"We'll have to agree to disagree"

[progressoid]

Ugh, I hate that thought-terminating cliché.

Here's what happened. I just had a small interchange with someone on Facebook who I knew in high school. I was aware he was a right winger (not uncommon in the area where I grew up). Turns out he's also a climate denier. So he posted some stupid meme about Al Gore and the ice caps. After politely (really, I was polite) showing him more rational alternatives to bat-shit-crazy conspiracy nonsense he posted, he knew he was out of comebacks and said, "We'll have to agree to disagree."



Actually, he did have one little tidbit to add. He said he would have to agree with me because he didn't want to get hauled off to jail by Loretta Lynch. I had to look that one up. According to Breitbart, the US AG is going to prosecute climate deniers.

Really. It was the fourth story down on Google news about Loretta Lynch https://www.google.com/search?q=Loretta+Lynch&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=Loretta+Lynch&safe=off&tbm=nws




He'll likely be posting some of the same bullshit again. Time to remove another from my friend list I guess.

[Tobin S.]

1. I've heard the latest thing with those on the wrong side of this issue is...

that they no longer deny global warming and climate change. The evidence is becoming too overwhelming to deny. What they now argue is that humans are not the driving force behind global warming. It's a natural fluctuation that we can't do anything about.

Here's the root of the problem. To successfully combat global warming we will have to totally change the world economy and the way we live. It pretty much means the end of capitalism. Unfortunately, we have to pit the fate of the planet against the pocket books of the global elite. Currently, money is winning.

I think the people like you describe in your post actually have Stockholm syndrome. That is, unless he's some billionaire or world leader.

[progressoid]

4. Yep, I've heard the "it's cyclical" or even "solar flares" excuse.

And this guy is hardly a billionaire or world leader. Just a typical right wing tool.

[trotsky]

7. We won't have to end capitalism.

We just need to change how we get our energy, and stop polluting. It can be done.

[Archae]

2. I guess so.

I had a former neighbor move to Louisiana, and she fell in with a crowd of far-right truckers.

Any and every anti-Obama rumor she would send to my e-mail.

[progressoid]

5. Got a couple of those in my family too.

What I don't get is if they send those emails just to provoke a response, or if they actually think we would be swayed by it.

Occasionally I will reply. But I've found that you can't mention Snopes. They think Snopes is in on it.

[Festivito]

3. No. Never. It's bait. INSTEAD: "Let's agree THAT we disagree."

Agreeing to disagree elevates disagreement as closure, an end. It's not.

Agreeing that we disagree is to say that we both acknowledge hearing each others ideas.

And, it provokes the idea that we need to identify that disagreement.

That's why Republicans use the wrong form. It is designed to let them run and hide from the truth rather than dealing with truth. They want to run back to their authority figures on radio and Fox listening to lengthy half-truths and rolling lists of unfinished unchallenged attacks. Attacks that make them feel powerful until they realize that they cannot answer challenges except by changing the topic quickly over and over again. Or, by invoking a false ending.

[progressoid]

6. Ha!

I'm not sure he would understand the difference.

Yes, in fact, he did run back to some crackpot website to get another false right wing talking point. I'm done with him.

[yellowcanine]

8. It is the Deniers who are going legal on the Climate Scientists.

Case in point: Ken Cuccinelli's witch hunt against Michael Mann.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ken-cuccinellis-climate-change-witch-hunt/2012/03/08/gIQApmdu5R_story.html

[progressoid]

9. Aw jeez,

"The university had to raise nearly $600,000 for legal fees — money the cash-strapped university should have been able to use for something productive."