Internet Arguments

Semi-recently a poorly-informed Conservative reader accused me of never drawing about Hunter and/or Joe Biden which as you can see is a false accusation because the cartoon you just looked at was drawn over two months ago.

I didn’t respond to the poorly-informed Conservative reader’s accusation when he made it and to understand why we have to set the Wayback Machine to the Dawn of the Internet which for most people was the mid-1990s, although if memory serves I slept-in that decade so it might have been even earlier for some of you.

Either way, when they gave me a baseball blog in 2010 the Kansas City Star encouraged me to respond to each and every reader comment which in retrospect was incredibly naïve and even stupider which to my surprise is an actual word even though it probably shouldn’t be.

Anyway...

Turned out most posted comments were negative (satisfied people are less likely to comment) and some of those negative people had way more time and interest in having an internet argument than I did. And the fact that I responded at all got them excited and energized and no matter how much evidence I piled up that what they said was illogical, factually inaccurate and quite possibly moronic, they’d ignore that mountain of evidence, abandon their previous position which was now a smoking hole in the ground and make some brand new claim:

“OK, let’s ignore the fact that I just said Donald Trump freed the slaves and we’ll now concentrate on my current position: transgender athletes are causing climate change.”

Life has taught me that sticking to the truth and providing evidence for what you say is a huuuge disadvantage in an argument when the person you’re arguing with doesn’t mind making shit up.

Also: if I responded to a brand new claim and destroyed it they’d have yet another brand new claim the next day and when I realized I’d been having a week-long debate about baseball with a high school student who had never actually played the game I finally said this is fucking nuts and quit responding. 

In retrospect, the people who thought it was a great idea to respond to each and every comment were editors who didn’t actually produce anything of their own so they never had comments to respond to and when I told them I was spending two to three hours a day arguing with idiots instead of doing my job they looked like the people who were pretty sure the Earth was the center of the universe and Copernicus had to be exaggerating. 

After that I pretty much said to Hell with it, let people say whatever they want to and got on with my life.

Having said that…

In my experience, there’s not much point in two people arguing all by themselves because nobody ever says, “Now that you point that out, I definitely have my head up my ass” and admits they’re wrong in the middle of an argument and far too often that group of stubborn dumbbells includes me. That being the case, arguments are actually conducted for the benefit of whatever third party is listening in and if there is no third party listening in, there’s probably no point in arguing.

When someone makes false claims about you, there are two options:

1. Take the high road and not respond, but if someone keeps just repeating a lie you might wind up with 69% of Republicans believing Donald Trump won the last election…

2. Or take the low road and respond and then someone might think you’re overly defensive which might also mean maybe there’s some truth to the charges.

As Eleanor Roosevelt may or may have not said (the internet gives no definitive answer): “Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t” and I think the only thing we can agree on is it’s pretty surprising Eleanor was such a potty-mouth which makes me like her even more than I did before I knew she didn’t mind dropping the occasional White House D-bomb.  

You go, girl.

BTW: Every couple years I make the same point (I draw cartoons critical of Liberals and Democrats, just not as often as I draw about Republicans) and someone will say I shouldn’t be so defensive which is kinda like sitting ringside and advising a boxer to not block any punches. Hey, I’m the one getting hit and I’ll block punches whenever I feel like it.

Now here’s what I have to say when people accuse me of being biased:

NO SHIT, SHERLOCK, I DEAL IN OPINION.  

Complaining I don’t draw nearly enough cartoons critical of Joe Biden is like going to a jazz club and complaining they don’t play nearly enough Toby Keith. Or going to a sushi restaurant and getting angry that Big Macs aren’t on the menu. Or going to a yoga class and complaining that they don’t serve mojitos.

(Clearly, I can do this all day, so maybe we should move on because if the first three examples didn’t do it for you I’m not sure a fourth example would clear things up.)

Basically: why go to a place that you know doesn’t provide what you’re seeking unless you’re just an asshole who likes to complain and if that’s the case you should really be running for president or doing stand-up comedy because the two are remarkably similar.

The Balance Misconception

This is not the first time a reader complained that I’m not “balanced” (which is true) and that I never say anything negative about Democrats (which is false) and I went through all this two year ago when I posted 27 cartoons I’d done that year criticizing Liberals and/or Democrats and if you want to see them and read what I had to say back then, which is pretty much the same thing I’m saying right now, here you go:

https://leejudge.substack.com/p/reader-complaints-part-1

https://leejudge.substack.com/p/reader-complaints-part-2

Short version for the late-arriving members of the audience:

Hard news reporters are supposed to talk to both sides (at least theoretically) and write a “balanced” article which is a nice idea, but in reality when some knuckleheads in Kansas made evolution an issue one side of the argument was being presented by actual scientists with degrees in scientificy-things like paleontology and biology and the other side of the argument was being presented by enraged religious nuts whose only qualification to discuss evolution was having a King James’ Bible shoved up their butts.

But people who deal in opinion aren’t required to argue both sides of an issue.

As Philadelphia Inquirer political cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Auth once asked: if he were working during World War II would you expect him to draw a few pro-Hitler cartoons?

When it comes to opinion, balance is achieved by allowing more than one voice to speak and letting people on the other side of the issue have their say. So if you want to see more cartoons critical of Joe Biden you should look at the work of cartoonists with a Conservative point of view, not expect me to draw cartoons I don’t agree with.

Complaints about cartoon subject matter come down to this:

Why aren’t you drawing about the stuff I’m pissed off about instead of the stuff you’re pissed off about and the answer is pretty simple: my name’s on the cartoon.

I’m not telling anyone else what they should think; I’m telling readers what I think and if that makes sense to them great, but if it doesn’t make sense to them that’s OK too. If they don’t like what I draw, the solution is pretty simple: quit looking at it.

I draw about Republicans more often than Democrats because I disagree with Republicans more often, but I still draw about Democrats occasionally and here are a few examples from this year.

Joe Biden said he’d like another term to finish the job he started so I decided to illustrate what that job looks like so far…

Trump got in trouble for having documents he wasn’t supposed to have and then we learned Biden did too which temporarily took some of the heat off Trump…

Cocaine was found in the White House, which as the cartoon suggests was somewhat surprising…

A number of people (if by “number” you mean pretty much everybody) have suggested that Donald Trump has enough baggage to start a luggage store so I thought it was only fair to point out Biden is dragging a ball and chain of his own which I just realized is a mixed metaphor, but at these prices I’m not going back to fix it…

After the Silicon Valley Bank imploded Biden assured America the banking system was safe and I figured that was a good time to point out how many things aren’t…

Biden and Kevin McCarthy (the House Speaker, not the cool Invasion of the Body Snatchers Kevin McCarthy) came up with a deal on the debt issue and at the time this cartoon was drawn it still wasn’t clear if it would get Congressional approval…

Biden teed one up for me when after an annual physical he said he felt “healthy and energized” so I thought it worth pointing out that the Democratic Party doesn’t…

Biden visited Ukraine to show support, but didn’t provide the weapons systems the Ukrainians wanted…

In closing…

If Conservative readers are really all that concerned about “balance” you gotta wonder how many times they’ve complained to Fox News that they just don’t have enough negative things to say about Donald Trump or the Republicans which if you think about it, and I just did, means I really need to draw a lot more anti-Trump cartoons to balance out Fox News.

And I’m happy to give that a shot.

http://kingfeatures.com/comics/editorial-cartoons-a-z/