{"id":11667,"date":"2013-08-13T18:45:34","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T18:45:34","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-08-13T18:45:34","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T18:45:34","slug":"how_to_argue_with_skeptics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/08\/13\/how_to_argue_with_skeptics\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Argue with Skeptics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Spencer in Hesperia, Michigan, it\u2019s great to have you on the program. Welcome.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Good morning, Rush. Hesperia, California, I\u2019m calling from. I love your show, I think you\u2019re a genius, and I\u2019m calling to tell you about this mandatory philosophy course that I had to take at the university that I go to out here in California.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait a second. Mandatory philosophy course? What university?<\/p>\n

CALLER: California Baptist University.<\/p>\n

RUSH: California Baptist U. Okay.<\/p>\n

\"original\"<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes, so I had to take this course and we\u2019re covering the section on fallacies, which is, you know, an actual playbook of how to manipulate and deceive people. We\u2019re covering (unintelligible) the force, straw men, red herring, and those things, and I asked the professor what kind of fallacy is it when you\u2019re arguing with a person that no matter how many facts you knock down and how much evidence you give \u2019em to defeat their arguments, they always respond with, “Well, how do you really know? And how is this not racism?” And just come up with question after question. And he laughed, and he said, “Well, simple. That\u2019s skepticism.” And I knew what being skeptical was. I\u2019ve heard that before, but I didn\u2019t know it was an actual type of reasoning, and he explained that it\u2019s actually the opposite of logic. It is the exact opposite of evidence and facts and having things that support your conclusion. And this type of mentality, it\u2019s the only weapon of the inexperienced. It\u2019s the same kind of logic that a three-year-old uses or a punk 15-year-old uses, and now it\u2019s the type of reasoning that an entire political party uses.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Precisely. Skepticism. “I don\u2019t believe you. Screw you. Who do you listen to? Where did you hear that from? Oh, well, they\u2019re all lying skunks. I don\u2019t believe you.” Yeah, skepticism is now an accepted intellectual position. And, by the way, being a skeptic is also the mark of somebody who\u2019s open-minded.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, I think that you have really found the way to truly defeat this, and it\u2019s through ridicule. You laugh at \u2019em. You laugh at \u2019em no more than you would just laugh at a three-year-old. You wouldn\u2019t engage in a long argument with a three-year-old over, you know, their inexperience just because they can say why, why, how, and, you know, you have a media, a lamestream media that is completely content with just furthering that skepticism. They don\u2019t care about actual facts. You\u2019re talking about Hillary Clinton and Obama all day long. Just a couple months ago the Butch Morgan Jr., who is the committee chairman for raising ballots to get them on the 2008 nomination, he was thrown in prison. He was found guilty of ballot fraud. That wasn\u2019t even uttered in the lamestream media. But yet we\u2019re just hearing more about, you know, 2016, whether you like it or not, here we come.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Let me give you a little hint, next time you find yourself talking to one of these skeptics and people who have adopted skepticism as a legitimate intellectual position to take. One of the most effective ways of dealing, not just with people like that, but really anybody, is never answer their question. Always respond with a question, which puts them on the defensive. Even if the answer\u2019s a slam dunk, even if they ask you a question that\u2019s a hanging curveball that you could knock out of the park, return it with another question, questioning them, questioning their honesty, questioning their intelligence, because that\u2019s what they\u2019re doing with their skepticism. They\u2019re really challenging you and your mind and your IQ, your knowledge, your belief system. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s hard to do because most people think that the honorable thing to do, somebody asked you a question, answer it. And it is, in most cases, but it\u2019s fun. Just never answer question. Your answer is always another question back at them. And therefore reverse the skepticism on \u2019em. And you become skeptical of them. You adopt what they think is the lofty perch, you take it from them, you become a skeptic right back at them. You\u2019re skeptical of them, just skeptical of their question. Instead of deigning to answer. <\/p>\n

This is the mistake I made when I was first being interviewed. When this program was very young, and I\u2019d be interviewed buy a journalist, I made the incorrect assumption that they really wanted to know the answer they were asking me. They really wanted to know what I thought about something. And I thought it was an opportunity to really have them get to know me. That wasn\u2019t what it was about. It was about them asking questions, trying to pigeon hole me so that they could structure me to their audience in ways they wanted. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

CALLER: I totally agree. Like you\u2019re saying, you know, if you were to engage, like I have, engage these people and argue with them \u2019cause I thought, “Well, maybe if I could just explain to them why they\u2019re wrong, then they\u2019ll understand.” But with every one of these people, it\u2019s the exact same thing: You could waste your breath for hours arguing with them, with a skeptical question after question after question. Only when you finally defeated every one of their arguments, they say, “So what? I don\u2019t care.”<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, now, but, see, if you had an audience, if you\u2019re in a classroom, that\u2019s okay, then you\u2019ve got a larger audience that you\u2019re trying to persuade and, you know, not them. They\u2019re just foils. If you\u2019re in a one-on-one conversation with them, and there\u2019s not an audience, a classroom full of people or whatever, just never answer their question. Throw it right back at \u2019em with another question, questioning them. I guarantee you, it\u2019s fun to do, and it\u2019ll give you the upper hand. It works every time it\u2019s tried. But give up on the idea of persuading them. Give up on the idea of them acknowledging to you that you persuaded them. That isn\u2019t gonna happen. That\u2019s not how it works. <\/p>\n

Even if you do change their mind, they\u2019re never gonna admit to you that you did. So don\u2019t ever make that the test of whether or not you\u2019re right or whether or not you\u2019re persuasive or whether or not you\u2019re winning an argument. Most of these people are closed-minded, emotionally driven, non-thinking people. You\u2019re not gonna get to \u2019em with logic. You\u2019re not gonna get to them with fact. They live in a world they have constructed so that they don\u2019t have to face the facts. They can instead immerse themselves in this cocoon of emotion that makes \u2019em feel good. They don\u2019t want the facts if they contradict what they believe. <\/p>\n

So you could have every fact, you could have God in the room with you, and it wouldn\u2019t matter, because they\u2019re not going to change their mind about things like this. Not to you, anyway. They\u2019re not gonna admit that you are smarter than they are. They\u2019re not gonna admit that they didn\u2019t know something you did. They\u2019re always gonna try to make it look like you\u2019re an idiot, you\u2019re an extremist, you\u2019re a kook. So throw that right back at \u2019em. Every time they pepper you with a question, don\u2019t answer it, just hit \u2019em with another question. Reverse it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Spencer in Hesperia, Michigan, it\u2019s great to have you on the program. Welcome. CALLER: Good morning, Rush. Hesperia, California, I\u2019m calling from. 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