Thoughts on a Coffee Shop Conversation

As I sat in a coffee shop last weekend I overheard (or rather, could not help but overhear) a man loudly explaining to his friend that there's no point trying to explain something complicated like health-care to "people who watch Fox" because "they're incapable of rational thought." This is not an unusual perspective. I have heard similar "criticisms" from Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Frank Rich, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and on and on.

For some reason, liberals have a terrible time crediting their ideological opponents with intelligence and morality (Note: For more of my thoughts on this, see the next post.). I think this is because it's easier to ignore certain views if you can convince yourself that the people who hold them are greedy, dishonest, stupid, irrational, or otherwise unworthy of serious consideration. For people who do this, their ideological opposites are always incurably afflicted with some inherent flaw that renders their perspectives invalid. It can never be the case that conservatives, acting altruistically, have simply reached a different conclusion about the appropriate course of action.

There are many legitimate (though misguided, in my opinion) criticisms of conservative thought: markets produce inequality and can reward unethical behavior; smaller government does less for people in need; individual liberty can be abused to harm others; traditional values ignore significant social changes, etc. Liberals would do well to focus on these sorts of arguments, and some do. But the many liberals who instead choose to denigrate opponents serve as evidence that conservatives are currently winning the war of ideas in America.

One might be tempted to argue, "Well, conservatives do the same thing. They characterize liberals unfairly." But I think this is generally untrue - or at least not true in the same way. Clearly, there will be instances where even the most fair-minded and well-intending person resorts to character arguments to score a cheap point, but conservative attacks on liberals - even by the most incendiary voices (Beck, Coulter, Hannity) - are generally attacks on their ideas: Liberals want to "socialize medicine", "redistribute wealth", "grow government", "raise taxes", etc. You can argue that these statements are untrue, but they're only effective as "attacks" because conservatives (and history) have convinced Americans that these are all bad ideas.

This is very different than saying that liberals are just basically immoral people, and it would be a waste of breath to talk with them. I know very few conservatives who think that's true, but I hear it said about conservatives by high-profile liberals on a fairly regular basis.

Even if people on the Left reject the claim that liberals rely on character attacks more often than conservatives, we should at least agree that both sides, to the extent that they do, are wrong in doing so.