First, look for someone who posts a link which represents the polar opposite of your political orientation. So if you are a big fan of Obama, then find one from the Tea Party. If you are a big Fox News fan, then find one which disparages Fox News. If you are a vegetarian, find one about veal parmesan. You get what I’m saying.

Above all, do not click on the link. There’s no need for that, you already have your political orientation, you aren’t some kind of waffling flip-flopper who changes your mind at the appearance of new information. Just leave the link alone, and then go straight to the comment box.

There, drop approximately four (4) cinderblocks of text in which you:

1. Announce that you are not affiliated politically or intellectually with what has been attacked, scrutinized, questioned, etc – by the link your Facebook friend posted.

2. Assert your incredible and unquestionable objectivity in general, preferably by claiming that you actually have no political orientation at all, that you are merely stopping by and commenting because you are an intellectual David Banner, who travels Facebook righting logical and rhetorical wrongs, all in the name of truth and justice. It’s your curse, really.

3. Then procede to blithely contradict whatever is at the link which you didn’t read. Be sure to sprinkle it with accusations of intellectual sheepitude, directed toward anyone who actually believes what the person posted, but insist that you aren’t trying to be insulting or argumentative.

4. Close with some kind of argumentative insult, directed toward anyone who disagrees with you.

Now 94% of the time, either nothing will happen because you will have successfully convinced everyone on Facebook of your perspective, possibly putting an intellectual end to an entire ideology. Or everyone will pile onto the comment section to cheer your bullet-proof logic and also to thank you for opening their eyes.

Remember, most political and intellectual topics are just a few glib paragraphs away from a rock-solid, species-wide resolution. In such normal circumstances, simply pat yourself on the back and then you might want to go and hang out with some people who already shared your mindset before you enlightened the world with it. Then you can all re-enact the debate and congratulate each other for being so smart.

Of course, a small percentage of the time, people will respond to your comment, and as baffling as this will seem to you, they might still disagree with you and defend whatever is at the link.

I know, right? It’s like, didn’t they read your cinderblocks?

Well, no worries. First, check to see if they are making any spelling errors. Facebook has a well-known Zero Tolerance Policy when it comes to spelling and grammatical errors, so if you can detect one, then point it out and you will have rendered anything the commenter has said completely useless. It’s called the Reverse Bangkok Checkmate – be careful with that move, it’s like the nightshade, beautiful, mysterious, and deadly.

Unfortunately, some of these folks will not make such errors, or they may claim that typos have nothing to do with reason, logic, arguments, politics, math, etc. And sometimes, because of this, they will refuse to hang their heads in shame before your obvious intellectual domination, and if that’s the case, you’ll have to load on a few more cinderblocks.

Thusly:

Remember the salad bar. The idea is, you go through what the person said and find the weakest possible sentence, maybe two of them. Pull those suckers out and leave the rest behind. Especially if there’s anything in there to correct and/or eliminate any perceived weakness in the sentences you have selected. Meditate upon your selections, imagining a single hand clapping, until you can recall nothing else the person has typed. When you are finished, look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are Nature’s Greatest Miracle, ten solid times. Rephrase your previous cinderblocks, increasing smugness by approximately 50%. At the end, attack the two sentences you have selected. Insist that the two sentences not only represent the sum of everything the person has typed, but also that they reflect a possible mental problem in the commenter, and declare him or her to be unfit for Facebook Discourse by reason of insanity. Congratulate yourself for being smart, express pity for stupid people, then announce you are leaving because arguing with stupid people is such a waste of time. As opposed to most of your Facebook activity, which is all about cancer cures, synergistic money-making schemes, and philanthropy. If you know how to spell sheep noises, then go ahead and type them in there – but ONLY if you know how to spell them (see above).

Well, by now you are probably talking to just two or three of the hundreds or possibly thousands of people who can see the link, so you can assume that everyone except those two or three people agree with you.

If anyone continues arguing with you, just keep rephrasing your cinderblocks. Make sure they are the big, industrial cinder blocks – you want to make fifteen or sixteen points at a time so no one can respond without a flow chart.

Also, keep reminding the person that he or she is so beneath you intellectually, that you are violating all sorts of your own moral principles and also a few international treaties by even continuing to acknowledge them at all.

All the while, be sure to announce frequently that you are abandoning the argument because it has deviated from standard Harvard Law School Debate Protocol, which we all know is the Law of Facebook. But don’t really leave, sit there haunting the thread all day, jumping in for the last word every time anyone twitches.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ADDRESS ANYTHING THAT APPEARS TO BE A VALID POINT.

I can’t stress this enough. You know you’re right, and so does everyone else on Facebook, as they have tacitly made clear by their silence, so just go ahead and grout right over anything valid. If the person hounds you about it, then simply declare yourself the winner and leave, safe in the knowledge that another Dragon of Disinformation has been vanquished.

Later, you can always meet up with representatives of the 99.999% of the population who agree with absolutely everything you say, and then you can all re-enact the argument without the pesky arguer. Your dominion should at that point be clear and beyond debate.

Godspeed, Holy Facebook Warrior. You’ve done some good work today.

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Earlier: Welcome To The Harmless Ice Monster Project

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And: The Golden Voice Dance Remix: Engaging The Milker

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And: Future Tom Blog Force: Crisis On The Internet