The church potluck argument that made me question my own side

Last month I went to my cousin's church dinner in Waco. Someone brought up school vouchers and I jumped in with the usual talking points I've had for 10 years. A retired teacher across the table asked me one simple question about what happens to rural bus routes. I didn't have an answer and I realized I never actually looked into it, I just repeated what I heard. We ended up having a 40 minute conversation where neither of us changed our mind but I learned three things I never knew. Since then I've been trying to ask that same question before I open my mouth on any hot topic. Has anyone else had a moment where someone's basic question completely exposed how little you actually knew?

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paul_thompson6713d ago

Man, this hits home. I got into it with my brother in law at Thanksgiving about teacher pay and he asked me flat out what the average salary actually was in our state and I just sat there like a dummy because I had no clue, I was just running my mouth off stuff I saw on Facebook. We ended up looking it up on his phone right at the table and I was off by like fifteen grand, which was pretty embarrassing but also kind of eye opening. What got me was that he wasn't even trying to dunk on me, he just asked a plain question and my whole argument fell apart because it was built on nothing. Since then I've tried to do the same thing, just ask myself what I actually know before I start yelling at people about it. Funny how one simple question from somebody who isn't even mad at you can do more than a hundred angry comments online.

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