I really hate the conservative rhetoric machine that is always putting words in the mouths of liberals. This all started with this article:

Thomas Sowell Just Another Backwards Cracker

and the original article it came from. I wrote a long comment on the original article that I figured I’d post here. I’m so tired of this rhetoric from both sides. I realize I’ve been a part of it, but c’mon. Time to move on people…

I see this childlike mentality on both sides of the debate. Anytime you adhere to a party line so absolutely you are like a teenager. Trying on an ideology to see how it fits. But you have to at some point see the failings in both sides. Sure there were definitely some negativities to the revolution of the sixties. Sowell didn’t even bring up groups like the Weatherman. But there was also real, important, substantial change. Women have real value in our society. African Americans have real value in our society. Those were massive changes, and some of the process of making that happen had downsides, but they overall change was very important. And those changes are a key reason why Sowell actually can write an article on the Internet criticizing the sixties today.

I see so much rhetoric putting words into the mouths of liberals that is just ridiculous. Rush Limbaugh has entire fantasy conversations with liberals that don’t bear any relation to any liberal I’ve ever spoken with in real life.

Let me dispel some fallacies for you:

All liberals are Pro-Abortion: Many are Pro-Choice and strongly anti-abortion. They just don’t feel that the government has a right to infringe on the sovereign property rights of a human being to their own body. This belief has much in common with many conservatives who are strongly against giving the government the ability to track our every move (and perhaps implant us with ID chips). There is a lot of common ground on autonomy of the human body within a democracy. Perhaps we should be working together to avoid all unwanted pregnancies, rather than debating laws that could have serious consequences for the inalienable rights of the individual within our democracy. After all that is how Roe v. Wade is framed. If that falls then there is no reason for you to believe that you have a right for the government not to implant a chip in your body and track your every movement. I wish the chips were stacked better, but those are the stakes. It’s unpleasant in every direction.

All liberals are Pro-Tax: Every liberal I’ve ever talked to has hated taxes just as much as every conservative I’ve ever talked to. It is ridiculous to even suggest that liberals are for taxes. However, the United States government does have a lot of things right now that simply have to be paid. If you look at the budget, the majority is spent on the military (which we currently don’t want to cut), and paying interest on our debt. We wouldn’t make much of a dent on the tax liability of the average American even if we cut out everything else in the budget. The perception of liberals being pro-tax is that they are simply trying to be pragmatic, as are conservatives. Current conservative thought seems to believe that if taxes are low, growth will occur (which it does), and eventually the amount that we are bringing in from low taxes will match what we are spending, thus achieving a balance. Liberals generally believe that we can’t wait for that day, and we have too many bills currently, and so we should try to bring up the taxes to match our current bills. Both of these have problems. The conservative plan is better for the economy, but there’s no guarantee that we’ll ever be able to pay off our obligations (especially if the Congress continues to spend more money, which history has shown they like to do). The liberal plan has shown to pay off government bills, but has a tendency to slow economic growth, which can make it harder to pay off future government bills. And there’s the tendency of congress (like most Americans) to start spending again once they’ve got their bills in a somewhat manageable state, thus starting the whole cycle over again.

Liberals advocate socialism: None I know of. You might find them advocating things like universal health care, social security, or welfare, but none I know of are interested in taking free enterprise away as the prime motivator of American ingenuity and success in the world. Just as most conservatives aren’t actually for eliminating Social Security. Calling liberals communists and socialists is as helpful as calling conservatives fascists for their military stances. The public will always demand that the government help out its citizens in matters of life and death. Whether that be in cases of invasion (military), natural disaster (FIMA and National Guard), chronic health conditions (Medicaid), or old age (Medicare and Social Security). As a nation we simply don’t have the stomach for people dying in the streets from hunger and exposure. We don’t have the stomach for our grandmother’s and grandfather’s dying of starvation or easily treatable diseases because they’ve run out of retirement money. Currently the issue of “socialism” is some sort of national health plan. The problem is that we’ve got a system that we’re pretending is a free market, that isn’t. Health care can never be a free market, because we all need it, and when we need it we expect to be able to afford it. Conservatives and liberals need to get together on this one and figure out a way to provide this to all Americans. Because ultimately it will happen (see above about distaste of people dying in the streets; see also 60 minutes), and I (and I’d wager many conservatives) would prefer to see this happen in a way that would encourage the kind of amazing innovation that we’ve seen in health care in the United States in the past, while providing affordability. I don’t think that system will look like socialism or capitalism, and I think we’ll have to work together to make it happen.

Liberals love porn, deviant sexual behavior, ‘R’ rated movies, violent video games, and want to expose it to our kids: This is an issue that for some reason always gets tacked to conservatives which is odd. I know many free speech conservatives who are against any censorship, whatsoever. I know many who would like a moderate amount to protect children. I know many who would prefer none of this be produced ever. I see the exact same positions among liberals. Let’s not forget that almost every bill in Congress that attempts to deal with these issues is almost entirely bi-partisan. And their success or defeat is almost always completely bi-partisan also. It’s a silly argument to track as either liberal or conservative. We all love our kids. Blue states actually have lower divorce rates than red states on average so obviously liberals also love their spouses and are committed to marriage. We all have entertainment that we think is worthwhile that has a rating not appropriate for children, and we’ve all seen children’s entertainment that is not appropriate for exposure to inanimate objects. It’s just silly that we spend so much time arguing about this one.

Democrats are anti-property rights: You guys have got to stop trying to pin this one on us. Both liberals and conservatives have to be pragmatic occasionally with regards to eminent domain. We do occasionally need to build roads that don’t wind all over the place to avoid houses. Occasionally we need to put in airports or military bases on top of land owned by private citizens. All but the most strident libertarians are on the same page there. But Kelo v. City of New London (a decision made by an almost entirely conservative Supreme Court) caused wide spread bipartisan support for bills limiting the use of eminent domain in almost every statehouse in the nation. This is something we agree on. Stop listening to people who tell you otherwise. Even the hippies I know who live in communes strongly believe in their right as US citizens to own their communes as their personal property and to be free of government intervention. I have no clue where this idea of liberals advocating the collectivization of property comes from. It must date back to the cold war…

Kids these days have no respect: blah blah blah. Here’s some wisdom for you - people been saying that since the dawn of time. Liberal or conservative. After Cain killed Able, Adam probably said, “If your mother had spanked you more as a child none of this would have ever happened.” Yeah, other people’s kids sometimes annoy me. But they’ve always been that way. We just really, really want to believe it’s not the case. Plus most of us have moved to the city and we have to see each other’s kids all day. It must have been easier out on the farm. Your kids only had to behave when they went into town or went to church once a week.

My goal here is just to point out that using rhetorical straw men has gotten us no where. Nor have insults. Don’t get me wrong. We’ve got to use them. There’s a long tradition of insults and fisticuffs in politics. But at the end of the day we have to realize they’re just words and find the compromises and the common ground.

I am, however still puzzled by Sowell, and man who based on the comments here is wise and learned, going on a rant about intellectuals. That is to my mind the very definition of an intellectual. Although, I guess going on rants about fellow philosophers is a tradition as old as the Greeks (probably older).