political debate codes

There’s an old joke where a guy gets sentenced to prison and on his first day he hears prisoners in various cells shouting out numbers. One prisoner shouts out “12” and the cell block fills with chuckles, another shouts out “124” and gales of laughter follow. The new guy asks his cell mate what’s going on and he explains that because everyone has been locked up together for so many years and have heard each other’s jokes scores of times, they decided to save time by simply assigning a number to each joke, rather than going through the bother of recounting the whole joke. The new guy is intrigued, decides to join in on the fun and shouts out “470”. The entire cell block erupts in laughter that shakes the walls. The new guy asks his cell mate why everyone is laughing so hard and the cell mate responds, “they never heard that one before” (alternative ending: the new guy shouts out ‘470’ and no one laughs. The cell mate says “some people just aren’t any good at telling jokes”)

Why not adopt a similar coding system to save time and effort for other repetitive forms of communication? One could adopt a code system like this when engaging in political debates and simply post numbers which correspond to well-known responses one has heard scores of times before.
For example:

  1. He wants you to think he’s a moron. Really he’s playing four dimensional chess.
  2. Oh yeah, well what about Benghazi!
  3. Oh yeah, well what about the missing emails!
  4. Well, both sides have been guilty of doing this sort of thing
  5. And how is Mexico paying for it?
  6. Who are you, Baghdad Bob?
  7. And you’re welcoming all the bloodthirsty terrorists and gang members in that caravan?
  8. Socialist!
  9. Alt-Right sympathizer!
  10. Do you have any, you know, actual evidence to support that conspiracy theory?

That’s just a handful. What other codes could be used? Add your own.

Mods: I’m putting this in IMHO, but if you think it should go in thread games, elections, or wherever feel free to move it.

  1. “socialism = Venezuela”
  2. “Pro-lifers aren’t pro-life; they’re anti-choice”
  3. “Rethuglican”
  4. “We spend ____ on the military; imagine if we spent that on schools and hospitals instead”
  5. “big gun = small penis”
  6. “Faux News”
  7. “Democrats haven’t been this mad since Lincoln freed the slaves”
  1. “Jesus would be a liberal”
  2. “Jesus was a conservative”
  3. “Trump talks about fetus lives but rips kids from their parents at the border”
  4. “Conservatives have no business talking about morals after electing a pussy-grabber”
  5. “Soros”
  6. “Koch Brothers”
  7. “Putin”
  1. No collusion
  2. YES! collusion
  3. Vast right-wing conspiracy
  4. Witch hunt
  5. God, guns and guts
  1. What an interesting question. Here, let me change the subject for you.
  2. That’s a nasty political trick. Why did those rotten scoundrels think of it first?
  1. Wake up sheeple! BTW let me interest you in these affordable silver supplements…
  2. Invoke Godwin’s law
  3. That’s nothing but class warfare

I’ve often had this exact thought about religion. So much of religious “debate” is just people reciting the same dumb arguments over and over, and wondering why their opponent isn’t convinced by their obvious brilliance. You might as well assign them all numbers and save everyone the time.

I’ve lost count of the number of people who have levied some variation of “Pascal’s Wager” at me, apparently sincere in their belief that this was the FIRST TIME anyone had formulated such a novel and compelling argument.