Having seen how the debate format can be broken down, / can be hijacked by bad faith debaters, / I resolved to list the common tactics that are used by bad faith arguers. // / first, the Dodger, / the Twister, / the Wrangler, / and fourth, the Liar. // // / So you might say something like, / we need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels / because climate change is getting out of hand. // // / why do you drive a four-wheel drive? // / but not to the point that you had raised. // / is to stay the course / and to keep bringing the discussion back to the original point / and highlighting that they are trying to change / what the disagreement is about. // / And the Twister's signature move is to misrepresent the point that you're making. // / I'm opposed to increasing taxes, / the Twister might say, / does that mean you have no concern for Social Security? // / It's the one they're thrusting on you. // To respond to the Twister, / it's imperative to correct the record and say, / No, that's not what I'm saying. // You can often get into a position of arguing for something you don't believe, / or at least the conversation splitting / and you not being able to connect and talk about the same issue. // The third kind of bad arguer is called the Wrangler, / and this is the person for whom nothing is ever good enough. // They're very good at coming up with critiques / against just about everything that you're saying, / but they never offer an alternative of their own. // And so the appropriate response to the Wrangler / is to say, / Well, what do you believe? // In other words, / to pin them to a position // so that they too have to argue / in favor of something / rather than always saying no. // The fourth personality, / and someone we see // just about everywhere, / is the Liar. // They usually don't tell one lie. / They tell many. // The strategy against a Liar // is to choose one or two representative lies / that you think best exemplifies / the approach / that the Liar is taking in a disagreement. // Then debaters do something called plug and replace. // You replace the lie with a truth. // And so by plugging in the lie / and then replacing it with the truth, / you can demonstrate the ways in which the lie falls short / and try and explain how that's symptomatic of / a broader approach / that the Liar is taking to the debate. //