Strangers in the Night

[Warpy]

42. It spells "defensive posture"

She bought a line of horseshit because it gives her some sort of social identity and larger community. Those are really important to some of us, it keeps the butts in the pews at megachurches and Social Security dollars that should have gone to food flooding in to televangelists who want new private jets to add to their fleet.

My own approach is "who told you that?" or "where did you hear that?" because it wrong foots them, putting the blame elsewhere gets them out of the defensive posture, at least for most people. The few who respond with invective get told "prove it," which is a conversation ender since they know it's bullshit.