Against Persuasion

The lament in this essay is that we're not open to persuasion in our politics. How about considering that politics itself is the problem.

A person of a more libertarian bent, like myself, would assert that it's the conflation of government and society, the political and the social, that's the problem. They are separate spheres of human activity. That same sort of person would tell you that politics is a method for conflict resolution, given the inescapable fact of force in human relations.

Politics is about force. The social, by contrast precludes the use of force. Society is about cooperation.

If you accept the above view, you try to reign in what politics applies to. But that is not at all what our politics is like today. Today, we try to do all sorts of things through the power of government. We inject force into aspects of society that should instead be left to cooperation. In fact, we go beyond that. We consider that use of force moral, since it's in the service of the pursuit of "utopia."

I don't expect non-libertarians to agree. I just want to point out that no one should be shocked at all the fighting in the political sphere. Moreover, I would further assert that no one should kid himself or herself that "openness" or "persuasion" is the solution. Lastly, I would point out that when the question "how should government accomplish such-and-such" is posed to someone of libertarian bent, no amount of persuasion is possible, one way or the other. All arguments are superficial. At the bottom, they ignore the point that government shouldn't.

I don't know what it means. I can tell you that as I've become more conservative, I've been less able to express myself freely. I started off life as a liberal and spent most of my adult life not affiliated with a political party. Until recently, I felt like I could pretty much share my thoughts more or less freely.

Socially speaking, I would say that conservatives were generally fair game to make fun of or put down in some way most of the time. Sometimes it would be making fun of rednecks or hillbillies or maybe the Amish. Luddites were fair game to be made fun of. Oftentimes it was less about humor and put downs, but more about moral superiority. This was just my experience, and I'm sure other liberal/progressive/whatever people are struggling to feel accepted in their conservative social circle.

Now that I'm conservative, I talk a lot less about what I think in mixed company. It's simply too risky.

It comes down to the paradox of tolerance. Abiding by civil discourse and norms puts the establishment (status quo) at a structural disadvantage.

Reactionaries, motivated by fear, fueled by resentment, keep upping the ante.

Liberals, conservatives (philosophical, not partisan), everyone else just can't bring themselves to believe the anti-majoritarian rhetoric is sincere.

Technological progress always disrupts society. Immigration always fuels xenophobia. Expanding the franchise always triggers backlash (retrenchment). Inequity always begats right wing populism.

The only notion I have is calm everyone down. Tap the breaks on tech. Stop advocating for immigration. Enfranchise people on the down low.

Most importantly, reverse inequity. Get the ginni index back down. By whatever means possible.

You may be right; it could be that liberals like talking more than listening, or that liberals are good at expressing their opinions (and under the delusion that an opinion presented with logic and evidence automatically means the listener will be converted to that opinion) while conservatives are less so, failing to express their opinions in a way that penetrates that delusion. And unfortunately, I, being a liberal, don't think I have a good idea of conservative opinions. Fortunately, I live in a very conservative area and have access to that most excellent source of opinions, the local newspaper.

Last Wednesday's Jackson County Sentinel (http://jcsentinel.com/) has an editorial by Danny Gardner (https://muckrack.com/daniel-gardner-1/articles), "White House blames misinformation for low vaccination rates."

"Cubans have begun a revolution for freedom...begging US to help them gain their independence. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that Haitians or Cubans who come to America by Sea 'will be returned'.

"Meanwhile, Mayorkas continues to insist that our Southern border 'is closed' while hundreds of thousands of migrants from around the world stream across the closed border to the extent more than one million have crossed this fiscal year. [My note: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistic...]

"Escalating violent crime rates continue to ravage cities across America. [Note: https://www.bbc.com/news/57581270] The 'Defund the Police' movement is alive and well and being cheered on by representatives in Congress. Critical Race Theory (CRT) is dividing parents, teachers, and children into racial and political identity groups in the name of ending racism....

"From January to the middle of May, fourteen states enacted 22 new voting laws. In Philadelphia last week President Biden claimed, 'We are facing the most significant test of our Democracy since the Civil War...' Are new voting laws tantamount to the Civil War?

"...In fact, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki earned the title of Miss Information with some of her comments about monitoring and correcting Facebook and other social media accounts that spread misinformation about COVID, particularly about vaccines.

"...More than 34 million Americans have contracted Covid-19, and well over 33 million recovered. Should they be forced to take the vaccine? How many have died after taking the vaccine? How many have encountered adverse reactions after taking the vaccine? [Note: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad...]

"Last year about this time and through the end of the year, the LEFT relentlessly attacked the notion of producing a safe vaccine that could help end the pandemic. The LEFT didn't get onboard with the vaccine until after President Biden was inaugurated. [I do not remember this.] Why? Was it a question of science?

"No one doubts, or should doubt that social media is full of misinformation. That is not news. The real news is the White House's threats to control what its current residents consider to be misinformation. Let's try an experiment: What if President Trump had won? Would some still refuse to take the vaccine? Would the LEFT enthusiastically encourage everyone to take the vaccine?

"Misinformation is not the problem. Politics is the problem. Politics says the border is closed...migrants fleeing Haiti or Cuba will be returned to their failed states...police are making violent crime rates soar...we can end racism by separating people by race...new voting laws are Jim Crow laws. Politics says we will tell you what the truth is and censor what anyone else says.

"Maybe misinformation is the problem? Where is all of this misinformation coming from?" [Elisions mine, my fingers are tired of typing.]

There's a lot of opinions there, including some hidden ones. (Cuban (and Haitian?) immigrants are good, Mexican, Honduran, and Guatemalan are bad?) Some of them I can see as worrying, although I have this strange feeling that Gardner is accusing the LEFT of doing things the right was doing for years. Anyone remember "alternative facts"?

I have a conservative friend who is very concerned about the illegal immigration issue. I'm not sure what his problem with it is, considering I try to avoid getting involved in rants. And especially since some of his best friends are involved in the construction industry, and we're surrounded by poultry operations, both of which might possible have some undocumented workers. I do wonder about his thoughts on the "wall", since he's a retired wildlife biologist and might possibly be concerned about blocking migration routes.

Anyway, back to the Sentinel. Saturday's copy has a letter to the editor from a local: "With the Maricopa County, Arizona adit of the 2020 election results in progress the question of whether the 2020 election was stolen and/or full of significant fraud. [Yeah, that's a sentence fragment. This one's a bad one. But that doesn't mean the opinions are wrong or invalid.] Previous analysis and reports have documented what appears to be a large amount of fraudulent voting, especially in the battleground states, an especially in big cities controlled by the Democrats.

"...Why did the [federal?] courts refuse to hear [cases about election fraud]? ... There were many reasons, but it seems from a Supreme Court standpoint the were influenced by leaving it to the state courts to rule in their own states. [Note: Sho' 'nuff. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25754949] Furthermore, one of the key considerations in the Supreme Court refusing to take on an election case was the threat of violence from the Left. [WHAT?!] The Left (i.e., Democrats) had been rioting, looting, and burning almost continuously since May 2020.

"...threat of violence...the violence of the Democrats and the support of the RINOs...Biden won Arizona by 10,000 votes, but recent preliminary audit results identified 107,000 fraudulent ballots. [I cannot find a reference for this. Maybe https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-elections-arizona-gover...]

"Virtually any and all forensic audits of one of the suspected culprits, Dominion voting machines, have been blocked completely. Antrim County, Michigan remains an obvious example of voting machine fraud with an actual ballot [count] flipped 30% of the voted so that Trump won that [county] by 65 percent to 35 percent. [Note: I think https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-elections-arizona-gover...]

"...So many, many people believe the election was stolen. This must be resolved before the next election. It would be great to conduct said audit and find that fraud was minimal and didn't affect the outcome of the election.

"The United States had a great four years under President Donald Trump who I consider to be our greatest President of the past 100 years. Why? He told the TRUTH! His actions "Made America Great Again". Now we are ruled by a political party that is "Making America Poor," and doing great harm to the prosperity and integrity of the USA. Our Founders produced a country that has been the greatest country ever.

"It was a country based on Biblical standards, men and women who were dependent on God, and people who were obedient to God's will. Trump wasn't perfect nor have the people been, but great things have been done.

"Corrections have been made. In large part, our current leaders have abandoned God's instructions to follow their own. Democrat Congressman Gerald Nadler said it so well, 'God's will is no concern of Congress.'"

Now, I (as I linked to above) did a look-see at the court cases about 2020 election fraud. In the ones that actually presented evidence, that evidence was examined by the courts carefully---many specifically mentioned allowing the plaintiffs extra latitude due to the importance. However, in all the cases, the evidence was very weak. (I didn't see any mentioning violence from the Left.) At the federal level, most of them were completely out of place. (And a surprising number died on a precedent set by G.W. Bush in 2000.) Audits have been performed (And by people with skills and experience. Cyber Ninjas? Really?); they just didn't provide the result this writer and many other conservatives seem to have wanted. So I don't have much enthusiasm for the opinion that the election was stolen. Sorry.

I was also in Texas when Lloyd Benson retired and his "safe" district was divvied up to ensure that Travis County would never elect another Democrat (https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot-info/tpp/maps/texas-senate.p...). So, yeah, I look at the recent spate of election laws with a certain amount of skepticism.

As for being dependent on God's will, let's just say I'm an atheist. Let's further say that, in my historical view, governing based on God's instructions was kind of a bad idea. For moral and ethical reasons.

That leaves me with a final set of opinions that I can't really argue with: I'm a despicable, anti-American, violent liar. Which may well be true. Heck, I might even have committed a capitol crime (https://www.amazon.com/Treason-Liberal-Treachery-Cold-Terror...).

Speaking as a liberal in a very conservative area, I'm in the same boat. I wouldn't really want to talk politics, but I'm absolutely not going to even if someone else does specifically ask. Liberals are made fun of and regarded as immoral and dangerous. (Which is kind of ironic, given that I have moralistic tendencies. Just Kantian rather than Biblical.)