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[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Interesting. I think I understand what you are saying here, but let me see if I can use a hypothetical example and you can tell me if I am tracking you. Suppose someone makes a statement that is demonstrably false. Something like: "Hillary wasn't branded as shrill." Then, suppose someone else does a simple Google search and finds dozens of article discussing the phenomenon of Hillary being branded as shrill. If the first person were to, in your words, try to preserve his original dubious claim via semantic gamesmanship, he might say something completely off the wall like:

"I can cross reference two of just about any words and give you three pages of google links (most of which are regurgitations of the same text from aggregators). 'Ernest Borgnine nude' and 'jalapeno cheesecake' each deliver ten pages of links."

And then he might try to further distract with some childish sign off like: "Try again."

Is this a good illustration of what you are talking about? Instead of admitting he is wrong, the first person digs in and tries to preserve his dubious claim (here, that "Hillary wasn't branded as shrill") by ignoring the substance of the internet search (which is dozens of articles discussing how Hillary was branded as shrill). Instead, he engages in semantic gamesmanship, and tries to reframe the argument to be about something completely unrelated (whether you can generate lots of search hits with with random search terms). This person is not engaging in honest argumentation, because that would require him to admit he was wrong, which he is incapable of doing. So, instead, he tries to "win" the argument using distraction and semantic games so he does not have to admit that his original incorrect assertion was based not on any actual facts, but rather on his own deep-seated (albeit vehemently denied) biases.

careful- this sounds like when Ty didn't know the difference between FSAs and HSAs and was talking out his ass trying to school me- he still hasn't admitted his error.