Help! Need help responding to a 'dittohead' friend...

The following is from a friend of mine, he's nice guy but grossly misinformed!

I sent him a great article from The Idaho Mountain Express (http://www.mtexpress.com/2003/03-10-15/03-10-15murphy.htm) and I got the below in response.

================= (added icons by me :evilgrin:)

Hello. I knew an email like this would be on it's way from you (so far
nothing from ---). I learned through the Bennett debacle (the Book of Virtue
author) and his gambling addiction, that no individual is perfect. :eyes: OK, so Rush has an addiction and needs help, it still doesn't change the fact that he is right about politics :crazy::wow::eyes: (I'm not going anywhere near his football comments because he was clueless and not just about McNabb). :toast: That is why he has so many listeners. :wtf:

Anyway, we will see how that liberal network thing with Als Franken and Gore
workout. My guess is two years tops. :eyes: Oh wait, I forgot about NPR. :eyes: I will be the first to congratulate you after you are "Hannitized." :wow: Until then LET FREEDOM RING!!! :eyes: Take care. :hurts:

******

PS. Nice job electing Arnold by the way :eyes::dunce::eyes:

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I don't think he's attacking me personally but you can see it's the same stuff we've seen from FR. So, I just need some help coming up with with links to send him. I know I can do this on my own but there are so many here that have such clever ideas that I thought I'd ask.

Thanks bunches :)

You have several choices. You can ignore him. You can terminate the friendship. You can present him with the facts. It's up to you.

He just needs to be properly informed links to the outside world - facts! But at the moment he is dumb as a pile of hair.

With all the little Emotioncons....Ha ha ! B-)

sorry for the poor bastard,imagine rush and insannity are your link to the world. :eyes:

It doesn't seem like he's all that offensive.

The best strategy, especially when you don't want to be too aggressive, is to draw your "opponent" out. Ask him why he believes what he believes, and don't respond very much. If you make yourself a "void", it will make him antsy and he will go to greater lengths to "convert" you. After he tries so hard, he'll realize that he is the fool.

A very good skill to develop is active listening. That's the technical name for using conversation to draw a person out. Philosophers call it Socratic dialog. Most intro psych classes teach it; if you're not in a psych class, buttonhole a prof, or look for it on the 'net.

By the way, the "technique" does go back to Socrates. He called it maieusis, after the word for childbirth. So, yes, it is possible to make a winger "have a cow".

Good luck!

--bkl

politics the way some people talk about sports.

You can't convert someone who doesn't really give a shit either way.
They'll never read any long, convincing arguments you send them. If you manage to make a profound argument that's also brief, they'll ignore it. It's hard to question your beliefs.

People like that don't care enough about politics to take it seriously. That's the difference between you and your friend. Ignore that aspect of your relationship and concentrate on what you like about this person.

but suggest he go to whatever part of his town that there are drug addicts, and the political discourse he will get will be at least as valuable as that he got from Rush.."an addict is an addict"

was reported to have said, "give him an evasive answer, tell him to go fuck himself"!

That doesn't prove he's wrong about politics"

Well, technically that's right. But it does prove, considering all his anti-drug user bashing, that he says a lot of things he doesn't believe in.

So the question to your friend is: Why would you believe anything said by a guy who has a proven record of lying to suit his purposes?
He no longer has any credibility.

What you have to tell your friend is that Rush, O'Reilly, Coulter, Shamhannity, etc are entertainers not thinkers. It's not that they think their audiences are fools, they know they are fools. And their arguments are structured to appeal to people that really don't want to think.

...basically encouraging people to follow their lowest impulses.

As for Limbaugh being "right about politics," well, he's made a lot of on-air claims that were completely false. For starters, he claimed nothing came of the Iran-contra investigation. On the contrary, there were convictions, to say nothing of the sudden array of pardons handed out by George Herbert Walker Bush during his lame-duck period.