[Dimensio]

You want evidence that virtually every economics department in this US, Canada, Britain, eastern and western Europe was dominated by Marxists for most of the 20th century? How long do you think that post would be?

This is a new cop-out. I've seen creationists demand that those asking for evidence of creationist claims shout "do the research yourself!" and I've seen "If you don't know already then you're an idiot/stubborn twit who won't believe any facts I present so I won't waste my time", but I've never seen the cowardly cop-out of "It'd take way too long for me to support my claim with evidence!"

[CarolinaGuitarman]

It's not just that he wants me to do the research, he is changing the claim. He originally said that EVERY economist followed Marx. And EVRY psychiatrist followed Freud.

[jbloedow]

...but I've never seen the cowardly cop-out of "It'd take way too long for me to support my claim with evidence!"

You're joking right? I don't think I've seen one of these threads where "your side" didn't tell someone on "our side" to go away and do the research yourself, it would take too long to bring you up to speed, or words to that effect.

Suppose for the sake of argument that you're having a dispute in English and someone comes along who doesn't speak English. He tells you your argument doesn't make sense. You tell him that's because you don't speak the language. Then he tells you, well until you teach me English I'm going to maintain that what you've claimed is nonsense. You'd laugh this guy off as a complete idiot.

Well that's what I'm doing with you. To engage in a conversation there is always some assumption of some minimum level of common knowledge in order to participate. If you have to have everyone "prove" every little claim just because you're the only one in the room who slept through class, as it were, then conversation breaks down.

Anyway, I -- and now others -- have completely repudiated this adolescent line of attack. Everyone here who knows anything about the history of Marxism and Freudianism in the West is just laughing at you. The evidence is in books and books, volumes of journals, articles, writings.

Why don't I ask you to provide evidence that you're not a mentally retarded fool?

If you simple are not up to speed on the topics being brought up, either take the word of experts or fermez votre bouche.