How to be Right, Greg Gutfeld

Book report.

This book is recommended on right wing weekend book thread in strong terms as must-read for every conservative. It cost $12.00.

This book was read in one day while compiling two time-lapse gifs that take a lot of time processing batch files, and watching t.v., so during commercials, basically, two things going on more interesting than this, the book is taken up as second sub routine.

It is a small hard cover book, only 228 pages. My copy arrived without the usual jacket.

This report will relate the contents of every page. Like a time-lapse.

The book is dedicated to Greg's mum. He claims she is on every page. There is a photo of the two. It is a touching photograph. He mentions her several times throughout and to the end.

Greg postulates in his introduction it is not enough to be right, that emotions rule logic and feeling trump fact. He attempts to explain why we argue assuming we still bother. The right dwells on this. Thanksgiving season brings it out, all feast holidays do, reacting to things posted on White House web site instructing people how to address recalcitrant conservative FOX-watching uncles. He advises against certain suicidal pill of being shrill.



A wisdom workout. The objective of the book is to instruct to effectively expressing pro-market, pro-individual, pro-freedom principles in a way that is persuasively right (correct). Using an example of a Rove blunder about attacking Hillary for being hospitalized during Benghazi hearing for a month, then wearing glasses used by head trauma patients, Gutfeld writes the right must become persuasively correct on a range of issues
* Economics where the catchphrase is 'economic equality.'
* Climate change, he offers nothing useful except to provide statistics with humor
* National security, explain spies must do sneaky things
* Gun control you can find common ground by neither side wants crazy people to get guns.
* Taxes, why can't we be fussy about the budget?
* Words, avoid jargons, embrace analogies.
* Charm
* Homework
* Humor
* Concede
* Avoid the apocalypse, don't throw bombs
* Appeal to common sense

1) Why we're evil. Nothing new here.
2) Liberalism is a hobby when things are going good, it is doing a puzzle on a rainy day that does nothing about the rain. It can exist only during periods of calm. Conservatism does not compete with liberalism, rather it sustains it.

A math problem, discussion on minimum wage. [So for liberals to get their minimum wage hike first they need conservatives to build businesses, to think like businessmen, to sacrifice their own salaries to pay others, to sleep on floors in order to break even. Then when they make a profit and things are great and calm sets in  then liberalism can appear and say "pay workers more."]

Example dismisses business operated by liberals.

2) Why the right loses arguments. Republicans are bad at humor. One party masters creativity, the other practicality. They should work together but instead they hate each other for being better at something they fail to master themselves.

2.1 We've been too successful
2.2 The left have the young
2.3 Liberalism is romantic
2.4 The deck is stacked -- academia and media

3. The joke's on you, discussion on importance of humor. [My simple, perhaps sole tactic has always been to extend liberal beliefs to absurd levels. Push the obvious until the argument can only tip to my favor]

* Redistribution, why stop with money?
* Global warming, offers a daft argument that does not support his idea of extension.
* White privilege, nothing useful here.
* Not just pro-choice, super-pro-choice. Use choice to avoid redheaded left-handed potentially obese fan of Coldplay.
* E-cigarettes, agree, push for ban on bottled water for looking like rum, and Baby Ruths because...
* Drugs, drug laws lead to criminal acts.
* Religious freedom restoration act, Tomorrow I'm going to a mosque and demand they host my wet t-shirt contest. Just let bigots be jerks and leave it at that.

Learn from Jon (Stewart) basically, be a trick interviewer, act friendly when intention is slice and dice.
Be good. Nothing useful here more discussion on Jon. More on anger management.
How to interpret "that's not funny." We already know.
The comedy of the sexes. Silverman's statement about women's wages.

4) Riposte, how to win with left wing dirty tricks. A few "they say," "they mean," "you respond" type examples given. Honestly there is nothing useful here that hasn't already been discussed right here, counter arguments that we're already versed. Actually, every example given is wearisome.

ex:
They say: Yo don't care about the poor."
They mean: We want more of your money.
You say: Your party keeps people poor.

The left knows that once the poor realize what works is what has always worked (independence not dependence), the left will no longer be needed so turn the argument on them, they hate the poor, make them defend.

And where went the good humor?

The left wing smear trick. Discussion on concentric circles of concern. A sort of revised Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

5) Find the Right's Obama. Discussion on pre and post internet era. Discussion on last election cycle. [In the tidal wave of Republican victories, did you see a trend or lack thereof? I saw one: no gaffes This was a new party. No old guys saying stupid things. The press tried to find some but they couldn't. The right must have candidates ready.

Lengthy boxed inset Politically incorrect or jerkface, a discussion about Trump incident on FOX, Trumps remarks characterized as crude. The shaded box inset continues for three more pages, so quite an inset.

Let's get something straight. "Blood coming out of her ears, or wherever."

Everybody read "menstruation." Damn, everybody's a giant perv except Trump and I.

I heard that real time. I visualized a lot in that moment because it was so strange, Trump said, "ears" instead of "nose" as you'd imagine, then said "or wherever" so after seeing blood squirt from her ears now blood squirt from her nose and her eyeballs and her mouth, she's a pundit sitting at a table, we see nothing but face and torso, there is no reason on Earth why one would visualize nether region except for being a perv and that didn't happen this side but the national argument assumed it and now here it is in this book. It's annoying. Greg Gutfeld got this wrong, and so did everybody else. In this instance the right is doing precisely what it complains about the left dong. It is a very poor example coming as it does from his own misinterpretation.

6) Discarding your outrage.

Things Gutfeld thinks are not worthy of anger
6.1 No outrage over words
6.2 Identifying legitimate concern as hate, (if you worry about terror you are not Islamophobic)
6.3 Divisive politics that seek to create factions to foment revolution
6.4 Abusing taxpayers under the guise of compassion while criticizing achievers as selfish
6.5 Mispriortizing evil.
6.6 Unfair redistribution of slace,
6.7 Demonization of people who question settled data.

Not on Gutfeld's list of things worthy of anger.

* Sex
* Drugs
* Religion
* Gridlock
* Gun rights
* Government spending
* Liberals -- as long as there are teenagers there will always be liberals.

Box inset on how to win argument without talking, containing [When it's your turn to talk you should already have considered your predictable response, and are then ready to say the opposite. People hate arguing with unpredictable adversaries. It's like conversing with a homeless meth head. Recreate that vibe.]

7. How to be successful miscreant like me.

* How to get a job. Lie. Keep views to himself.
Gutfeld's history
1.  National Journalism Center
* Take any job
2. American Spectator
* Do anything you're asked
* Write anything
3.  Self employed, story about early writing.
* Talk to people
4. Prevention magazine
5. Fox news Channel

8. Don't be a professional
win in three
8.1  People like helping those they think are slower than them. Be that slow person.
8.2 People like pretending to be experts -- your dumb questions turn them into experts
8.3 When you destroy them, they never see it coming.

Box inset about alcohol.

Box inset about Red Eye process.

9. Outcompassion them

Examples on how to out-care liberals. This is actually a bit silly. We talked about all these.
* ex. 1 Fracking, engages in sophistry
* ex. 2 Climate, commonly discussed thoughts,  though includes this [Finally, you can agree that while coal seems dirty, to try to ban it is selfish., evil, and reeks of white privilege. After all, it's easy for you to ban it, when you're not in some third world country burning feces to stay alive. As we all know, there is no force stronger in the rhetorical universe than that of liberal race-guilt. Pin your argument to race and you can convince a liberal to paint his ass red and skateboard down Broadway.]
* ex. 3 Gun Control, meh, nothing new here

10. Hijack the language. Discussion on "denying"
* Codesmears. They say, they mean list
* terror --> workplace violence
* abortion --> choice
* minimum wage --> living wage
* illegal immigrant --> undocumented
* police --> militarization
* achievement by Caucasian --> white privilege
* traitors --> whistle blowers. Gutfeld regards SnowdenGreenwald, WikiLeaks, Chelsea    Manning as all traitors.
* war --> overseas contingency operation

Use their tactic
* replace "pro-choice" with "pro-boy'
* Islamophobia better as psychophobia. Describe self as pro-moderate
* Replace "backlash" with "cop lash."
* Gun control, perhaps the dumbest phrase known to man, it shifts responsibility from stopping criminals to stopping law-abiding citizens. Offers common arguments
* Replace "e-cigarettes" with "cancerasers" If a vaping device is a cigarette then so is a kazoo.

11.  Co-opt their grievances. Discussion on feminism. How to combat accusation that men treat women as mere sex object? Heartily agree and bemoan that the objectification does not end there because as men treat women as sex objects, women treat men
as status objects.

Animal rights, grievance is eating or wearing animals. [Since this is about grievances one must bring up a simple fact -- that you are tired of being victimized by animals. When was the last time any member of the wild kingdom lifted a finger in preventing disease, in solving problems, in inventing machinery or devices that made our lives -- or even their lives easier?]

That isn't a very good argument. Service animals. Horses. Oxen. Homing pigeons, Cormorant fishing birds, gulls that spot fish schools for fisherman naturally. All working breed dogs, shepherds, all terriers, all hounds, all pointers, and retrievers, sled dogs. Organ grinder monkeys. Dolphins. Elephants.

Immigration. Arguments offered are already well discussed.

12. Link real life to fatuous belief. Gutfeld gives example of liberals participating in professions that require conservative values.

12.1 Musician, musicians who last the longest operate a business dependent on incredibly stringent conservative principles. [When you see your favorite metal band, you can bet that the whole tour is mapped out not as some hippy-dippy road trip, but as a meticulously planned endeavor to wring every penny of profit out of it.]

Oh? Barbra Streisand was just awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom.

12.2 Fitness. Government cannot give you six-pac abs. Exercise is perhaps the best example of conservative/libertarian thinking at your disposal.
12.3 Cooking, [Buttloads of cooking shows populated by spikey-haired women and tattooed love-patched beardos from Brooklyn. They all look so Occupy Wall Street -- but when they enter the kitchen they become the Wolves of Wall Street.]
12.4 Sports. There are no progressives in locker rooms. No liberals on playing fields. The goal is to score, to beat your opponents, to defeat them.

Gutfeld is wrong here. He asks, "Is there a sport that is progressive in philosophy? Yes. It's called tag."

Golf, skiing, tennis, hang gliding, sailing, dressage, squash, boat racing, American Ninja, gymnastics, swimming, track, skeets.

13. Break the scold mold

shaded box inset on what is the persuasively incorrect. Discussion about political correctness. It overstepped such as to threaten free speech and casual civility of normal engaged society. Then came blowback of politically incorrect that said you are not trafficking in identity politics, as corrective.  Then came people who used that to revert to idiotic behaviors, an overcorrection, calling someone a fat bitch isn't being politically incorrect, it's still being a dick. Next step, persuasively incorrect, sticking to commonsense values that progressives and academics despise but articulating them such that wins converts.

If you say so, about calling someone a fat bitch. I don't know anyone who did that. Although we do remark about Christie.

Gutfeld writes about the comet-landing scientist and his sexist shirt. More discussion about scolding.

Box inset, two columns, liberals angry about this but not that. All common thoroughly discussed entries.

Angry about    /    but not about
transgender pronouns  /  gays flung from rooftops
insufficient gender neutral bathrooms / women's  hands chopped off for cellphone use

[There. You make your point, and you make it without sound like a dickhead. That's the point of this book, really.]

14.  Embrace the Inner Skeptic. This chapter is for somebody else.

Things to be skeptical of at all times
* Any media that seems overly invested in an idea.
* Self-imposed spokesmen of any kind who seem feverishly strident and humorless in the zeal of their cause.
* Any sweeping language
* A definitive finding

Shaded box inset listing a wallet-sized list of assholes
Mark Ruffalo
Woody Harrelson
Martin Sheen
Charlie Sheen
Ed Asner
Rosie O'Donnell
Janeane Garofalo

* [In any instance in which you're asked to suspend your skepticism, those cases are always man-made.]

15. Look Like Them. Greg claims Republicans need diversity. The chapter contradicts itself by describing what diversity looks like, another shaded box with two columns. Both are diverse, all names except Texas is listed under Republican. The left column is all actors and actresses and Al Gore. .

Greg discusses immigrants, mostly from Mexico.

16. Eating your moderates. Didactic declarations, don't pick extremists, don't pick the wrong battles, don't put Fritos on pizza -- critique of ineffective Republican responses to Gruber recordings damaging Obamacare and Benghazi averring Republicans pile on other issues instead of just serving the pizza.

How Hillary explained Benghazi. This section is for somebody else.

How to expose injustice.

* exercise self control.
* mock mercilessly
* avoid political mantras.

17. Ombudsing your buddies. Discussion on how Andy Levy fit in. Every conservative needs an ANdy Levy, someone to check for accuracy. [In my opinion, the weakest people in the room are those who embrace lockstep -- from the left or tight. They weaken any cause and undermine its aims -- for they refuse to test the strength of their own beliefs.]

17.1 Panic. Ebola scare. mistrust led to panic.
17.2 Snowden. Gutfeld does not like Snowden and considers him traitor.
17.3 Elections ombuds candidates or end up with the likes of Christine O'Donnell

18. How to be right. Discussion on metaphors.
Section on name calling.

19. Say junk that people remember.

19.1 Guns
[The length of a gun attack s dictated by the time it takes for another gun to end it]
[That celebrity telling you the Second Amendment is dangerous is the same celebrity who has an armed bodyguard.]
[Given the choice, felons would rather target the unarmed over the armed.]
19.2 Drugs
[More people have died from the war on drugs than from the drugs themselves]
[Drugs don't climb into that bong -- much the same way guns don't shoot without a finger.]
19.3 Identity politics
[You can't spell assimilate without islam]
[Students are consumed more by identity than by industry]
19.4 Military
[Saying it's not our fight is why there are more fights.]
19.5 President Obama
[You don't bring a pet rock to a gun fight, and you certainly don't bring a community organizer to a KGB fight.]
19.6 Politics
[Politics is a game that bad people play while good people aren't looking]

Shaded box inset: Four persuasive points: The Planned Parenthood videos.
How to explain evil in under five minutes.
* 1 When the argument for selling fetal tissue begins with " It's a shame to let it go to waste" the moral case for abortion is destroyed. Only something of value can be wasted.
* 2 Dismemberment cannot be placed under pro choice umbrella. It was never discussed in Roe v. Wade or elsewhere. Accepting abortion does not mean acceptance of ghoulish practices.
* 3 If butchering is so normal why all the euphemism?
*4 Claims of selective editing are false. The full videos are always available.

20. Three things always beat two things.

Climate Change
* Polar bears, they're multiplying
* Has it become hotter? No.
* The problem is the agenda is rejected.

Pipeline
* what's wrong? You want oil transported by train, planes or buses?
* If trains and planes and busses are safer than pipeline then I'll have to rethink indoor plumbing.
* what about all the pipes? Jokes.

Fraking Discourse on fracking and safety.

shaded box insert on how to explain risk to idiots. Discussion about safety and risk, a list of hazards that by repetition and by correction became safer and better; childbirth, construction, travel, fire, surgery, etc.

Gun control
* Home invasions fewer in states with more permissive gun laws.
* Felons avoid people with guns and places where guns are welcome
* Gun-free zones are enticing to spree killers as targets.

Tax Increases on Business
* What happened to the money already taken?
* Higher taxes hurt generators of such taxes.
* Taxes + regulation prevent people form taking risks.

21. Use you Mom
Imagine explaining things to your mom.

Shaded box insert explaining liberals announce their intention to destroy something by declaring something "broken" Greg gives "Our immigration system is broken."

He leaves out, "and must be fixed." We discussed this at length right here starting with, "our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed." And, "Our taxes laws are broken and must be fixed." And, "Race relations in this country are broken and must be fixed." And, "Home ownership is broken in this country and must be fixed." And "The technological divide in this country is broken and must be fixed. and "The climate is broken and must be fixed." And, "Filibusters, gerrymandering, electoral college, food stamps, college admissions, police relations, wage gap, marriage equality, systems are broken and must be fixed." See? Greg Gutfeld is not telling us anything.

21.1 immigration: "I cannot vote Republican because they are against immigration. Ans: Sure, but get in line. Discussion on fairness.
21.2 legalization of drugs: consider prohibition.
21.3 e-cigarettes

Greg merely offers reasonable discussion as if explaing things to his Mom why alternatives are worse than indulging impulses for government control.

22. Be Columbo. Example of health hucksters outselling reasonable doctors who do sound work because doctors are not press-friendly and did not know how to articulate the fine work that they do. So quacks win. [I've asked doctors millions of dumb questions starting every interview with "I'm just a reporter, and forgive me if I embarrass myself, but could you explain..."  I stole all this from Columbo.]

22.1 Amnesty. Pardon me for being stupid, if amnesty is a good thing, then this "border" thing must be a bad thing. So, are borders a bad thing?

This won't work because they'll say, "Yes, borders are bad."

22.2 Birth Control, "How are condoms a human right? If condoms are a human right that must be paid for by someone else, why not your food or clothing? Aren't those two items more important than condoms?"

"What's a human right? Is it something that you demand another human pays for?"

23. Cross-dress Look like them.
How to become a liberal in three easy steps:
1.  Care about everything. Just say, "I care."
2.  Say "we need to tackle the problem."
3.  Out-concern them

Forget the second amendment, it's class warfare.
It's not racism, it's assholes.

If you deny radical Islam then you are a racist. Always condemn those who are bitoted against Muslims.

Yes sexism is bad, but who's the worst at it?

24 Fill-ins for liberals, discussion about being tired of saying, "if it had been Bush" or "If  this were Repubican," seems horribly tired but is true because it suffers no rebuttal. Still, it's so wearisome we get tired of hearing ourselves say it. Therefore flip it.

Shaded box insert, where you see Obama, blame Bush. On everything.

ex: IRS targets and investigates political groups critical of Obama. Blame Bush for creating an atmosphere in which such cavalier intolerance can occur.
ex: Secret Service scandal erupts under Obama.
a. Blame the previous president's frat boy persona that allowed this sleaziness to fester.

25. Use their silence to speak volumes

Keep your outrageous straight
It's not tolerance, it's censorship
It's not Environmentalism -- It's Class Warfare

26. Stunts or how an idiotic absurd act of stupidity can reveal a truth about life and other crap. Discussion about firecrackers in class and inserting text into letter to editor upon being fired from Men's Health.

* a stunt must convey a message. It cannot simply be something that makes someone look stupid or you look great. If there is no reason for your mayhem then it's simply destructive.

* A prank must be directed against something that simultaneously has more power than you but is potentially dangerous.

How to persuade people that PR leaders are morons. Anecdote about being asked to speak at a conference about creating buzz. Very un-buzzy so turned it down. Annoyed, because buzz should come from great work, wit and effort. He hired little people to disrupt Alinsky style, phones ringing furiously, chomping on potato chips, and when the panelists tried to control the dwarfs they accused the panelists of discrimination against little people. They had been nailed for what they had been nailing everyone else for, insensitivity. That was his goal, to hang the onus of PC on them and by doing demonstrate real buzz.

How to persuade people that fashion leaders are naked emperors. Anecdote about being assigned to cover Men's Fashion Week in New York, unwilling, he grabbed a convenient bear skin rug, once there changed to nothing but the rug and had photographers surrounding him and interviewed by André Leon Tally

How to persuade Muslims that gay people need love too. Anecdote about building New York City's first Islamic-friendly gay bar right next to the Park51 mosque shorthanded to Ground Zero mosque.

27. Find your inner drunk. Thoughts on how drunks think and express. The examples given do not advance a point.

The game at the bar. Discourse on good winning, comparison with sports bar.

I'm baffled why this book was recommended so strongly. Gutfeld engages liberals more enthusiastically than I ever do. I suppose the book is helpful as reminder not to behave so seriously while maintaining a much more serious attitude than ever letting on. His writing wanders, the book is more a spew, a dump, than anything else, as if you kept your ideas on cards then over years arranged the cards into a thin book.

There aren't that many words on a page. The many shaded box inserts containing vaguely related but disjointed material confirms Gutfeld rambling and reads like a series of Time magazine articles in its desktop publishing style. I got nothing out of it. A careless waste of time. Even with all those points listed above fleshed out. You all do as well yourselves already and prove it each day in comments. You do not need this advice. It's the sort of thing you read for fun and for confirmation, you might pick up a few of his ideas, might enjoy him discussing his experience and his technique but that's about it. It's Republican candy.

Recommendation: pass
Thing learned: Do not accept any more "must-read" insistences. Reject all: "read now"