I went to college with a guy I'll call K.  K was a master of argumentification.  I'm serious; you could start a discussion with K taking the position that the sky was generally blue if it wasn't cloudy out, and twenty hard hectoring minutes later, K would have you admitting that most if not all the time when you actually checked, it was kind of yellow, with pink polka dots.

How did he do this?  He learned verbal kung fu from his own mentor, a woman whose initials were C.K.  Here are the techniques C.K. taught K, which served him so well in his relentless pursuit of complete and utter dominance of any argument or disagreement he might ever find himself embroiled in:

* Interrupt your opponent constantly.  This ruins their train of thought and often gets them mad; when they're mad, they can't argue as well.  If they try to interrupt  you, stop them and firmly tell them that it's unbelievably rude to interrupt someone when they're speaking and if they'll just allow you to finish your thought, then you'll allow them to talk.

* Never qualify your opinion by saying things like "I believe" or "it seems to me".  State your subjective opinions and/or hypothetical theories as objective fact.  Insist that your opponent use qualifiers constantly when stating their own subjective feelings. 

* Make stuff up.  State your made up stuff authoritatively, without qualification.  Be bold.  Remember, people will swallow a big lie as easily as a small one, sometimes more so.

* Never admit you're wrong about anything.  If your opponent successfully refutes something you've said, change the subject and dive back in. 

* Never really give your opponent time to say anything.  The harder they try, the faster and louder you talk.  The substance of your argument doesn't really matter; if you can talk faster and louder than them, eventually they'll get tired of trying and give in.

* Never agree to disagree.  If your opponent suggests this, just shrug, roll your eyes, and say something like "whatever", and then toss in, a second later, when they think it's settled, "but you know I'm right". 

* If things are going badly for you, interject a complete non sequiter.  Something like "Sure, you say that now, but would you be so quick if it was your own mother?"  or "Hey, I drive an American car, buddy".  When this shuts them up for a moment in complete bewilderment, steam roller over them again. 

* If your opponent catches you in a lie, or calls you on any of the above tactics, deny it.  Say you have no idea what they're talking about, but you're trying to argue ideas, not take cheap shots at debating techniques.  Ask them sweetly if they give up now. 

K was an expert with these techniques; the only time in my life I ever heard him admit he'd lost an argument with me was six months after the argument, when we were having another argument about whether or not he'd ever lost an argument with me.  He pointed out the previous argument -- I'd created a character with the last name Gallery, he'd snorted and said that was a ridiculous name and nobody in real life was actually named Gallery, at which point, I'd opened the Syracuse phone book and found three pages of people named Gallery -- and after pointing out the argument, he told me "See, there.  You were right and I was wrong."  When I said "You never admitted you were wrong, you just closed the phone book and changed the subject!"  he snapped "Well, it was pretty obvious you were right, I don't see why I had to say so."

Good as K was, though, he was just a welterweight.  His mentor, C.K., was the heavyweight champion of the world at these things.  I once won a Trivial Pursuit game in which she was one of the other players, but it turned out the card with the answer to the winning question had a misprint on it, and identified the Hulk's secret identity as Steve Rogers.  Everyone at the table was a comics fan, so they knew my answer of "Robert Bruce Banner" was correct, but C.K. argued for twenty minutes that the rules explicitly stated that the answer on the card was to be considered correct, and by the time she was done, half the people playing weren't sure whether I'd actually won the game or not... or at least, that's what they said, as they were all tired of arguing about it.  Which is an integral part of the Way of the K.

I bring this up because it seems to me that The Way Of The K is very much evident in today's political discourse, especially among conservative pundits.  I think both K and C.K. would be especially proud of the way conservative media figures always insist on controlling the venue; people like Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh never debate anyone about anything if they can't control their opponent's microphone.  That's a worthy addition to the Way of the K... never let your opponent say a word if you can't shut them up whenever you want, and especially never debate them in front of an audience that isn't already sympathetic to you and hostile to them. 

And I can only imagine they'd both be in awe of the simple yet brilliant concept of carrying a loaded weapon to the argument.  Sure, you don't ever even have to refer to it while you're talking, but it's not like your unarmed opponent isn't going to be aware of the death machine you're wearing on your hip... and it isn't like the presumption that if you're crazy enough to wear it, you may well be crazy enough to use it, won't throw him or her off their game a little. 

 Maybe political discourse has always been an in  your face, win at any cost, take no prisoners sort of thing, and I just got exposed to it early, in a different context.  And perhaps there's simply no way people of passionately opposed views can remain civil when discussing such things. 

I can't help but feel, though, that civility would be to the benefit of the liberal/progressive agenda, if we could just get everybody involved in a conversation to behave that way.

And, honest to God, it really does seem to me that we could all start out by agreeing to leave the guns home when we're heading out to a political event.