It’s Time to Call Their Bluff
Here is a basic truth you can count on: in the culture wars, the other side will constantly throw at you all sorts of wild accusations, fake news, and reckless charges. Very little of it has any substance or credibility. Overwhelmingly they are just bluffing.
They simply make stuff up as they go along. And they have learned that if they can bombard you and overwhelm you with all these false claims and these mindless accusations, they can easily wear you down and silence you. That is why they do it so often.
So how might we respond to these sorts of underhanded tactics? Simple: Do not let them get away with it. Call their bluff. Demand that they put up real evidence for their specious claims, or tell them to zip it! We do not have to put up with all this baloney of theirs, and we can call them out on it.
I find myself dealing with these folks all the time. It gets all rather monotonous after a while, but we have to engage with these folks. We certainly cannot remain silent and let them get away with all their howlers and porkies. So let me share a few recent examples of this.
In one recent case, I had posted an article documenting three clear cases of anti-Christian bullying and bigotry by the homosexual activists. One gal came along and claimed that our side does exactly the same thing – all the time. I replied to her more or less as follows:
Let me call your bluff here. Please provide us with the names and details of three homosexuals who have lost their jobs and been bullied and harassed in Australia in the past 24 hours.
And I mentioned how I had documented heaps of these cases in my recent book. So I continued:
Better yet, please provide us with the names and details of 165 homosexuals who lost their jobs, were fined, or even jailed from January 2011 to October 2013. Pretending there is some sort of moral equivalence here is patently false. It is overwhelmingly the other side who is doing all the bullying, thuggery and hate, no matter how much they talk about love and tolerance.
So this gal replied by saying she maybe could provide a few names, but she would need to respect their privacy and keep things anonymous. I said this in reply:
Sorry, but forget the privacy and anonymity baloney here. As stated, please provide us with real names and real cases with actual dates all publicly verifiable, not just of 3 cases in Australia over the past 24 hours, but 165 cases over the 34 month period – just as I did. If you are unable or unwilling to do this, then we will need to keep calling your bluff. Saying something is so don’t make it so. Offering hard evidence and data is what is required here, not just reckless accusations and spurious claims. The truth of the matter stands: one side is overwhelmingly doing almost all of the hating, bullying and intimidation here – and it is not the “No” side.
This gal then went on to say that she had no time or money to provide such lists – implying that I somehow did! Yeah right, I’m rolling in the dough. So I said this in response:
Let me again call your bluff (it gets rather tiring to have to keep doing so). I have as much time and funds as you claim to have. I have done all this work and documentation on my own time and at my own expense. But since you keep making these bogus claims that our side is just as intolerant and hateful as is the other side, then please, we can wait. When you have provided the 168 cases, all properly documented, then please post it here for all of us to see. In the meantime, maybe you need to ease up on the baseless claims. It sort of discredits your case a bit as we all can see.
Incredibly she then went on to say that she actually works at an institute (presumably funded with my tax dollars) that looks into this sort of stuff all the time. So by now I knew I was dealing with a rather untrustworthy individual. One minute she was whining about how she had no time or money to provide the much needed evidence, and the next minute she tells me she is working for a group that does this very thing!
Her final remarks proved that she was just bluffing her way through this entire conversation. Instead of offering any hard data to back up her spurious claims, she simply resorted to a cheap shot. She obviously saw that my website has a place where people can contribute to my work (since I get zero dollars as payment, but do it all on a volunteer basis as I seek to support my family). So she said a few silly things including this:
“Perhaps if I had my bank account details and PayPal donation options on my website, I could retire and research until the cows came home.” Oh good grief. At this point I knew I was going to get nowhere fast with this gal. So I offered a “LOL” and just left that conversation.
If people are open and willing and really want to discuss things honestly and are keen on learning something, then I am happy to spend all day with them. But when they are clearly just mischievous trolls who want to come and argue and throw out a lot of nonsense claims, then my patience grows a bit thin with such folks.
And consider another example of this. In an article I wrote on how Australian homosexuals are NOT being discriminated against, I got a gal sending in this comment:
Would you object to changing the law so that black people must sit at the back of the bus? After all, why should they complain – they still get to ride the bus. The fact they can’t choose their seat is a minor thing. Of course you would object to that. It’s discriminatory and just plain wrong. So why can’t you apply the same logic to marriage equality?
I also find your use of the phrase “destruction of the institutions of marriage and family” shamefully inflammatory and without and basis.
If It’s traditional marriage you want to uphold then shouldn’t the laws be changed so that only churches can officianate marriage ceremonies. While we’re at it, let’s make the church in charge of divorce as well because it seems the church is claiming ownership of marriage. And of course, agnostics and atheists will no longer be allowed to get married – irrespective of sexual preference.
The narrow mindedness of this whole debate is bordering on sickening. Don’t worry about your Christian cake makers. They’ll be ok if marriage equality is passed as a law. It also won’t be the start of Armageddon.
Perhaps you should be thinking about why this debate is even happening. While everyone has been fighting, the govt has changed media ownership laws – that will have a greater affect on Australian every day life than gay people getting married. What else are they up to while everyone is distracted?
And in case you’re wondering – I’m Australian, straight, non-religious and married.
My response went as follows:
Thanks ****. But let me call your bluff here – or more accurately, your various bluffs. You begin my committing the logical fallacy known as the category mistake, which involves mixing two ideas that don’t belong together. Comparing apples with oranges in other words. Past discrimination against blacks based on their skin colour has absolutely nothing to do with affirming what marriage has always been about – the union of a man and a woman. The law applies equally to all people when it comes to marriage:
-two people, one male and one female
-not a close blood relation
-not a child
Meet those basic marriage requirements and anyone can marry. Thus there is no discrimination here whatsoever.And I have documented in a number of books and hundreds of articles just how the redefinition and destruction of marriage is already occurring. But if you want to keep your head in the sand and pretend none of this is happening that is up to you. Indeed, you have offered zero evidence or facts to make your case, but have simply engaged in name-calling and mud-slinging. There is nothing “narrow-minded” or “sickening” about being concerned about the radical assault on marriage, and how children especially are negatively impacted.
Try listening to one woman who grew up with lesbian parents, and how damaging that was to her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VADJyPCLklo
And what exactly do churches have to do with traditional marriage? Marriage has always been far more than just religious based. With or without religious backing, marriage has always been the union of one man and one woman, for the good of any children so conceived. And given that not one word was mentioned about religion in this article, why did you even bring it up. Why do you seem to be so obsessed with it?
And let me call your bluff on “Christian cake makers”. They are indeed being discriminated against, bullied, fired from their jobs, and treated like scum. I have documented hundreds of cases like this in my books and articles. So too the florists, reception hall owners, photographers, printers, and others who have all been targeted by the militants. Try telling all those who have already lost their livelihood and their businesses, or been fined, or even jailed for refusing to deny what marriage is really about that Armageddon had not started. They are NOT OK as you so glibly suggest. Some have lost everything, yet you sit there in dreamland trying to tell us nothing changes when fake marriage goes through.
And of course media ownership laws have absolutely nothing to do with this debate – another red herring of yours. Sorry, but you really have contributed nothing of substance here – just the usual assortment of reckless claims, logical fallacies and the hurling of abuse. You will need to do better than that I am afraid.
As mentioned, such comments are all very typical: no evidence is provided and no actual argument is made. They simply fling a bunch of wild and baseless accusations at you and hope they can somehow win an argument. And these comments are always nicely sprinkled with ad hominem attacks and abuse. And the amount of illogical thinking could fill a book.
But all this is par for the course. This is how so many on the other side “argue”. They are bluffing big time in other words, and sometimes we need to call them out on this. Sometimes we just need to call their bluff.
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I’ve found this to be the case many times. Almost without exception as soon as I ask for a source or demonstration where I may be wrong the conversation abruptly ends or turns to name calling (which is where I check out). Thankfully as time goes on (plus after taking advice from some of your articles) I am now engaging when I believe the person to be genuine and not fighting every battle (some people aren’t interested in the truth). Thanks Bill keep writing.
Thanks Craig – I will! And keep standing strong.
Thank You Bill, I have used your research and articles in some of my rebuttals with this lot. It gets very tiring. I give them enough to think about and shut them down, if it is going no where. I take a bit more time with the genuine ones, they start all aggressive and then simmer down after some engagement. I actually could do without it.
Love your work Bill.
Thanks Kim.
Hi Bill, many thanks for the good solid advice for effectively debating with the lgbtqr brigade. Last night I was trawling through A.B.S. data releases from 2016. From what I could decipher, our dear little friends from the gay community still only represent 1.60 – 1.70% of the total Australian Population. (What a noisy and clueless little bunch). Also Bill, regarding the young lass in Canberra who lost her job, if you in contact with her & her family, could you let her know that my wife & I are praying that God will supply her with a much better career.
Blessings, Kel.
I did exactly this just the other day – called someone’s bluff. They had commented on ‘heaps of examples’ where the NO case has been bullying, vitriolic etc. I said “fine give me one example”. “There are heaps of them, you’ve seen and heard them”. “No I haven’t. Give me just one to verify”. You could hear the crickets! I said “don’t bother debating if you are going to lie, fabricate and be uninformed, it presents you as desperate and unintelligent”. “Would you like some real examples from my side that you can go away and research?” There ended the so called debate.
Love reading your stuff Bill. I like your feistiness! God bless your ministry you are doing tremendous work.
Dear Bill, you are an invaluable resource. I have been referencing your articles so much on FB that, of late, they are marking my posts as spam. I believe the FB bots throwl looking for ‘spam’ as in repetitive posts. Of course I am repeating the same thing over and over, but not because I want to rather because I have to. But such is the new free speech. I may have found a loophole though. If you are interested, I can tell you ? Best regards, Pascal.
Many thanks Pascal.
Agree..thanks for giving us strategies and information to have respectful, but also factual debates and call their bluff Bill….Blessings
Thank you so much for your work. You speak for many who do not have the ability to so articulately “expose the hidden works of darkness.”
Thanks Ess and Linda.
In all the past years SINCE homosexual marriage has been past in 2015 and the continuation of people still trying to push for more, I’ve never once seen anything in the news where a person who vote yes or supported SSM got fired for voting yes either. Neither have I herd anyone been thrown in jail for supporting SSM. If there was any person who did, I would assume it’d been all of the media for weeks.
It is a glorious paradox that many men who vote “No” do so because they love – they worship a Man, the Man above all men. They love Him because He loved them first. He has real scars to prove His love.
Christ’s love teaches men to love their wives. He teaches men to honour both their mothers and their fathers. Men who obey this Man will never lead little children into temptation. Nor will they assent to the proposition that “woman came from woman and to woman she must return”.
Is there not a love which has no equal in the entire history of the universe?
Absolutely brilliant Bill, I truly wish that I had your talent for stating the obvious when it comes to some of the arguments that I come across, but, I keep reading your work and I WILL learn lol… Please keep up your good work, it means a lot to us, and thank you for sharing xo
I’ve had similar experiences recently, only from Christians.
To state the obvious, those of us who support traditional marriage, must fight back with all the strength at our disposal. The alternative is to terrible to contemplate.
Dear Mr Muehlenberg
I would like to thank you for your website. I have been praying for guidance for Godly wisdom on how to live an authentic Christian life in these troubled times. I don’t know how I got onto your website but I thank the Lord that I did. Thank you for encouraging us to challenge those on the Yes side of this debate. I cannot articulate things as well as you, but I have been able to challenge those on forums and letters to the editor, as well as friends who say that the No side is just as vicious as the Yes side. I have asked for examples, names and places etc and challenged their thinking. I thank you for your Godly encouragement and thank you for reminding me that my life is safely in the Lord’s hands and there is nothing man can do to separate me from God’s love, so why should I care what man says if I am faithfully following my Lord? God bless you and protect you and your family.
Many thanks indeed Robyn – bless you.
Margaret Colwell has given us a good overview of the bigotry and hatred from the other side:-
https://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/documenting-the-tide-of-bigotry-and-hatred/20446?utm_source=MercatorNet&utm_campaign=0b7cb18fc9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_22&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e581d204e2-0b7cb18fc9-124684635
Hi Bill
Here is a link to a video which brilliantly illustrates the calling-your-bluff tactic. TRIGGER WARNING: Contains images of Milo Yiannopoulos in full flight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTxSAjXpnqo
It is also very important never to let the other side think they have upset you. Years ago, Sydney radio talk-back ‘shock jock’ John Laws was called a ‘mongrel’ by one of his callers. His response was to print ‘I listen to the Mongrel’ T-shirts to give away to listeners, and to inaugurate a mongrel dog show, with a prize for the ugliest mutt in show.
Any similar tactic that stops your attacker short and leaves them nowhere to go has to be a winner.
Also see Ben Shapiro’s rules for debating leftists.
Dear Mr Bill,
I would also like to thank you for your website and your consistent bravery to support traditional Christian and Bible based values over many years. I saw the attached video last night and was deeply troubled about the serious deception and deceit that exists in parts of the Christian church. The old inclusiveness lies are restated by these wolves and the second speaker takes the cake with this HOWLER. It is “In the ‘spirit of Jesus” that we say yes the SSM.” A profoundly deceitful and false claim. Appalled !!! WIDE IS THE ROAD THAT ROA THAT LEADS TO DESTRUCTION.
God bless
Phil
http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/08/30/14/12/christian-marriage-equality-group-urge-australians-to-vote-yes
Isn’t it funny that the anti- Christian tries to turn the table by saying that Christians were bigots to the homosexuals. It was Christians who got fed to the lions in Rome, stoned by Jews and pagans and today are silenced for their beliefs in Christ by non Christians everywhere. You are right, name one homosexual that was stoned in Rome and, etc.