Gumshoe loves to speak with family and friends or even strangers when the opportunity presents itself. Back during Gumshoe’s LEO career, the audience would undoubtedly include victims, witnesses, and victims.
Gumshoe knew that everyone has a story and that one can always learn something new, something interesting, and occasionally, something provocative. Different strokes for different folks as it is said.
Provocative was (and still is) Gumshoe’s “meat & potatoes” when the subject is provocative.
Gumshoe throws down the gauntlet as it were and readily enters into polite civil discourse called debate. Charge!
Gumshoe remembers during his high school days and also in his college days, there was actually an elective called “forensics”. Not the crime scene processing type mind you, the art of debate type. It was very common in forensics that opposing parties (single or team debaters) would have to switch sides of the debate when ambushed by the instructor. This technique helped one develop a healthy sense of seeing and understanding topics from a different perspective by golly!
One’s mind is like a parachute that can only work if it is open. But of course, one’s mind can’t be so open that it falls out!
It is always a source of Gumshoe’s amusement to politely listen to a knucklehead’s point of view and Gumshoe will strike a co-conspiratorial face and in a strong, serious voice respond: “And then what?” Funny how the other party never seemed to follow their lop-sided agreement to a logical conclusion. They just appeared downright flummoxed. Puzzlement indeed in a burst of living color and expression?? Embarrassment perhaps?
Gumshoe surmises that the “law of unintended consequences” has reared its ugly head again.
Seems a lot like today folks? Folks on either side of an argument just not asking, “And then what’s?
Just another random observation my kind readers from Gumshoe’s brain-housing unit.
Until next time, always remember to love the ones who love you and really try to love the ones who don’t.
Coram Deo!
Great article. Not sure if this fits Gumshoe, but “Lets discontinue drilling for oil”. “Lets discontinue looking for Natural Gas.” “Let’s build electric vehicle’s with having enough charging stations”. And then what????
Semper Fi
It definitely fits Tom!
Yep, and no electrical grid that can handle the proposed demand.
yeah……so the dog finally catches the car bumper…….then what? We’re seeing the sad reality of ‘then what’ at the highest levels of our gov’t…..and in most Dem-controlled cities!
One only has to look at San Francisco to see the truth in your statement, Mike.
Truisms both Mike & Ken.
Great tactic. I’ll have to try that.
It definitely works in disassembling a “bone head’s” magic thinking. Enjoy the responses my friend Ken.
Your correct Nightingale, Clear thinking that arrives at a plausible solution or objective is paramount. In plain English, “engage the brain before engaging the mouth”.
My thoughts as I read this thread are that the best way to respond to “And Then What” is to be prepared, know your material as though it was fresh in the mind, and be able to establish your point of view. Sometimes when people are listening and their brain housing wheels are really engaged you can get more when asked “and then what “!