You're reading my mind.

It's sort of the "Do You Still Beat Your Wife?" line of argument. Ain't no way to answer without proving your opponent's point.

I've been thinking about this, because yesterday in a comments thread, a guy said I had "thin skin" and then went on to say "It's not about you."
Well, how do you respond to that? I can't. If I do, I "prove" that I have thin skin and that I think it's about me. But of course if I don't respond, I'm leaving his remarks out there as the final word.

I recall informal debates in high school that would end as soon as one person started saying, "You're so argumentative! You just have to be right all the time."
No way to respond to that without arguing the converse or asserting that your critic is wrong. Defending yourself proves their point.

Arggghhh.

Anyways . . . good post. ;-)

You're so oversensitive! Geez! Why can't you just admit you're wrong and stop blaming the victim?

Actually, I think things often get especially pernicious in religious debates, because any sound intellectual point can be written off as spiritual blindness, or vice versa.

"Discernment," in particular, is a lovely catch-all for conservatives. Why is X evil? Because it's blinding you to how evil it really is!

On the liberal side, fun may be had with intellectual snobbery. Why is X position wrong? Because it's backward and bigoted. Why is it backward and bigoted? Because it disagrees with my position, of course!