I know people like their lists in batches of 10. So here you go, in no particular order, 10 ways to avoid setting off my bullshit detector:

  1. Don’t project your personal failings onto other people as if they apply universally. Not everyone who sees one titty in Playboy is going to end up in rehab because they quit their job and got divorced to jerk off seventeen times per day to Innocent Bystander Debasement Monthly. And if anything constitutes a War on Christmas or an Attack on Traditional Marriage, it’s your sanctimonious ass skipping church to open presents and get a divorce.
  2. Don’t blame the messenger when your failings are put on display. Few things drive up circulation/viewership/traffic faster than a story about a sanctimonious prick who fails to live up to his own hyperbolic finger-wagging. People will pay for it over and over again. And it’s your fault for feeding the market’s demand to watch. Try not being such a fucking hypocrite.
  3. Don’t try to pass “protecting tradition” off as a reason to do anything if you’re not talking about sports. Slavery was a tradition here. Monarchy is a tradition in England, and the result has been 1,000 years of inbreeding.
  4. Don’t wave a pie and a bag of shit in front of my nose and try to tell me that I have two choices for dessert. To name but one example, by “bag of shit” I mean “Intelligent Design.”
  5. Don’t lump two traits together and try to say that anything that can be described by one can always be described by the other. Not all seculars are progressives, and not all progressives are secular; just as not all psychotics are Christians, and not all Christians are psychotics.

    This item could also be described as “don’t speak in terms of monoliths.” Monolithic terms, generally used to make a larger and more imposing bogeyman from a loosely-related group, are The Left, The Right, moonbats, wingnuts, porn, etc. (Yeah, I’ve used “wingnut” before, and probably will again at some point. Sometimes I’m a bullshit trafficker too. Takes a bullshitter to know one.)

  6. Don’t pretend like something must be true just because it can’t be proven that it doesn’t exist/can’t happen. Sure, I can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. But you also can’t prove that your mother never had sex with a chimpanzee, and that you don’t have a freakish half-chimp, half-human half brother running around with no pants and a flaming case of herpes.
  7. Don’t pretend like correlation equals causation. The states with the highest abortion and teen pregnancy rates also vote Republican most frequently. Does that mean children growing up in Republican-voting households are more likely to get knocked up before they’re 18 and have an abortion because their parents are Republicans? No, dumbass, it means there are more poor families in those states.
  8. Don’t pretend like belief for the sake of belief is a virtue. 99 percent of the people who comment on any court case that’s shown on TeeVee know exactly jack shit about said court case. Say it with me: “I haven’t seen or heard enough evidence to have an opinion about this topic.” You sound a lot smarter that way than by saying THARE’S NO DOWT IN MY MIND THAT WOMEN IN THE DOOK RAPE CASE IS A LIAR BECUZ FOX NOOS SAID SO!!1! And if you ask me well, what do you believe in? after I dismiss your opinion, expect to be smacked in the face for being a judgmental moron.
  9. Don’t try to pass circular logic off as an argument. This relates closely to the pie/bag of shit as dessert false dichotomy. Atheism is not a religion. (Real) Nihilism isn’t a belief system. Relativism is not dogma. You can’t be a radical moderate. Oh, wait…
  10. Don’t hide behind free speech to justify a vile remark. Sure, you’re allowed to say it. Nobody is saying you’re not. But, since we’re dealing with free speech, I am also allowed to call you a bigot or a sexist or whatever other name most aptly describes whatever behavior you’ve just partaken in. And when you whine like a little pussy when I do that, I am also allowed to say that you’re whining like a little pussy. Free speech can go on in circles forever like that.