I was talking with one of my friends a few days ago, and the conversation led to one of my better ideas. I read so many terrible persuasive essays, and I'm tired of them. Therefore, I have decided that from this day forth, all persuasive essays of any kind are required to include a simple flow chart showing the facts that lead to their conclusions. This really isn't too much to ask. It takes about a minute to do in MS Paint, and it's an easy way to prove that your logic is sound. If anyone tries to argue with you, point at your chart and wait for them to disprove a connection you made, which they won't be able to, because you looked at it too and made sure you wrote something that made sense.

The hidden danger to the chart system, of course, is that this mysteriously popular article could never be written. Imagine you were to criticize this article without using the chart system. You'd probably say things like "hey, should we really base our countries policies off an empire that spent all of it's time declaring other civilizations inferior and then invading them and enslaving people?" or "I'm no expert, but I don't think you can declare everyone in a city sub-human and then say you have no problem with them," and you'd never really get anywhere. But imagine that the following chart is next to the article.



All you have to do is point at the chart and wait, and at most, Dr. Jack Wheeler manages to mumble "Fallujah delenda est" before stumbling away crying. Then you're done and you can go take a nap. The only down side is that you can't use horrible writing to get incredibly angry for a while, but there's still TV.

If I can get enough support for this idea, I'd also like to require politicians to end any statement they make in an interview by repeating the question and then giving a one sentence summary of their answer.