Thanks for tuning in. This is my first post at Daily Kos, and as a new diarist I hope that those of you who feel inclined to comment can tell me if I'm doing anything contrary to the local etiquette.
As a matter of rhetoric, I was educated to engage the best arguments in favor of something first, so that by undermining them your adversary is left with his weaker arguments. As soon as you can push the person with whom you're arguing from a strong argument towards a weaker one, you've established a nice trajectory, and convincing them to your point of view becomes possible. Being civil and pleasant about it always helps, too. You might as well leave the person room to agree with you, and make it pleasant to do so. Accordingly, I've been concerned that lefties such as ourselves have been focusing too much on the easy stuff (i.e., "Bush Lied About WMD"), and not engaging the better arguments in favor of the war as well as we could.
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