How Not To Win Friends Or Influence People

I’ve made a living out of finding ways to convince judges and juries that my clients are irresistibly right. It’s not an easy thing to do, especially since most people who come to lawyers are usually only about half right. Making this all the harder, the other side has an attorney too, and their job is to prove that my client couldn’t be more wrong. But I’ve had an advantage that has paid off time and time again, because I know something that seems to escape most attorneys and almost all bloggers. And that’s what I want to talk about today.

What is this magical knowledge? Simple: I know that people are suspicious of hyperbole. So when the other guy is whining how granting my client’s claim will cause the earth to crash into the sun, or they are foaming at the mouth about how my client eats children and I’m Satan’s third cousin, I’ve just go about my business and carefully lay out a logical and clearly reasoned case for why my client is right. I can’t think of a time this hasn’t worked.

I first discovered this principle when I was doing a clerkship for a group of judges. As I read through literally hundreds of briefs, I slowly realized that the most convincing briefs were the simplest, the most direct, the ones that laid out their reasoning with limited extraneous garbage. In fact, despite the lack of “big” and angry words, these briefs were quite compelling. They presented an argument. . . it made sense. . . I could think of no counter argument. . . winner. But the other guys, the ones who love hyperbole, offered nothing of value. Indeed, once they began rambling about how something is the greatest threat ever, it became impossible to take anything else they said seriously.

And the judges I worked for felt the same. None of them gave any credence to the hyperbolists. Some even ignored their arguments entirely. Others actively held the hyperbole against them, on the presumption that the hyperbole was evidence of a lack of substance, i.e. if they had a valid argument, they would have used it.

Since that time I’ve observed that this same principle holds true in other facets of life. If you’ve heard the expression, “methinks thou doth protest too much,” then you’ll know what I mean. Take Al Gore: he didn’t just deny what this woman is claiming, he “emphatically denied it.” But people who are innocent don’t “emphatically” deny, they just deny. They don’t say “and I really really mean it.” They just mean it. To say that you “really” mean it, implies that you usually lie, but this time we're supposed to trust you. No sale.

Bloggers are worse. Indeed, I am truly distressed by much of what I see in the blog world -- left and right. Look at this example from my inbox:

“These are desperate times for America, unless we ______ we will fall.”

Talk about a lack of perspective. This guy was actually talking about opposing financial regulation. At least a couple of you read the financial regulation article the other day, did you see anything in that financial reform bill which will cause American to fall? The Civil War, sure. Back when the Nazis wanted to enslave the world, or when the Soviets wanted to blow us off the map in a thousand atomic fireballs, yeah, that was a time we could legitimately say that we were facing desperate times and America might fall. But today?

And he continues:

“The socialists who at one time felt emboldened now feel cornered and threatened. As you read this, the Globalists, with all of their vast resources are organizing to fight Conservative Patriots, tooth and nail. The Army of Darkness will not be defeated easily; they lust for control of our beloved Nation. They know, if we falter on just one issue they can win all!”

Army of Darkness? Dude, I love that film! As for the rest of this pathetic crap, give me a break. This is the same garbage that the fringe was whining about when they knew that Clinton was about to turn us into a socialist utopia, when they knew that Carter was secretly planning to hand the world over to the Soviets, when they knew that Reagan had gone insane and was trying to disarm us in the face of the Soviet Union, when they knew that George Bush I was doing the bidding of some secret society, and so on. This is paranoid bullcrud.

Obama is doing some very bad things that will reduce certain freedoms (notably freedom of speech), injure our economy with increased regulation, probably bankrupt the government (ironically, putting an end to the dreams of big government), and increase racial tensions. But none of these will end our democracy. In fact, in our history, we’ve had much worse regulations, higher taxes, and nastier race relations than anything Obama is proposing. So get some perspective.

And even if this paranoia was close to correct, this guy is discrediting his own argument because what he presents is shrill, panicky and so-obviously-overstated and without substance that no one will believe it. This guy is like the attorney trying to assure the judge that enforcing my client's contract will cause the earth to crash into the moon. . . if not the sun. People tune out right at the get go with this kind of garbage.

Want proof? Think about it this way, the left had several legitimate grievances against Bush (in fact, even rightists were detailing them in op-ed pieces). But you didn’t give the left any credence, did you? In fact, you probably never even listened to them, did you? Yet you probably think of yourself as having an open mind, right? So why didn’t you listen to anything they said? The answer is simple: when they started their argument like this. . .

“The fascists who at one time felt emboldened now feel cornered and threatened. As you read this, the Globalists, with all of their vast resources are organizing to fight Working Americans, tooth and nail. The Army of Darkness will not be defeated easily; they lust for control of our beloved Nation. They know, if we falter on just one issue they can win all!”

. . . you tuned right out because you knew this was nothing but far-left fringe hate. You knew they had nothing of value to offer. So why would you think that our side saying the same things would receive a better response?

Trust me on this, people are willing to be told what to believe, but they want to believe that they reached that conclusion themselves. When you try to hit them over the head with fringemania, all you achieve is making yourself look like a nutjob.

Fellow conservatives, please stop using words like grave danger, outrage, horrific, despicable, and evil. Stop saying we've never faced anything worse. And if you’re going to call someone a ____ist, at least make sure they actually fit the definition, and even then think twice before doing it. Always ask yourself: “does this help my argument, or does this just turn people off?”

No go forth and persuade. . .