Major Premise

People can be persuaded, but not forced, to change their opinions. There is no “magic bullet.”

More rhetoricians than can be listed here—from Plato and Aristotle to Bitzer and beyond—have expounded means by which rhetoric can persuade more effectively. That such discourse is necessary betrays the salient fact that rhetoric has never been, nor will it ever be, an absolute art. It cajoles and coaxes—it does not, it cannot, coerce.