Liberals, and Democrats generally, often find themselves in a position where they are defending a minority viewpoint. Sometimes, this is because they hold the minority viewpoint (Taxes aren’t the worst way in the whole world to spend money, or poor people are often the moral superiors of rich people, or the government is as capable of arranging the finance of a national health care system as an ad hoc conglomeration of hr departments, insurance companies, and hospital stockholders). Sometimes, though, it is because they hold the basic view that even people in the minority should be allowed their opinions. This makes it difficult to follow a debate; the debate is between people who are against X, and people who are also against X but think it’s a bad idea to lock up or kill or even silence people who are for X. If you don’t really want to pay attention, after a few exchanges like\n
Republican: I’m against flag burning!
\nDemocrat: I’m not in favor of flag burning, but surely a constitutional amendment to criminalize it is a bad idea.<\/blockquote>\neither you get the impression that everybody is against flag burning, and so the amendment is a good idea, or you get the impression that the Democrat is in favor of flag burning, but won’t admit it because everybody else is against it. Either way, the true position of Democratic legislators doesn’t come through. Particularly, I should add, when the Republicans, aware of this, make the exchange a little more like\nRepublican: I’m against flag burning! And the Democrats are in favor of it.
\nDemocrat: I’m not in favor of flag burning, but surely a constitutional amendment to criminalize it is a bad idea.
\nRepublican: Why are you in favor of flag burning?<\/blockquote>\nI’m not sure what can be done about that. The Democratic position is just harder to explain. And that is not just about stupid issues like flag burning, where one would think we could break through to the majority view that we should only amend the constitution if we really need to.\n
Republican: I’m against abortion! And the Democrats are in favor of it.
\nDemocrat: I’m not in favor of terrorism, but surely using torture, secret prisons, and desecrating sacred texts are ineffective ways of persuading people that we mean well.
\nRepublican: Why do you want to tax dead people?<\/blockquote>\nSome people (who? Why doesn’t he link to them?) suggest that the thing to do is to reverse the technique. They imagine something like this:\nDemocrat: I’m against torture! And the Republicans are in favor of it.
\nRepublican: I’m not in favor of torture, but surely we need to get vital intelligence from taxi drivers who pick up people who have names similar to those names which we made up and put on a list somewhere.
\nDemocrat: Why are you in favor of torture?
\nRepublican: I admit it! I love torture! Oh, why did you make me admit that, you big meanie. Now nobody will vote for me anymore. Waaaaaaah!<\/blockquote>\nI submit that the scenario is not really very likely. Remember, the Republicans know what they are doing. They have been here before. A more likely version might go something like this:\nDemocrat: I’m against torture! And the Republicans are in favor of it.
\nRepublican: Why are you in favor of terrorism?
\nDemocrat: I’m not, but I’m against torture!
\nRepublican: You keep changing the subject, because you don’t want to answer the question: Why do you want to tax dead people?<\/blockquote>\nAnyway, the best that you could hope for would be\nDemocrat: I’m against torture! And the Republicans are in favor of it.
\nRepublican: Why are you in favor of terrorism?
\nDemocrat: No, why are you<\/I> in favor of torture?
\nRepublican: No, why do you<\/I> hate ducks?
\nDemocrat: No, why do you<\/I>—wha? Ducks?
\nRepublican: Duck season is over, and it’s rabbit season!
\nDemocrat: Duck season!
\nRepublican: OK, it’s duck season. Now, will you tell us why you hate ducks?
\nDemocrat: I don’t hate ducks, but the ecosystem is very delicate, and if we don’t take seriously our stewardship of the oh shit you got me again.<\/blockquote>\nI’m not saying that all Democrats are wimpy and worthless debaters, and that all Republicans are weaselly demagogues. Not in this note, anyway. What I’m saying is that (a) the accurate liberal response to many questions challenging policies begins ‘it’s more complicated than that’, and (2) any response beginning that way makes a lot of people’s eyes glaze over, as they assume what follows is insincere fence-straddling.\n
We can’t change the first of those and stay liberal. I have no idea if we can change the second, but I sure hope we can.\n
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liberals, and Democrats generally, often find themselves in a position where they are defending a minority viewpoint. Sometimes, this is because they hold the minority viewpoint (Taxes aren\u2019t the worst way in the whole world to spend money, or poor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17457,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2957\/revisions\/17457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}