7 words that can stop any right wing talking point or conspiracy theory

[Initech]

I've figured it out. Want to stop a right wing blowhard, religious fundamentalist, or conspiracy theorist in their tracks? Six simple words can steer any debate in your favor. And those 7 words are:

Show us proof or it didn't happen.

Your Facebook friends posting memes about how "the deep state" and liberal elites are involved in an elite pedophile ring?

Show us proof or it didn't happen.

Someone on twitter giving you crap about how the Parkland students were "crisis actors" who were planted by CNN?

Show us proof or it didn't happen.

Your religious fundamentalist relatives going crazy over the evil dems' plans to remove god from the public square?

Show us proof or it didn't happen.

And they have no proof. None. Tthey just make up the bullshit as they go along. Those 7 words guaranteed to shut down even the most insane right wing conspiracy theories. Go on, try it out on your next debate!

[RazzleCat]

1. Problem is what they think is "proof"

Up pops Info Wars, or a comment that they heard it from their friend who has the proof.

[Beartracks]

2. So true. They have a pretty low bar for what qualifies as "truth" or "fact." n/t

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. A very low bar. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. "a comment that they heard it from their friend who has the proof. "

Well, if the friend has the proof, it should be easy for the speaker to get it.
I will wait patiently here while he/she/it trots over to the friend and brings back demonstrable proof. Even if that friend heard it from their wife's brother inlaw's uncle's stepson, etc.

I like the idea. I esp. like it for Twitter.

[forgotmylogin]

39. Usually, they're satisfied to retort with...

"No, you prove it didn't happen!"

Proving a negative/absence of something or an event is tremendously more difficult if not logically impossible in some cases. But yes - sticking to guns and saying "You made a claim, you provide the proof" is fair, but they will never accept that.

Formal critical thinking/debate is usually the class they all managed to skip in school.

[stopbush]

28. Exactly. Ever ask a Christian for proof about their religious claims?

Same deal with what conservatives think.

Not only do they believe lies and myths, but they truly believe that the are privy to information that others don’t see. They believe they know “truths” others don’t because they are special.

[Runningdawg]

30. 100%

[mitch96]

35. That's what my conservative friend does

Just go full on conspiracy theory with no proof.. uggh. If I did not know him since I was 5 it would be all over.. Great guy other than that..
m

[Meowmee]

4. This country

Was founded on certain principles, one of which was separation of church and state, so god should not be in the public square as far as I’m aware.

[grantcart]

5. Unfortunately you are handing them the microphone and now have to wait for them to

go through an idiotic minefield which will take you hours to disprove.


I normally don't bother but if I find someone who is actually interested in facts and reasonable dialog the following works 100% of the time:


"You are wrong, <as they open their mouth to interrupt you, slowly bring your hand up with an open palm in the universal stop signal and calmly say, enunciating each word clearly and forcefully> and I can prove it"

Virtually every time the interlocutor will an astonished look. They know that they are just spinning most of the time. Many times they will say "really?".

Example

"All the regular people are getting together to 'take this country back again'".


"You are wrong, and I can prove it".

"Over the last 25 years we have had 7 Presidential elections and the Democrats have either won or had the highest vote in 6 out of the 7 and in the 2004 election we were in the middle of a hot war and the US has never changed parties in the middle of a hot war.

In this century we have had 5 Presidential elections and 2 of them or 40% the minority party was given control of the executive branch even though the Democrats won the election.

The legislative branch is even worse. More Americans vote for Democrats in the single state of California than in the 20 least populated states and Democratic candidates for Congress get more votes than Republican candidates but get less seats because of brazen gerrymandering.

Phrases like "take this country back again" are used to take power away from the majority so that powerful elites can manipulate the system."

For it to work you have to have established some other common interest like work, social, religion etc. but if some relationship exists then the "I can prove it statement" stops them cold.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

19. Yes, and that strikes their technique dead in its tracks.

You hit the nail in the head. Most all right-wing talking points they parrot are supposed to be instant emotional or patriotic triggers, so as to leave you with no defense.

Your technique immediately quenches that trigger process by using a contrary emotional trigger (angst).....

[mitch96]

36. My problem is I can't remember all the facts to disprove them

It takes me a while to get the google machine going.. Then they don't believe the "facts".
as I see them.
m

[Hoyt]

6. Agree,it is most useful with right wingers. But sometimes it is useful with others.

[progree]

7. I like "who told you that?" (works great online too)

[Initech]

8. I like that one.

If they answer Hannity or Alex Jones, I know to instantly discredit their opinion.

[TheSmarterDog]

9. Trouble is most all of that shit is based on faith.

No proof required.

[CousinIT]

10. Why this works: Fake news sharing in US is a rightwing thing, says study

They've got no proof. They've got no facts. All they have is FAKE.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/06/sharing-fake-news-us-rightwing-study-trump-university-of-oxford

. . .The study, from the university’s “computational propaganda project”, looked at the most significant sources of “junk news” shared in the three months leading up to Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address this January, and tried to find out who was sharing them and why.

“On Twitter, a network of Trump supporters consumes the largest volume of junk news, and junk news is the largest proportion of news links they share,” the researchers concluded. On Facebook, the skew was even greater. There, “extreme hard right pages – distinct from Republican pages – share more junk news than all the other audiences put together.”

The research involved monitoring a core group of around 13,500 politically-active US Twitter users, and a separate group of 48,000 public Facebook pages, to find the external websites that they were sharing.

Users who shared similar collections of links were grouped together depending on what they were discussing: on Twitter, some identified cohorts included “Conservative Media”, “Trump Supporters” (a distinct group from “Republican Party”) and “Resistance”; on Facebook, those audience groups included “Hard Conservative”, “Women’s Rights” and “Military/Guns”.

The findings speak to the level of polarisation common across the US political divide. “The two main political parties, Democrats and Republicans, prefer different sources of political news, with limited overlap,” the researchers write.

But there was a clear skew in who shared links from the 91 sites the researchers had manually coded as “junk news” (based on breaching at least three of five quality standards including “professionalism”, “bias” and “credibility”). “The Trump Support group consumes the highest volume of junk news sources on Twitter, and spreads more junk news sources, than all the other groups put together. This pattern is repeated on Facebook, where the Hard Conservatives group consumed the highest proportion of junk news.”

[Captain Stern]

11. Wishfull thinking.

Asking for proof doesn't stop them.

They don't need no stinkin' proof. To them, 'proof' means showing a link to the same stupid, shit they are saying. Or, they'll go with the time-proven favorite of "prove what I'm saying isn't true".....unfortunately, I've seen that employed here also.

[Maraya1969]

12. I've found that if I say, "I'll show you the proof" people will say, 'NO"

They don't want to know the truth. But I've given it to a few people anyway. Then they shut up.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. Just dont bother posting to Snopes, Politifact or any fact checking service

They’ll immediately dismiss any fact checking outright on the grounds of “bias” no matter how well documented the sources are.

It’s incredibly frustrating and depressing.

[Mr.Bill]

14. I find it very effective

to just laugh at them. I mean really laugh loudly.

[Initech]

15. Theres always that!

[dogknob]

38. Yep.

[airplaneman]

16. Your fallacy is that you are assuming logic works.

It doesn't and there is a myriad of counter-techniques the other side uses.

-Airplane

[keithbvadu2]

17. "counter-techniques" - Look at Trump. He flat out lies.

[Initech]

18. That is true- they have no logic!

[KentuckyWoman]

20. At best all it does is make them go away.

It doesn't change a single mind. They just take the inane blather and bore someone else with it.

[FakeNoose]

21. The RWNJs also use this tactic

I've seen it used on Twitter threads or "open blogs" like the Gawker blogs etc. The rightwingers jump in and give a clever retort something like "prove it, I bet you can't" and then you answer them with reasonable proof. They either ignore it and keep on ranting, or they deflect.

I believe your strategy may help to temporarily slow down or stop a rightwinger, but it's not going to make them think any more clearly. It's not going to help change their minds about anything. I agree with you that they have no proof, but neither do the pundits on Faux News and they just keep on flapping their yaps.

It only goes so far, just sayin'

[WePurrsevere]

31. You're probably right that it won't stop RWers BUT...

We often forget that on social media there are many more who are just reading and not actively in the discussion. IME some of those 'lurkers' are people that we might be able to reach with facts from decent sources.

[Mr.Bill]

43. Whatever source you use for proof,

they say it's a left wing nut job website funded by Soros.

This Soros guy really gets around, funding half the websites on the internet, paying all the protesters, bussing millions of liberals all over the country to vote ten times, etc. I don't know hoe he finds time to make all that money.

[spike jones]

22. And here I thought the seven words were going to be

Fuck you, you bat shit crazy asshole.

[Initech]

23. No but I like that one!

[EricMaundry]

25. That does make sense

But it is more likely to get answered in kind than the OP's suggestion.

[mitch96]

37. +1

[DetlefK]

26. That's your book-learnin' talkin'.

We don't need no stinkin' proof. We just know it.



I read about an episode where Alex Jones claimed to have some compromising information on the Democrats and then it turned out that it was bullshit.
His reaction?
He claimed that the deep-state had hacked into his computers RIGHT NOW LIVE IN THE SHOW to alter the documents and sabotage him.

[flibbitygiblets]

27. That's my standard response to the religious as well. Reality and science are not their thing.

At a party a few years ago, a RWNJ was telling me, for a fact, that Obama was not born in the US. I asked her where she got her information, and she said "None of your business!". Several people (including other RWNJs) laughed at her.

[HAB911]

29. I like to add

"So, you are just too stupid to prove this theory of yours?"

[LSFL]

32. My favorite thing to do is to feign hyper attentive bright eyed interest.

As they spew I nod my head encouragingly and say really,wow,that's amazing, etc...
The important thing is to keep eye contact, smile, and try not to laugh.
It usually dawns on them that you're having them on eventually. They generally sputter to a lame halt and stomp off. It's funny as Hell.

[niyad]

33. show me proof from acknowledged LEGITIMATE, RELIABLE sources (inforwars, breitbart, fox,

etc., ) do NOT count.

[IronLionZion]

34. Or unfriend them or block their posts from showing up in your newsfeed

RWers are not logical people and don't care about proof. RW blogs are proof enough for them. They post completely false quotes in memes and when I post a Snopes link debunking it or tell them to Google before posting, they claim Snopes and Google are part of a vast left wing conspiracy of promoting fake news through the mainstream media.

It's pointless.

We can focus our efforts on getting our voters to turn out, register new voters, and welcome back some long time Dems who made a grave and dangerous mistake by voting for Trump for whatever reason. But the nuts who post nutty stuff are a lost cause.

[harun]

40. Proof for them is their uncle Bob heard their uncle Ray say it so they know it's true.

Not going to win any argument against that "logic".

[sandensea]

41. Right-wingers are very selective about their leaps of faith.

We have our own biases too, of course - but they're at least based on tangible evidence.

We are, as Cheney so aptly put it, "reality based."

[mreilly]

42. Been there, tried that...

... if you ask them to provide proof they will simply pick one of the following tactics:

1. Point you to obvious debunked horseshit, opinions disguised as facts, dishonest "Isn't it odd that..." or "Could it be true that..." claims, then when you point to any actual evidence which refutes their horseshit will just shriek and bellow your evidence is "fake news" with the usual infantile "Nuh uh! NUH UHHH!" squawking.

1. Sneer "the proof is out there! EVERYONE knows it's true! YOU can go find it - you need to stop being lazy and go check out the TRUTH. I'm not going to do your work for you; you need to get up off your ass and go find the proof because believe me, it's out there!" Then when you fail to find anything remotely supporting their bullshit will accuse you of stupidity, bias or dishonesty.

2. Sneer you wouldn't understand or believe the proof since you are just a snowflake libtard derp derp sore loser Killary Obummer blah blah blah and you hate Trump so they don't have to listen to anything you say.

In any of these three scenarios they will then immediately strut around gloating they "defeated" you and that they "provided proof but you're too dense or brainwashed by the MSM to see it."

Maybe if you're lucky and you persist they will whine you're just not worth their time then race off, sneering insults over their shoulder as they depart, declaring themselves the "winner" no matter what, of course.