Arguing with Conservatives

Arguing with conservatives is usually an arduous task; having to dumb yourself down to replicate a complete absence of logic and reason is near impossible, especially after you've been conditioned to predicating entire arguments based on factual merit. Usually, rather than submitting factual justification for claims or employing sound reasoning skills, conservatives will do one of two things: oversimplify problems to evade critical thinking (usually because they don't know how to think critically) or interject simple aphorisms that have no factual merit, but somehow justify an inane concept or racist undertone (often times, it's a mix of both). Rather than try to evaluate the psychological deficiencies of conservatives, it seems to serve more of an efficacious purpose to examine the medley of examples that exist and use one to showcase the lack of intellectual prowess from the right.
Let's start with the first tactic conservatives use in argument: oversimplification. Usually, this involves many broad topics that conservatives are not intimately familiar with, either because they are uneducated or indifferent to them, yet they feel inclined to express their opinion on them. These things include, but are not limited to: history (conservatives are especially uneducated on American history), American politics, international relations, race relations, public policy, urban development, education, finance, economics, sciences (especially natural science), logic, philosophy, and math. In fact, it seems to be the case that unless the argument is heading in the direction of NASCAR or drinking copious amounts of Budweiser, conservatives will have little to no education on the topic. Here is a small example of conservative oversimplification and a simple analysis:

“9/11 happened because all Muslims are terrorists, because Islam is a terrorist religion that hates everyone and they hate the American way of life.”

Perhaps I should classify this classic conservative line as an aphorism; while it does include oversimplification, it goes back to a general statement that is taken as a maxim because no contrary evidence exists as conservatives are too busy to read books and news articles. (you'd be surprised how much time hunting and painting a confederate flag on your 1972 El Camino takes.)
Usually, after this gem is dropped, an educated leftist will scratch his or her head, nonplussed at the sheer stupidity that just saturated the room. After searching for a clause or phrase that could possibly ease the sharp pain that has grown in his or her pre-frontal cortex, the leftist usually regresses into a state of defeat, realizing that it doesn't matter how many facts or how much empirical evidence he or she can provide to said conservative – they're just too dumb (or too ignorant, racist, etc.) to comprehend world events, and would rather settle with a simple phrase or statement that sums up the often complex problems of international affairs because thinking too much hurts their heads.
Usually, the leftist (remember, leftist is distinguished from liberal) will do what he or she normally does – provide the conservative with the real reason 9/11 happened. I'll do it in dialogue format, just because it'll be more fun:

Conservative: All Muslims are terrorists.

Leftist: Uhh that's like me saying that all Christians are..

Conservative: America is a Christian nation. Are you about to call an American Christian a terrorist?

Leftist: No, but they do some shitty things to other nations..

Conservative: What, do you hate this country? This country was built on Christianity and we're the greatest country in the world -- how can we be wrong?

Leftist: But at what expense does our “greatness” come? Not to mention, if this country is so 'great,' why has the unemployment rate increased steadily since the initiation of Reagan type policies? Why is more than half of the wealth concentrated in the hands of 20% of Americans?

Conservative: What do you mean expense? We don't do anything wrong; other people want to kill us for no reason – because they're terrorists and because Islam is a terrorist religion.

Leftist: Again, how are you oversimplifying this and categorizing 25% of the world's population as de facto terrorists because they're part of a religion? I can make that case about Pat Robertson and Christians in America, and I certainly can make that case with Zionists who call for the destruction of the Palestinian people and support the apartheid policies of the state of Israel.

Conservative: Well there's too much terrorism in Israel. 9/11. What about 9/11? Have you forgotten about 9/11? They attacked us. We didn't do anything, and they killed innocent civilians who didn't do anything.

Leftist: Okay, so you're saying that “individuals who kill or perpetuate wanton massacre of civilians are terrorists?”

Conservative: Yeah, like the radical Muslims on 9/11.

Leftist: By that definition then, almost every United States president is a 'terrorist.' Bush sent drones to blow up hospitals and schools in Iraq, who were civilians, Clinton killed plenty of civilians in Kosovo on the same day as Columbine, and certainly Reagan, pursuant to the Domino Theory, forcibly removed democratically elected leaders in South Ameri...

Conservative: What? If you hate America so much, why don't you get out of the country and move somewhere else?

Leftist: Because this is my country.

Conservative: Well why don't you move to Cuba or North Korea you communist? Huh? There's no democracy there you would hate it and come rushing back.

Leftist: Right, which is why I don't want to go there, I want to stay here I just want to make changes.

Conservative: We don't need changes we're the greatest country in the world. Okay I have to go; I'm on my way to Arizona to sign up for the neo-Nazi anti-immigrant rally.

That's more or less how conversations with conservatives go. It's frustrating because they're so uneducated that it would necessitate a few days straight to enlighten them to the facts, and you would not be able to go 15 minutes without being interrupted with patriotic rhetoric. In fact, I'm going to create a mathematical law to represent the relationship between conservative rhetoric and the use of fact(s):



Either way, that is just an elementary example of the oversimplification problem. A few of my other favorites (and the proper respective response when warranted):

“Saddam had nukes; it was either us or them.”

“Survival of the fittest applies to us, too.”

“People don't have money because they're lazy and they don't want to work, not because there are no opportunities.” Or because education is not fair for every individual; if you look at the difference between allocation of capital per student at two locations, say Red Bank, NJ compared to Elizabeth, NJ, I'm sure you'd quickly see how per student, Red Bank gets a lot more and thus gets a much better education.

“Illegal immigrants ruin hospitals by making them bankrupt.” Illegal immigrants are good for the economy, (source)

“if you don't support the troops, the terrorists win”

“we need guns to defend ourselves, and somehow the interpretation of the right to bear arms which in context was used to justify militia during the American revolution justifies me in getting an AK-47”

“if we start letting gays marry, it would be okay for people to marry animals”

“all those damned liberal hippie professors at universities are brainwashing our kids to follow their conspiracy liberal agenda with meaningless things like facts and statistics and perspective”

“there's no need to study philosophy because it won't help you get a job when you graduate”


Bulletproof logic.

What makes this task so difficult is that it takes a legitimate amount of emotional and intellectual capital to remain calm while attempting to enlighten the right to how things actually work. As seen in the oversimplification complex, it is difficult trying to explain anything to a conservative given their inability to comprehend complex issues. Moreover, the absence of an established education in most affairs makes this task exponentially more difficult. What is shameful, however, is that most of what conservatives say has political appeal, at least for conditioned Republicans like Palin et al. Since a majority of Americans don't really care about what's going on, they leave it up to these aphorisms and equivocations and so forth to propagate political opinion (this is why Obama's middle name and de facto association with Islam was so prominent during the election) rather than allowing factual discourse to take place. Instead of arguing, do something more meaningful and productive, like taking a nap.

Libertarianism: A Non-Objectivist Analysis. Part I - Hypocrisy

The libertarian discourse has its share of contradiction, but none is more tangible than the libertarian assessment of leftist philosophy. Essentially, the fictional works and the "objectivist" philosophy of Ayn Rand constitute a majority of the libertarian canon; the justification for complete deregulation comes from the objectivist idea that human existence is predicated on the pursuit of happiness and thus there should be nothing to inhibit that process. What follows, then, is a libertarian argument that is rooted in philosophy. When libertarians argue with leftists, libertarians are quick to point out the failures of the left, and they're even quicker to justify their ideas under the auspices of there "never being a true instance of non-regulation," thus warranting an appeal to philosophical arguments.

Debate with libertarians can invoke much frustration as it is almost always an arduous task; libertarians automatically assume they are aware of leftist philosophy by pointing to the instances of the failure of Communism in what Slajov Zizek calls de facto Communism - the USSR, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the People's Republic of China, Cuba, etc. While these may be instances of manifested leftism from classical theory, Zizek is correct in calling them de facto; in each of the aforementioned cases, there had been at some point a digression from classical theory, in which all cases then included the creation of a dictatorship (for example, well after Marx's death, Leninism prevailed over Trotskyism and the Fourth International which created the dictatorship - Marx never discussed HOW a Communist regime should be carried out, thus Leninist Communism is distinguishable from classical Marxism or other instances of Socialism).

What constitutes hypocrisy here is that libertarians assume that de facto Communism and classical leftist theory and philosophy are one in the same, and they subsequently base their arguments on that predication. When submerged in debate, libertarians will adhere to this tactic, and in ad nauseum fashion, constantly assert that every instance of Communism that has existed has been guilty of wanton violations of human rights. The alternative, for them, is that if there is little government and no regulation, corporations will invest substantial capital, monetary and other, in creating a society that is fair; the panacea for social disparity is deregulation. The alternate argument for libertarians is that individuals who are weak will simply be weeded out by the process - those who can't survive the macabre atmosphere of unfettered capitalist competition will die out, literally. Consider the former, which is much more popular in libertarian circles: essentially, libertarians are assuming that capitalists will obey some set of unwritten rules in their discourse, rules that will create a fair society. They argue that corporate leaders and capitalists will fairly distribute capital among their workers, as if they had some vested interest in society as a whole. Obviously we see this wouldn't be the case, it isn't even the case today - the top 1% of the United States owned 39.6% of the gross income distribution in FY 2007 (source).

Operating within the parameters of logic and reason during debate with libertarians is an inutile tactic. Transversely, libertarians exclusively use philosophy to justify their arguments, overlooking the instances of the actual result of deregulation; an egregious error in terms of fairness. A simple syllogism forces libertarians to make a massive concession: that they have no interest in society or others in general, and they exist to serve the exclusive purpose of fulfilling their own rapacious initiatives. For example, let's consider a hypothetical case in which there is a complete absence of regulation. Corporation A, by virtue of definition, exists exclusively to generate profit. Generating profit for Corporation A is supplemented by reducing the labor costs, thus workers will be paid as little as possible; without regulation, there is no minimum wage. Libertarians argue that if this is the case, those workers can move to Corporation B who would pay them more fairly. They argue that people will see that Corporation A pays their workers unfairly, and will boycott their goods and buy from Corporation B. This libertarian maxim has flaws - remember when Wal*Mart got busted for not paying overtime (source)? What was the result? People didn't stop shopping at Wal*Mart. Since Wal*Mart uses these tactics to maximize output and minimize production costs, it can get away with selling products at dirt cheap prices. People don't care about Wal*Mart's failure to practice ethics - they just want to buy things for as cheap as possible. Thus Wal*Mart, like Corporation A, will continue to thrive because it provides people with cheap products - the only difference is that Wal*Mart got caught because of regulation. If there was no regulation, the Wal*Mart employees who were cheated out of their overtime would never have been granted recourse. In fact, without regulation, what would have stopped Wal*Mart from simply executing them? Coca-Cola has already used violence to suppress union movements in South America, interestingly enough, where there is little regulation for global corporations (source). Libertarians will never address this fact, but they will rather attempt to palliate by pointing the finger at de facto Communism - which we've already established as not congruent with classical leftism. These general contradictions often leave leftists nonplussed.

Libertarians remain unabated in their defense of no regulation or oversight. Oversight remains anathema for them, as if it is some scourge to the operation of society. Addressing the good of society is never a concern for libertarians; their exclusive motive is to pursue profit, even at the expense of individual life.

Maddow vs. Paul

As much as I like to pride myself on intellectual debate and theoretical discussion, I can't help but admit that Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann are two guilty pleasures of mine. I love the passion that Maddow and Olbermann both have for the left - anyone who remembers Olbermann's five minute plea with America at the end of his show following the Prop 8 controversy will agree. In terms of academic honesty, Maddow and Olbermann are relatively fair; more or less all of the statistics they make their interns find have credibility behind them. But in terms of providing legitimate points of digression from the status quo, Maddow and Olbermann both fall short, opting to focus on petty cheap shots and rhetoric rather than logical deduction - sometimes I can't distinguish their tactics from Glenn Beck's or Bill O'Reilly's. There's no theoretical argument, nothing bound by the parameters of logic and reason. And this can be a problem.

Such was the case on The Rachel Maddow Show on May 14, 2010, when she hosted Dr. Rand Paul, a moron libertarian who recently won the Kentucky Republican primary. Rather than address issues that are of true concern, for instance, whether Paul, if elected, would continue to support American imperialism directly or vis-a-vis Israel, or whether Paul would support bailing out the big banks (again), Maddow backed him into a corner based on a relatively anachronistic piece of legislation: the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I'm not detracting any importance from this act, but I can't see how discussing this 46 year old piece of legislation is important. People of our generation, especially us on the left, don't question this - just in virtue of not being racist provides tacit support for this legislation. But by focusing on this piece of legislation, Maddow essentially gave Paul an easy out: he didn't have to discuss his libertarian philosophy which would have incredibly petrifying effects as he spent the majority of the show talking about a 46, yes 46, year old piece of legislation. How are we going to expose libertarian greed and solve economic disparity if we're focusing on everything BUT it? I'll address that in a future post, but for now, I have to throw a few darts and Maddow for playing the FoxNews game, or at least, I'll defer to the academic field here.

What is most interesting about this debacle is the reaction from the GOP. The immediate backlash from the GOP was, as Charles Babington put it, to "tame" Paul (source). This essentially infers that Paul, as a nominal Republican, is now bound by the parameters of the party, even though his philosophy disagrees with a majority of what Republicans stand for. In his own response to the interview and subsequent media backlash, Paul himself identified what Maddow had done as "[a] Democratic talking point," which had the result of further polarizing him to adopt the manifesto of Republicans (source). Now it seems that Paul has sacrificed his libertarian position for a Republican one; by identifying his enemy as "Democratic," he fell into the trap of Republican association, even though he is a stark opponent of some of the most elementary Republican platforms. Paul surrendered to the two-party trap very early, which means if he wins, sacrificing the libertarian discourse for Republican ideals will be commonplace during his tenure, more or less killing his chances at successfully pushing libertarian ideals foward.

What does this say about the libertarian movement? It seems to be the case that despite the recent surge in popularity of Ayn Rand, libertarians cannot survive in political environment saturated with neo-con Republicans. We first saw this lack of support for the libertarian philosophy in Ron Paul's 2008 failure to make any noise during the Republican primary. He was getting applause during the debates when he stood out against the war, which at the time, was wildly unpopular. However, Republican voters aligned themselves with the traditional Christian conservative discourse and essentially dismissed the libertarian plea; Paul took a seat very early to McCain and the devil. I mean Mitt Romney.

Unfortunately for libertarians, it seems that the political environment is still too virgin for a successful movement. This is great for the radical left; nothing scares me more than a complete lack of regulation in a free-market system. But what does this say for Rand Paul? As aforementioned, it seems to be the case that Paul will be easily manipulated in the senate by the Republican war machine. I could be wrong though - he might end up being the conservative version of Alan Grayson or Dennis Kucinich, sticking to his radical ideals at the expense of being ostracized by the majority of the party. This is the best case scenario for libertarians. Although he is (relatively) young, he might stick to the radical theory of de-reguation. Certainly, this would grant the small libertarian movement some solace. However, it will probably make Senate parties a little awkward if Paul continues to bash Republicans for neo-jingoism.