[WS:] I note your disagreement, but I also think it lies on another level - not that of the contents of the text and its interpretation, but on the meta-level of its credibility and legitimacy. In other words, you seem to take that contents as a bone fide proposition that can have truth value and concentrate on different interpretations of that content to evaluate that truth value. I otoh treat this text as having no truth value whatsoever - only the persuasive function - or to quote Harry Frankfurter - as bullshit. From my pov, debating this text is pointless because its truth function, if any, does not simply matter to those who produce it - the only thing that matters is getting other people doing what they want to do. In other words, these use text in lieu of arms twisting, or simply threatening people with harm. That is why from my pov the only meaningful way of engaging with such text is to engage with the speaker - either through compliance or through acts of resistance by any means necessary.
Eric B :"I think what you are pointing to here is hypocrisy, which is a moral failing, not a politically relevant category."
[WS:] Not really - see my reply to Ravi above. Hypocrisy obtains only if the speaker cares about the truth value but ignores this value in certain cases of his own speech. However, it is meaningless to speak of hypocrisy in cases of bullshit - i.e. acts of speech for which the truth value does not matter and the only thing that does is its instrumentality to induce compliance in the audience.
In other words, all that I am saying is do not try to argue, debate, or even shame these folks because they use speech not as communicative acts but as coercive ones. If you want to respond to them, the only appropriate way of so doing is to silence them by any means necessary.
I do not really need to read Mein Kampf to know that its author should be hanged on the nearest lamp post had he still been alive.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."