- Argue about the meaning of words, conjunctions, prepositions, and so on in minute detail (This is sometimes necessary in good debate but usually just turns into sophism.)
- Shout
- Bang the table
- Tell the audience, "Clearly, obviously, without a doubt, plainly the other team is wrong."
- Appeal to the audience's intelligence. Like, "While correct in many things the other team is intellectually short-sighted in blah, blah, blah..." This convinces the audience to take your side because who wants to be intellectually short-sighted?
- Appeal to the original languages (this is useful only if A] you have a debate about the Bible and B] your opponents don't KNOW the original languages.)
- Never, EVER, ask your opponents or the audience an open ended question unless you know they will blunder. It just lets them talk more than you. That's bad when you're on a schedule. You should be doing all the talking.
- ALWAYS jump on open ended questions that the opposing teams ask you and try to give as long an answer as possible. This means you're talking more and they're talking less.
- Use obscene amounts of Scripture without referencing the context or even reading the verses.
- Use a sandbag argument that doesn't really matter and appeals to the emotions that way when your opponents waste 10 minutes talking about your sandbag argument they use up all their time on useless arguments, not your real argument.
- Claim that you won the debate in the final rebuttal (this is why having final rebuttal pays off for me almost every time.) If you leave them with the words, "Because the other team has failed to address point A and point B of in our arguments they have proved their view incoherent and have failed to convincingly win this debate. On the other hand, our position blah, blah, blah..." This is helpful because it also appeals to intelligence.
- Do none of these so that the audience can recognize that you are doing them, otherwise they'll see the through the ruse and sympathize with the other team. MODERATION! KNOW WHEN TO BACK OFF AND WHEN TO GO FOR THE THROAT!
- Never, EVER try to argue like this with your wife.
These are how you win debates when you're assigned to argue a side you don't agree with. Being intimately acquainted with both sides is a must, but rhetoric always helps! Don't ever argue like this for something you believe in, people WILL see the ruse.
Too bad so many of us argue like this all the time for stuff that really matters,
R.D. Thompson
