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No, none of this is logical. It’s petty and silly. But it is why ad hominem attacks on everyone from Michael Moore to Sarah Palin are so enduringly popular.

Logical types who are caught up in Robert’s Rules of Order and all those ancient boring and frankly arbitrary rules for debate and rhetoric just don’t get it; the average person doesn’t care about your elaborate arguments and statistics and clever quotations, which are probably read only by people who more or less agree with you already.

They just know Al Gore seems like a fat pushy scold with too much money, and Sarah Palin has too many kids for their liking, and Ron Paul is as cuddly as a rusty bear trap, and I have an ugly voice and frown all the time.

They’re too busy living ordinary lives to spend hours reading Ayn Rand or Koranic apologists or William F. Buckley or to find out that the number of Catholic priests who’ve abused children is about 0.1%. They make judgements based on the evidence of their senses, then rush off to the next thing.

It’s all very shallow. Most of us are.

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(for the record I consider myself a libertarian and would legalize pot in a heartbeat even though I don’t and won’t partake in it. - I also don’t smoke or drink but wouldn’t make it illegal for others to do it either.)

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