Losing The Debate

Yesterday I posted a link to an IndyMedia posting about a kid from the ISM who went and stuck what can only be referred to as an objectionable note in the cracks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Today, while I was at work, I happened to take a gander at Dean's World and was somewhat shocked to see Dean publicly upset over some of the comments that had been left in a couple of threads on his site. I've been following the debate in both posts as it was happening and I can certainly see where Dean is coming from. But what do both of these topics have in common?

To put it rather simply, they are emblematic of a far reaching change in the conservative movement in America. The conservatives are forgetting how to debate and influence.

As I was growing up, for some reason I don't remember, my Dad used to always tell me how to argue (this was really targeted at legal issues, but for an overall strategy, I've found it very effective). He used to always tell me "If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither the law nor the facts are with you, pound the table." And like I said, focusing on the strength of my position ahead of time has helped me in debating or arguing quite a bit.

For years the conservative movement was out of favor. From the early 1930s right on through to 1960s liberalism was the predominant force in American politics. The only way that the conservatives could get across their message was to articulate it well, base it solely on fact, and keep forcing the debate back to the facts. As a result, the conservative movement was able to take power back as they had a stance that people understood and understood the value of.

Starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s the liberal movement began to base their strategy for debate on "table pounding." It was no longer enough to argue fact and merit. More and more the tactics of misrepresentation and character attacks became de rigueur for the liberal side of an argument. They lost their ability to debate just as the conservatives perfected theirs. As a result, the conservatives have taken control of both the Presidency and Congress for the first time in nearly half a century.

But lately, I've been noticing that the folks on the right have been losing their ability to actually debate. I first noted it in some of the big names, like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Neal Boortz. Now those three have more to worry about than just providing for a reasoned debate. They also have ratings to worry about and let's face it, rude sells. People don't want to hear two people debating the facts; they want to hear a caller getting hung up on. It's kind of like the people who watch NASCAR for the wrecks.

Look at some of the comments left in reaction to the ISM post. They are viciously personal at times. For most, it is easier (and possibly more satisfying) to call the guy a "fucktard", another refers to a liberal poster as "hitler spawn" and yet a third states "May allah send a sidewinder missile up your ass, dumbshit." Are these the voices of reasoned debate? I think not. Personal attacks are not debate. Yet this is the direction that more and more people are going.

Now, I'll grant you that the ISMer post was on IndyMedia, which quite possibly helped to turn this into a bit more polarized issue than it would have otherwise been. But why is this stuff happening to Dean?

Dean is a self-confessed liberal. He is also a very solid debater. I sometimes disagree with him, but have never seen him put forth an argument that is based completely on "pounding on the table." He almost always has a factual basis for his position.

But then read his post on Trackback Ruminations. Look at how the personal attacks have hurt and drained him. Instead of directly taking on his position, folks resorted to distortion, quoting out of context and other deceptive practices. And when he publicly admitted to maybe having gone too far in his original post, he was accused of being condescending (which he wasn't, contrite maybe, but not condescending).

Only a few people chose to actually engage Dean in a true debate, i.e.: the use of fact to rebut fact. Those who tried were almost always rewarded with a real response.

But the debates were drown out by the noise of the personal attacks. Why? It seems as though those who were incapable of making a factual argument (pounding on the facts) instead chose to resort to pounding on the table - and to good effect. In this case, they were able to so thoroughly disgust the opposing participant as to silence him, for a time.

The biggest problem that I see coming from this is that the intellectual midgets among the conservative movement will look upon this as the Holy Grail of debate. It's quick. It's easy. It can be effective quite a bit. But in going all out to win the battle, they are setting up the conservatives to lose the war.

The war of ideas in America is not to win over the hearts or minds of either the conservatives or the liberals. Their minds are usually already made up. No amount of great factual debate will change the mind of devoted follower of either movement.

No the war is for the hearts and minds of the middle of the roaders in America. These are the folks that make decisions based, not on ideological leanings, but on a gut feeling. These are the folks that make up most of the nation.

The conservatives gained power because they could articulate their argument, while the liberals could only engage in personal attacks. The liberal movement is learning the lesson. It is liberals like a Dean at the grassroots level or an Alan Colmes at the national level who can articulate a real liberal argument. If the liberals can continue their movement towards clarity as the conservatives continue their movement towards table pounding then we could be seeing the beginnings of a fundamental shift in the political structure of the US.

The conservatives still have the upper hand. They had fifty years in which to perfect their ability to argue factual arguments. The liberals are, generally, only now realizing that they will have to do the same. But the more we see arguments that consist only of name calling, the more likely it will be that the conservative movement has begun its trek back into the political wilderness.

It's time to get back to national debates of facts and not personal attacks. Otherwise, we're heading for a wreck better than anything NASCAR has ever seen.