Still more strategies to ensure dominance in debate club and/or with an unsuspecting significant other:
• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc: Because x follows y, y caused x. “See? Now you have an upset stomach! Thus, my dear wife, you and not I have eaten the last of the jamocha almond fudge!”
• Red herring: An unrelated fact throws off the scent. “You will, of course, have noticed that even now every piece of pickled herring remains firmly jarred!”
• Slippery slope: A supposed string of causes and effects, with a massively undesirable endpoint. “Honey, if you keep fixating on the fate of the jamocha almond fudge, you won’t be able to sleep and you’ll lie awake all night wondering if maybe you’re the one who ate the ice cream, and then you’ll start questioning reality in general, and before you know it, you’ll be pulling your hair and muttering gibberish down by the waterfront.”
• Straw man: Mischaracterizing an opinion to the point of parody. “So you’re saying that I’m incapable of love and was likely the second shooter on the grassy knoll?”
• You too: Distracting from fault by counterattack. “Yeah, but last week you drank the last Redhook Double Black Stout!* Seriously, have you no speck of human decency?”
* Cases of above beverage can be sent to this author care of Three Rivers Press.