Verbal Brawling, Part I

The stakes have never been higher. Not since the Civil War. Maybe not since the Revolutionary War. We are trying to hold on to our constitutional republic form of government. The alternative is tyranny. As Candace Owens has put it,

Democratic Socialism is simply your opportunity to have a small say in what sort of dictator you have.

I don’t want a dictator. It breaks my heart that we are on the verge of possibly losing the most divinely inspired form of civil governance the world has ever seen.

Because the spheres are interrelated, the same people who favor tyranny over freedom also bring about poverty and savagery. These are not things we can compromise on. We need to stand strong. It’s an idea war—and I pray it doesn’t become a physical war, which has already been breaking out in various cities.

When you face the uncivilized, you may have to get a bit muddy. If you find yourself in an alley with predators surrounding you, it might help if you have some experience as a brawler. Four years ago I did not see the value of having such a president—especially when I did not yet have reason to trust that he would act on protecting the Constitution. But now, with a good, solid track record of appointing constitutionalist judges, and prioritizing America in foreign policy, and cutting back on taxes and harmful regulations, and being duly respectful and reverent in ceremonies, I see the value of this president.

And he happens to be a brawler. Which is handy in the dark alley full of predators we find ourselves in.

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, image from Wikipedia

So, Tuesday night’s debate was a brawl. It was ugly and uncomfortable. And it may not have shifted anyone’s vote. But maybe there are some truths that a closer look can bring out.

I thought I could do a simple post in response, but it was a long and messy debate. So it will take two parts.

I’m using a transcript—above 19,000 words, summarizing a great many words as “crosstalk.” I’m glad I didn’t have to transcribe it myself. But a transcript allows a bit less emotion than an audio or visual replay. I used look at written versions of Obama speeches, because his condescending tone of voice ticked me off so that I couldn’t fairly evaluate his message. Printed words are calmer, and that will help us evaluate what happened Tuesday.

Below-the-Belt Hits

We are told that President Trump is rude and not presidential. Who tells us this? The opposition, and the media. So let’s take a look at that opposition.

During this debate Joe Biden used these words aimed at the President of the United States:

·         You're not going to be able to shut him up.

·         Everybody knows he's a liar.

·         The wrong guy, the wrong night, at the wrong time.

·         And the fact is this man doesn't know what he's talking about.

·         Will you shut up, man?

·         This is so un-Presidential.

·         Keep yapping, man.

·         unless he gets a lot smarter…

·         Oh, give me a break.

·         Will he just shush for a minute?

·         He sits in his golf course. Well, I mean, literally, think about it.

·         He's a fool on this.

·         Because you weren't president and screwing things up.

·         You're the worst president America has ever had.

·         (on the economy) He blew it.

·         Well, it's hard to get any word in with this clown.

·         Try to be honest.

·         He's the racist.

·         This is ridiculous.

·         Absolutely ridiculous.

·         He wouldn't know a suburb unless you took a wrong turn.

·         This is not 1950. All these dog whistles and racism don't work anymore.

·         You have no idea about anything.

·         He's Putin's puppy.

·         He never keeps his word.

·         I can't remember which of all his rantings…

·         He has no idea what he's talking about.

President Trump was not exactly congenial. Talking out of turn was his tactic. It was also his way of getting his words out there, because the moderator wasn't likely to help. Anyway, it was harder to come up with his list of name calling, or similar disrespect, against Joe Biden. Maybe these qualify:

·         (in response to Joe Biden calling him a liar) Joe, you're the liar. You graduated last in your class, not first in your class.

·         And they're going to dominate you, Joe. You know that.

·         When needed, I wear masks…. I don't wear a mask like him. Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen.

·         (about comparing Trump’s large outdoor rallies to Biden’s small events) Because nobody will show up.

·         He called the military stupid bastards…. He said it on tape. [The audio has been played on various podcasts to verify since the debate.]

Other than “You’re the liar,” which is probably fact-check provable, I don’t see any actual name calling. Even among these responses, most offer actual facts rather than ad hominem attacks. And there isn’t a single instance in the entire debate where one of these comes out of the blue, instead of in response to a Biden lie or name-calling attack.

In short, every punch was in response to a low-blow attack. What is a brawler to do? Stand still and take it so that the predators will compliment him for playing nice?

 

Deceit, Dissembling, and Outright Lies

Deceit is a tactic of the savage tyrant. And we saw that. In case you missed this detail, before the debate Biden refused to submit to either a drug test or an ear check. The drug test was to see if he was using something like Adderall to help him focus; the accusation is that he’s in the early stages of dementia. I don’t much blame him for the refusal. If the accusations are true, his side will be covering that up; if they aren’t true, they’re very offensive. Looking at recordings of him over the decades, compared to the past few months, I think the accusations are true. I’m actually surprised he held up as well as he did.

But the second detail is the ear check; that’s for microphones. In a debate, you’re supposed to be answering the questions yourself, using your own knowledge and recall. There’s been evidence that he has used a microphone to feed him things to say during recent townhall meetings. People are looking. Some photos from the debate show that he had a wire at times showing out of his jacket, and out of his sleeve. Could they be doctored? Possibly. I didn’t do the frame-by-frame search of video myself to know. But I did go to get a second opinion, which might interest you, here. (Here’s what that same source said about the earlier townhall earpiece.)

Biden wears a wire at first debate
screenshots from here

I want to cover a few of the lies—of Joe Biden, and often carried by moderator Chris Wallace. I tried covering them all; it wasn't doable in blog post form. I even removed multiple segments I had originally written about. There were just too many.

 

Healthcare

Concerning healthcare, Biden claims he has a plan—but this is after he was in the administration that rammed Obamacare down our throats. We’re not satisfied with progress so far, but at least the mandate penalty has been removed. Obama, Bernie Sanders, and many other Democrats have admitted their ultimate goal is a one-payer socialized medicine system. Biden says that's not his plan at all. When President Trump points out that what Biden is saying now isn’t what his party says, Biden says:

JOE BIDEN: The party is me. Right now, I am the Democratic Party.

DONALD TRUMP: And they're going to dominate you, Joe. You know that.

JOE BIDEN: I am the Democratic Party right now.

DONALD TRUMP: Not according to Harris.

JOE BIDEN: The platform of the Democratic Party is what I, in fact, approved of, what I approved of. Now, here's the deal. The deal is that it's going to wipe out pre-existing conditions.

You remember the big lie from the Obama/Biden administration: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your healthcare, you can keep it.” Add to that, “It will be lower cost,” except for the vast majority of Americans, for whom costs skyrocketed while quality and choice decreased. So let’s count this whole healthcare question as a Biden lie.

Pandemic Response

Next lie. On the pandemic response. Biden says he’s had a plan since March, and that Trump still has no plan. But his entire offering is having the government pay for everybody’s protective gear. Yet, even with masks everywhere, Biden isn’t willing to have anything open up—before the election.

Yeah. Trump calls him on it.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, he wants to shut down this country and I want to keep it open, and we did a great thing by shutting it down—

JOE BIDEN: You just admitted you'd shut it down.

DONALD TRUMP: Wait a minute, Joe. Let me shut you down for a second, Joe, just for one second. He wants to shut down the country. We just went through it. We had to, because we didn't know anything about the disease. Now we've found that elderly people with heart problems and diabetes and different problems are very, very vulnerable. We learned a lot. Young children aren't, even younger people aren't. We've learned a lot, but he wants to shut it down. More people will be hurt by continuing. If you look at Pennsylvania, if you look at certain states that have been shut down, they have Democrat governors, all. One of the reasons they shut down is because they want to keep it shut down until after the election on November 3rd.

Here's a good summary of the differences:

DONALD TRUMP: People want their places open. They want to get back to their lives.

JOE BIDEN: People want to be safe.

Trump is right; people are capable of using common sense. They don’t need to be held captive in their homes—until Biden or some other tyrant gets even more power over them.

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden
first debate, September 29, 2020
Getty image, found here

 

Economy

On to the economy. Chris Wallace fairly acknowledges that the economy is recovering from the shutdown faster than expected. Biden tries to claim only the extremely wealthy benefit from anything this administration does. And he repeats the false attack from this past week’s news about Trump’s taxes—which shows us a crime has been committed. Either the reporter and/or leaker made it up, and they’re ripe for a defamation lawsuit, or the anonymous leaker broke the law in revealing a citizen’s private tax information. So we know the report comes from a lawbreaker. And I think we’ve seen this story before.

JOE BIDEN: This guy paid a total of $750 in taxes.

Eventually Chris Wallace gives the president a chance to respond to the charge:

DONALD TRUMP: I paid millions of dollars in taxes, millions of dollars of income tax. And let me just tell you, there was a story in one of the papers that paid—

JOE BIDEN: Show us your tax returns.

DONALD TRUMP: I paid $38 million one year, I paid $27 million one year.

JOE BIDEN: Show us your tax returns.

DONALD TRUMP: You'll see it. As soon as it's finished, you'll see it. You know, if you wanted to, go to the Board of Elections. There's 118-page or so report that says everything I have, every bank I have. I'm totally under-leveraged, because the assets are extremely good, and I built a great company.

CHRIS WALLACE: Sir, I'm asking you a specific question, which is—

He answers the question. Multiple times. He adds that he has additional financial disclosures to corroborate, and they’re already public record.

This is reminiscent of the attack by Harry Reid on Mitt Romney. Eventually, after the election, it became evident that Romney had been truthful and Harry Reid had outright lied. When asked about it, Reid said, “Well, he didn’t win, did he?” That’s what this is. What you’re not seeing is Biden’s financial dealings. Because there’s a lot of dirt there, which we'll get to next.

 

We’ve got that one more category under Deceit, Dissembling, and Outright Lies. But that will be easier to digest in a second post, where we’ll also cover some of the good and better answers.