'Talking points'

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I think I agree with the OP here though I am not sure I understand his complaint. I don't think the problem is whether the person making the point thought of it himself or obtained it from another source, that is irrelevant. The problem is when the point has not only already been made but answered, then simply repeated without adressing the answer. At that point the discussion becomes futile and I tend to lose interest which partly explains my abysmal post count.

I think this is partly because the Obama campaign used such lists so effectively. As is now clear, for example from what happened with the various health bill compromises and with his Guantanamo promise, Obama's supporters are a pretty disparate group. During the campaign, though, differences of opinion were minimized by the campaign's keeping very tight control over the campaign message, for example by distributing talking point lists. Various Obama supporters shut up about positions that weren't represented in the campaign message because they all wanted to get rid of Bush so badly.

That technique was so successful that it's been adopted pretty widely in politics since, so there tends to be a presumption on the part of many people that anything that sounds similar to an established political position must be a talking point.

Of course, while that approach is great for winning elections, it's not so good for figuring out what the truth actually is and for figuring out what fixes will actually work for various problems - "close Guantanamo within a year" was a great talking point, but turned out not to be so easy in practice. Open minded people will instead ask probing questions to try to figure out for themselves whether or not any particular position or point is accurate or relevant - and of course will check multiple sources.

Unfortunately, most people - by which I mean most neurotypicals, not most aspies - don't have the time or patience to figure things out on their own, so they just stick with whatever they want to believe and dismiss any contrary points as invalid.