I don't know how long you have been debating truthers for Mackery, but I have been for about 4 1/2 years. In that time, there is one thing that I learned and I think many others have as well. If they are not a fence sitter and are a full fledged twoofer, debate is pointless. Their minds were basically made up before they even knew about the conspiracy theory. As soon as someone told them the government did something bad, they were hooked. This is where your own decision making comes in handy.
It's been about three years for me, long enough to know how their games work, and long enough that I've probably traded jabs with every single prominent one of them at some point.
I don't agree with your premise, however. Sometimes they do change. One of the first I talked to here was Michel Brumsen, who first
prompted me to look at Gordon Ross's work, long ago. He took my criticism very well, and soon found himself drummed out of the
Scholars. No animosity there at all.
Or another case is
Craig Furlong. I
never thought he'd figure it out, but he did, and I don't deserve any credit for it either. He pulled himself out despite being savaged here, and I even made a big mistake that I later had to correct, and apologize for.
The sooner you accept that the twoofer is not going to change, the better off you will be in debating them. This will allow you to keep a level head while posting and hopefully aid you in actually combating their nonsense in a productive way.
It's that last point, how to remain productive, that I've struggled with and studied in the abstract. If a Truther is reasonably logical, then facts and polite discussion are the right approach. If they're subject to Irreducible Delusion, i.e. held captive by fractured logic or logic layered on obsession, then pinpointing the flaw is the right approach.
What I'm beginning to suspect we're seeing now, however, are "Truthers" who
know they're wrong and simply argue anyway. This pathological case cannot be handled constructively at all. I had thought this was an isolated, even vanishingly small group, but consider these posts from the last 24 hours alone:
Which leaders of the "Movement" have said that KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] is innocent?
Which "twoofers" are saying that KSM wasn't guilty of conspiring with 19 Arabs to fly planes into specific targets?
Just because he is guilty, that doesn't neccessarily mean there was no one else involved, and I'm surprised at your naivety in believing such a thing!
some facts and disclaimers:
1) I am NOT a "truther."
This is
astonishing to me. We have two Truthers abandoning the central tenet in the entire Movement before our eyes -- that al-Qaeda was not responsible for 9/11 -- and a third proclaiming his distance in plain English.
Is that it? Is the new breed of Truther so obnoxious because they're flat out
lying to us about what they believe..?
If that's the case, then Ignore is too good for them!
