeps going like that, switching back and forth until either:
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A player is able to play all his fallacy cards on his opponent, thus winning (kinda like Uno) or…
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A player argues Hitler and play immediately proceeds into the Hitler speed round. Each player draws a “Reich card” from the pile that matches their playing piece. Each Reich card contains a scholarly paper or book “proving” that Hitler was the opposite political persuasion. Both players must simultaneously argue their “Reich cards” while trying to play their remaining fallacy cards. Play continues until one player plays out all his fallacy cards and wins.
Additional rules:
The special “Fact check” fallacy card plays as a normal fallacy card except in the Hitler speed round. When played in the speed round the person who dealt it, gets to draw three "Reich cards’ from his opponents unused pile, and if any of those contradict his opponents argument he immediately wins. Failing that it just plays as a normal fallacy card.
Example of play:
Elephant wins role and goes first and uses Michael Moore. Shortly into the discussion he calls Michael Moore a “Fat Bastard” and Donkey plays the “Ad Hominem car” and argues Rush Limbaugh.
Donkey dominates with Rush Limbaugh until he argues that Rush poisoned the media making it much more divisive after he came along, because, after all, Talk radio wasn’t polarized until after Rush. In a spectacular move Elephant plays Post hoc ergo propter hoc," and wins the floor.
Play continues back and forth in this fashion until finds Donkey himself behind on fallacy cards. Knowing his only chance is to to the Hitler Speed Round he plays “Fallacy of misplaced concretion” on Elephants “Acorn and Union Reps bussed in to Town Hall meetings.”
With quick thinking Donkey intentionally commits a logical fallacy with the “Heil Hitler lady at town Hall,” and traps Elephant into playing his “argumentum ad misericordiam (appeal to pity”) card.
Elephant uses “Heil Hitler lady” to play “Hitler” and play immediately proceeds into the lightning round.
Donkey’s plan backfires though because he draws a Reich Card citing the Daily Kos, while elephant got lucky with the book “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg.” It’s gonna be tough for Donkey cause this book is a primary cite used by a lot of the other Elephant Reich Cards, while the Daily Kos argument is a largely unsupported special case.
Donkey starts stammering and Elephant goes for the kill with a version of the Socialist Health Care Nazi Argument #4, but forgets Bismarck.
Seizing the lucky break Donkey plays fact check and wins!
What fun!
Ok. Now that you know the rules, who wants to play?
