"When the debate is
lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser" -Socrates
Let’s disassemble this.
1. There is no evidence of
this being a quote of Socrates. It has been attributed to him in various social
media since 2008 but no scholarly source has it as a quote. But then experts.
2. Since it isn’t a quote,
I’ll call it a phrase and we can parse it out.
“When the debate is lost” –
What debate is that? Our Presidential election was a debate? In the context of this posting that seems to
be it. So how was the debate lost? Trump
didn’t have a landslide win despite what people tell him and he believes. 46th
out of 56 elections, since Kennedy in 1960 his win is better than only Carter’s
and the two GW Bush elections and only 48% of the vote. An election isn’t a debate in any case. It is
a battle between competing ideologies and policies. The “winner” gets to try to
implement their ideologies, that doesn’t mean in any way they are correct or
that the “losers” are wrong. That is a
false dichotomy logical fallacy. But then logic.
3. “slander becomes the tool
of the loser.” slan . der noun the action or crime of making a false spoken
statement damaging to a person's reputation.
So who’s reputation are false, damaging statements being made against?
Trump’s? Maybe his policies or those of the GOP? First there is an assumption
here that false statements are being made.
What would those be? That Trump’s campaign personnel talked with
Russians before the election and lied about it? That Trump has made many trips
to Russia over the last few years with no deals made and lied about it? That he
owes millions to Germany’s Duetche Bank which has been fined 100’s of millions
for illegal laundering of Russian criminal money. That Trump is making money
personally from his being President, in direct violation of the Constitution?
There are so many. Are any of them false? There are a lot of investigations
ongoing that seem to be finding evidence. Any of this slander? They are valid
questions, more valid than questioning Obama’s US citizenship for which
“Slander! Slander!” was not cried. To say Trump is a child molester could be
slander because there is… oops, there is evidence of that. To say Trump was born in Peru of Peruvian
parents would be slander. But then
Kenya.
4. The insidious part of this
phrase is that it implies that the winner is right, the loser is wrong, and
that the loser is lying. Not just lying, committing slander in a legal sense.
To be shut up in a legal sense. This is fundamentally un-Constitutional and
un-American, directly violates the First Amendment. If acted upon by the
government, fascist. The first amendment establishes free speech against the
government. Trump is the government now. He is in the big boy game now, not his
New York real estate wheeling and dealing bullshit life. Slander is off the
table for him and his supporters now. But then World War II.
5. But then emails!
