Archive for the 'Essays' Category

The Marriage of Church and State

Written by Christopher Roussel. Published on July 4, 2010 ago in Essays, Religion and Theology. 4 Comments

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Defending Secularisation

For Americans, today is the celebration of the American colonies declaring freedom from their European owners. The problem with this is that it has become a common thing to celebrate within the church. My main concern is that church worship is supposed to be dedicated to the worship of God and Christ, not a government.

Perhaps the most telling reasoning behind this marriage is one that confronted me recently. Recently, I commented that today I get to go to church without needing to worship the State. An old friend replied that one should be thankful to the State for the freedom of worship, even if it cuts into the time one spends worshiping God and Christ.

Yet this is exactly the kind of civil religion that ultimately harms the church. Over the next few posts in this series, I will argue that the separation of church and state that we find in secularisation. Through secularisation, Christians have greater freedom to worship God because there is no pretense to glorifying the State before, with, or after God. In other words, a secularised society is better than one in which State and Church is married.

In this respect, American Christianity is largely backwards in its love of civil religion. I wish to analyse the theological underpinning of this marriage, showing that the marriage of Church and State has developed out of a poor understanding of Christian theology. It is only through a secularised politics that Christian theology will grow.

Opposite Ends of Arizona

Written by Christopher Roussel. Published on June 1, 2010 ago in Essays and Politics. 1 Comment

I’m sure most people who read this blog regularly are aware of Arizona’s new law requiring people to produce identification that they are legally in the US (either as citizens, residents, visitors, etc). The interesting thing to me is the ideology behind this. No, I’m not going to discuss whether or not this leads to racial profiling.

What’s fascinating to me is that this law was passed and is promoted as a ‘right-wing’, conservative law. This is because those same ‘right-wing’ conservatives tend to push for privacy rights, supporting laws designed to protect an individual’s identity (e.g. ‘stop and ID’ laws like this). There is no federal law requiring individuals to identify themselves, which is why these state laws have been enacted. However, these state laws are specific in that the only require people who are legally detained to provide identification. In other words, it is a relatively cut-and-dry situation: either one detained or not and it is either legally or not (yes, the legality of the detainment can be up for interpretation, but it is generally clear-cut). Outside of these situations, nobody is required to provide identification. This kind of ideology is based on a fairly conservative reading of the law (particular those regarding illegal search and seizure, presumption of innocence, etc).

The fascination I have is that Arizona’s new identification law resembles what is seen more often in what would be considered by Americans ‘socialist’ or ‘left-wing’ countries. I’m always fascinated in how the political spectrum is imagined in the public consciousness; this is a perfect example of how that image is faulty. The standard left/right distinction in America usually implies that the ‘left’ is about big government and authoritarianism that borders on fascism (the common example here is the American conception of ‘communism’ by which is meant Stalinism). The American ‘right’, on the other hand, is seen as promoting small and limited government.

Colin has posted previously about the Nolan chart. This is one example of seeing the political spectrum as having more than one dimensions. In allowing multiple axes, we can see that there are ‘right-wing’ groups that do support big government as well as ‘left-wing’ groups that support small, limited government. If anything, Arizona’s new law shows just this: that conservative, ‘right-wing’ groups can and do support laws that go against the small, limited government ideology. So perhaps we can have our cake and eat it too, provided we market it properly.

Liberal vs Conservative in Academia

Written by Atanamis. Published on March 29, 2010 ago in Essays and Politics. 16 Comments

I just read a very interesting article, with a great deal of insight. It attempts to answer the question of why a majority in US academic circles are liberal. In particular, it is interesting to see someone from a liberal perspective acknowledge that liberal vs conservative is often affected by successful vs unsuccessful. He weakens his third point by pointing out that liberal arts professors in Europe who have just as much education in history don’t show the same split as in the US.

When done “right”, liberalism is idealistic, striving to change society for the better. Those best able to see the problems will definitely tend to be those who study history or are downtrodden themselves. It is also true that those who are unsuccessful would often prefer to blame the system rather than change their own behavior. Unfortunately, this causes the idealists to become associated with the freeloaders. The problem is that such idealists are not always realistic about how to implement the changes. People like Marx had valid complaints to make, but his theories have proven impossible to apply in a workable format.

Conservatism done right is based on doing what has been proven to work. This may be part of why business professors and physical scientists lean this direction. They have a proven system that works, and prefer to play with the inputs rather than changing the system. Those who are successful (for any reason) also tend to jump on this bandwagon. Even if the system is fundamentally broken, those who are “winning” are less likely to want to change it. Slavery was a “conservative” lifestyle that made a few people wealthy at the expense of many.

Sometimes the system itself needs to be changed. At those times, you need the liberals to help recognize the problem and conservatives to help make the solution workable. Both approaches are important to the final solution.

How Many Evangelical Christians Have Been Neo-Conned

Written by Colin. Published on March 18, 2010 ago in Essays, Philosophy, Politics, Religion and Theology. 6 Comments

The Austrian Scholars Conference 2010 has now concluded and the paper by Dr Kevin Clauson on “Why Evangelicals Don’t Like Austrian Political Economy—But Should” is essential listening for just about any Christian. Dr Clauson was kind enough to send me along a draft to make writing this article easier. Please feel free to read it (NOTE: THIS IS A DRAFT COPY, posted with permission from the author). Also, listen to the paper (30 mins.).

Clauson has spent time both at Liberty University (22 years, most of them as head of their Government department) and also in the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential campaign – so he knows what he’s talking about.

The framework for the argument is laid out by first establishing key definitions:

An evangelical bases his thinking on scripture first (not tradition, not a pope, not natural law). It is, at minimum, an adherence to innerrancy in scripture, the sinfulness of man, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, the resurrection.

But Clauson goes further to note that several non-theological concepts have been added and adopted almost universally among evangelicals:

A vaguely defined adherence to “political conservatism”
Social issues (immorality of abortion, gay marriage, etc..)
Certain immoral behaviours should be regulated by government (alcohol, drugs, pornography…)
A support for a “free market” (but a lack of knowledge as to exactly what that is, and a lack of concern about monetary policy)
Reverence for the Constitution (again, though a fairly abysmal knowledge of what the Constitution actually says)
A “Strong defence” (which can mean a global military presence, especially in the Middle East)
The US is morally obligated to support Israel

Clauson then makes the statement that builds the crux of his argument: that evangelicals, based on their own theological criteria, should actually find some common ground with Austrianism. If Evangelicals would start from their main, and primary frame of reference: that scripture should be of first importance, then they would actually be more sympathetic. Clauson argues that Evangelicals need to examine their bibles closer.

However, the main reasons why evangelicals have problems with Austrianism (and many libertarian views by extension):

Many Evangelicals confuse “sins” and “crimes” in scripture. A simplistic reading of scripture has lead to many evangelicals applying broad, sweeping conclusions about sins as crimes. The bible calls many things sins, but it does not necessarily call all sins crimes (of course areas such as murder, theft, etc… are clearly defined in scripture as crimes). There is no biblical justification for making those sins which the bible does not also call crime, into state-enforced laws against sin. Again, this is derived solely from scripture and fits within the fundamentals of the evangelical worldview. Clauson:

Substantial freedom may not always be “pretty” (on the societal level—churches and religious organizations would certainly be free to deal with such behaviors, and others, within their own private domains), but it is not necessarily unbiblical, according to the Bible itself, the authoritative guide for Evangelicalism.

Continue reading ‘How Many Evangelical Christians Have Been Neo-Conned’

The Reluctant Anarchist and Me

Written by Colin. Published on January 20, 2010 ago in Essays, Philosophy and Politics. 5 Comments

This gem of an article definitely sounded familiar to me. The author goes through how the concept of anarchism seemed utterly foreign, radical even “evil.” But as he gradually wrestled with the ideals and principles, he came to some realisations that radically changed his worldview:

As a child I acquired a deep respect for authority and a horror of chaos. In my case the two things were blended by the uncertainty of my existence after my parents divorced and I bounced from one home to another for several years, often living with strangers. A stable authority was something I yearned for. Meanwhile, my public-school education imbued me with the sort of patriotism encouraged in all children in those days. I grew up feeling that if there was one thing I could trust and rely on, it was my government… You love your country as you love your mother – simply because it is yours, not because of its superiority to others, particularly superiority of power.

Growing up, I was also that kid. I was the one who supported authority and order. I remember being in an eighth-grade “graduation” ceremony, and someone blew up a condom and the kids began to bat it around the gymnasium while the principle was talking about us. I was so upset by the disorder of it all, that when it came near me, I grabbed it and gave it to one fo the adults who was desperately trying to get it from the kids. I didn’t do it for their approval or to kiss-up – but it bothered me, deep in my soul, that people weren’t respecting authority and being unified around this ceremony.

I became a philosophical conservative, with a strong libertarian streak. I believed in government, but it had to be “limited” government – confined to a few legitimate purposes, such as defense abroad and policing at home.

Again, I also grabbed Rand and other conservative authors and began to connect the philosophical dots. But even whilst being a “libertarian” – I supported the police, the military, cultural unity and a religious state and a strong “daddy state” which could preserve and protect those values.

Somewhere, at the rainbow’s end, America would return to her founding principles. The Federal Government would be shrunk, laws would be few, taxes minimal. That was what I thought. Hoped, anyway… In a way I had transferred my patriotism from America as it then was to America as it had been when it still honored the Constitution. And when had it crossed the line? At first I thought the great corruption had occurred when Franklin Roosevelt subverted the Federal judiciary; later I came to see that the decisive event had been the Civil War, which had effectively destroyed the right of the states to secede from the Union.

Yes, even while beginning to deplore state abuses of power, I refused to question the structure of power. The ideology of America had become perverted but there was some nugget of truth, of goodness. Like the author, my search for this “goodness” kept going back. First to World War II and the greatest generation, then to the Industrial Revolution, then the Civil War. But each time, it became clear that the accounts I had been told of these events were heavily saturated with he morality of authority and power – and even here, were great abuses of hard ethical and moral principles.

But again, the constitution, that “greatest of documents” surely was the pure point where values, government and order could congeal to form that ideal “limited government” of ideological conservatism and minarchism?

Hans [Hoppe] argued that no constitution could restrain the state. Once its monopoly of force was granted legitimacy, constitutional limits became mere fictions it could disregard; nobody could have the legal standing to enforce those limits. The state itself would decide, by force, what the constitution “meant,” steadily ruling in its own favor and increasing its own power. This was true a priori, and American history bore it out.

Again, like the author, it was Hans Hoppe who finally convinced me that even a government severely limited by a constitution or a contract was still prone to abuses and a gradual erosion of those limits. And this wasn’t just because of the people in charge, but the system itself was flawed. After all, an entity which claims to protect private property by violating property rights (through force) is a contradiction.

But even still – how can anarchism be consistent with Christianity? I had never heard of Christian Anarchists – except ultra-left wing “social justice” types who held a theological view of God and his kingdom which I see as too secular. The author dealt with this as well:

My fellow Christians have argued that the state’s authority is divinely given. They cite Christ’s injunction “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” and St. Paul’s words “The powers that be are ordained of God.” But Christ didn’t say which things – if any – belong to Caesar; his ambiguous words are far from a command to give Caesar whatever he claims. And it’s notable that Christ never told his disciples either to establish a state or to engage in politics. They were to preach the Gospel and, if rejected, to move on. He seems never to have imagined the state as something they could or should enlist on their side.

At first sight, St. Paul seems to be more positive in affirming the authority of the state. But he himself, like the other martyrs, died for defying the state, and we honor him for it; to which we may add that he was on one occasion a jailbreaker as well. Evidently the passage in Romans has been misread. It was probably written during the reign of Nero, not the most edifying of rulers; but then Paul also counseled slaves to obey their masters, and nobody construes this as an endorsement of slavery. He may have meant that the state and slavery were here for the foreseeable future, and that Christians must abide them for the sake of peace. Never does he say that either is here forever.

The state is something that exists, and we suffer under it. As Christians, it is not our job to be revolutionary anarchists. But as long as the state exists, then we are to endure it unless God, in his grace, removes it from us.

Modern Education Based on Poor System

Written by Atanamis. Published on September 30, 2009 ago in Essays and General. 17 Comments

On our forums recently, the following was posted (to the “weekly links” thread):

Written by: Jew

This is just great. Not content with trying to tackle the biggest, most complex problems in the world (peace in the Middle East, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and oh, health care in America), the President has decided to meddle with schools. President Obama proses longer schools days and shorter summer vacation.

No thanks, Mr. President. I’ve been to school before. School days at the public school are too long, not too short. Students spend too much time in class, not too little. Summer vacations should be longer.

I was home schooled. My school days were about 3 hours long, I could complete a full school year’s worth of work in 4 months, and I graduated ahead of most honors/AP students in terms of academic courses and college credit. Each day I would read my lessons, ask any questions I had of my teachers (my parents), and begin working on homework. Any questions my teachers could not answer they found someone who could. Any problems I got wrong we reviewed together to determine why I had gotten it wrong, and then I did more problems that focused on making sure I got it right in the future.

I will admit that I started out a privileged middle class kid with well educated parents and a decent IQ (sub genius though), but in my experience most time spent is classrooms in a massive waste of everyone’s time. I have had ONE class that made effective use of everyone’s time. The professor would walk into class every day, ask if anyone had questions from yesterdays reading, and after answering all questions would hand out a quiz. After the quiz, he would present the next reading assignment, expand on any subject he felt was inadequately covered by the textbook, and dismiss class. The tests were a concatenation of the quizzes. If you didn’t read the material and ask good questions, you failed.

ANY class where students don’t read ahead before class is a waste of time. Why should I have someone with 20 years of education wasting time teaching me what I can read out of a book? Why do we all have to be present in the same room for a lecture, when he could just record it at his leisure and email me a link? Only interactive sessions between a prepared class and a knowledgeable teacher makes any sense. The problem with our school system isn’t time spent in class, it is a fundamentally broken educational model combined with lack of expectations by teachers and parents. Until parents become more involved in their children’s education, our test scores will continue to drop.

The current system requires teachers to have extensive training in things like crowd management and presentation skills that simply shouldn’t be required to teach at the elementary or high school levels. In fact, the ONLY time such skills are needed is when presenting new information that has never been published! This level of learning only takes place at post-graduate levels, meaning that even bachelor’s level teachers don’t need it. At all lower levels, students should be expected to work individually on their subject and request help on an “as needed” basis. Students that require a lot of individual attention wouldn’t have learned from a lecture regardless, and those who don’t can race ahead of their peers

The “lecture” format simply holds back advanced students while failing to help those with greater need. With greater parental involvement, it becomes possible to have a rotating group of “tutors” for every 2-3 students who can escalate any questions they don’t know the answers to. No special knowledge is needed to do this! In colleges, many schools will allow any student who has taken a class to “TA” the class, and many students will attest that they learned more from their TA than from the professor. This is because the TA is doing REAL education by answering specific questions that a prepared student has come to after first struggling the concepts to be learned, while the professor is doing traditional “education” by lecturing to a group of unprepared people who cannot reasonably be expected to retain much of what they are hearing. Why is is that we insist on doing the one that doesn’t work, instead of making a greater effort to do the one that does work?

How to Talk Libertarianism with the (European) Left

Written by Colin. Published on August 12, 2009 ago in Essays, Philosophy and Politics. 8 Comments

I have been in Europe a year now and one of the greatest benefits of being out of the US is that I tend to have complete control over how much American politics comes into my life. I feel like I can breathe. Americans (and I am one) are opinionated – and they tend to get riled up over some of the silliest political points. The media in the US is in your face – cable news will beat a story to death, every hour of every day. American journalists continue, year after year after year to say dumb things like this – calling lower state budget increases: “budget cuts.”

Anyway, having a year out of this has been great. Really great. But I have been in political conversations over in England. And they are generally rather relaxing – people listen to each other. They aren’t trying to figure out whether you are a conservative or a liberal – and this determines whether they will ignore you or agree with you (in both instance, without listening to you, of course).

In talking with Europeans, I have found that I am able to communicate my points by listening to what they are concerned about first, and then offering a solution that actually takes into account their view of the problem. If we agree about the problem, then were working together, rather than talking past each other.

Capitalists need acknowledge that this mess isn’t our fault. In fact, we should be more upset than the left right now because not only is this a statist problem, but we’re getting the blame for it! Let people on the left know that you are not happy with greed, corruption and the secret deals going on in the present system.

I have gotten favourable responses from people when I have then added that these problems are not going to go away by giving more power to the state. After all – it has been with the help of the state (and the power and authority the state represents) that these measures have been taken. By increasing regulation (and hence, creating more power to abuse) we are merely setting ourselves up for future exploitation.

The European left gets this. They see the corruption of power a lot more easily than Americans do (many Americans live in a bubble, where the costs of their government’s policies are externalised onto the rest of the world in foreign wars, debt and other interventions).

What the European left lacks is the libertarian and capitalist framework to explain it. For the past century, they have primarily had Marxist framework to express their dissatisfaction with the state. But if this is worked through, then it is clear that many of the objections of the European left are actually libertarian in origin. There is strong support for civil liberties here, principles of innocence before guilt and even private property. But these concepts have to be discussed in “European language” and often with leftist framework.

Rather than saying that I am for “free-trade,” I left people know that I support the free movement of people and goods and cultural exchange. These are goals that the EU is supposed to support, and people have generally seen the benefits of an economically integrated Europe. I talk about the correlation between trade and peace, and how trade can cause people who otherwise hate each other to act cooperatively.

Rather than saying I am for “deregulation” or “privatisation” (words which have come to mean cronyism and exploitation) I explain that I am for regulation – but not regulation that creates increased power in the hands of government (and the corporations that are closely allied with it). The kind of regulation I support is from consumers, customers and local communities – even the voluntary actions of unions and other groups using legitimate means to accomplish change. These are decentralised ways to check the greed and avarice in human nature without creating bigger problems of government largesse.

I have also has a lot of success talking about our equality as individuals. That as people, we should acknowledge the same rights in others that we see in ourselves. Europeans like equality as a concept, but often they haven’t thought about the inequality of attempting to legislate equality. It is far more constructive to talk about the natural equality of people as an inherent value – rather than as a value we can only obtain from an external authority: e.g. the state making us equal.

Again, it comes down to listening, and learning. This is the most important thing. Preaching talking points at people belittles them and is insulting. But offering real libertarian strategies for people’s actual problems can go a long way.

Free Markets Require Unanimity

Written by Colin. Published on July 15, 2009 ago in Essays, Philosophy and Politics. 4 Comments

In part, this piece is a response to these posts written a couple of months ago, to which I never fully responded in the comments.

Describing Government in Anarcho-Capitalist Terms
Where Anarchists Respond Wrongly to Government

But it is also meant to be a stand-alone argument for why coercive force is never “free market” regardless of the purpose, intents or motivations of those advocating or initiating force.

Government Arising From Anarchy?
Before I believed that a purely voluntary society was at least possible in theory, I took the position that governments were a natural creation of “anarchy” sometime in humanity’s past, and therefore were, at least in an empirical or pragmatic sense, legitimate. I may not have liked the way in which any governments work (none of them do “work” in any imaginable sense of the word) but it seemed that a lack of government had its chance and governments are obviously as inevitable as death and taxes.

But governments are not free market or capitalistic in any way because they are not voluntary. Any “government” that is voluntary ceases to be a government – that is a coercive monopoly on force. If a “government” does not prevent other agencies from providing services, individuals to provide their own services – than it is no longer a government.

Freeriders
The first argument that then comes into play is the freerider. This person benefits from defence services either directly or indirectly without paying for them. But the freerider is not aggressing against the service provider in order to steal service, rather he his being gifted this service by the imprecision of the provider.

The solution to the freerider is not to charge everyone because it is most likely that they benefit anyway. This is the provider’s problem – not the freerider’s.

The TVLA as an Example
In England, television is a public good and is paid for by a licence fee – about $240 per year. the TVLA is a corporation that has been empowered by the state to collect licence fees and also to investigate people who are “stealing” tv. Because tv is broadcast rergardless of payment, the TVLA has had to use draconian measures of intimidation, deception and fraud in order to seek out an prosecute non-licence payers.

All people in living in England are expected to prove that they are innocent of watching tv without a licence. Until they satisfy the TVLA, they are subject to constant harassing visits, letters, threats and searches.

But the fact that the tv is broadcast so widely is the government’s fault, not people who do not break any ethics by buying a tv, a box to receive tv and subsequently watching it. These freeriders are benefiting for free -but the fact that the government is losing its services and people are “salvaging” it from the commons is perfectly defensible.

The solution to the freerider problem is not a presumption of freeriding by all people until they prove they are not. Rather it is for the provider of any good or service to make explicit contracts with individuals and enforce those contracts accordingly. If a good or service cannot be profitable because of insufficient technology or infrastructure to handle freerider problems, then the solution is not to substitute force for this lacking – it is to abandon the service.

On Contracts
Regardless of the freerider problem, the basic ethics of voluntary society do not change. Contracts cannot be “presumed” or “implied” they must be explicit. Contracts with a large amount of people or a collective group, must be unanimous – otherwise they are not valid.

Llysander Spooner, great abolitionist, labour advocate and criminal for his daring to compete with the US Post office declared:

These facts are all so vital and so self-evident, that it cannot reasonably be supposed that any one will voluntarily pay money to a “government,” for the purpose of securing its protection, unless he first make an explicit and purely voluntary contract with it for that purpose.

It is perfectly evident, therefore, that neither such voting, nor such payment of taxes, as actually takes place, proves anybody’s consent, or obligation, to support the Constitution. Consequently we have no evidence at all that the Constitution is binding upon anybody, or that anybody is under any contract or obligation whatever to support it. And nobody is under any obligation to support it.

For a contract to be valid – regardless of whether it is verbal, written or even implied – there must be consent from all parties of the contract. For example, four of my neighbours could not all sign a binding contract giving them shares in my property if I do not sign it. If they brought such a contract and attempted to enforce it – I would be legitimate in protecting myself despite their “contract” or the democratic principles behind their action (four”votes” out of five).

However there are examples of purely voluntary contracts for millions of goods and services all over the world. Wal-Mart doesn’t bring me baskets of products without my asking – rather, they advertise their contracts and I only become responsible for the goods when I consent to purchase them. Just as Wal-Mart can’t force me to buy their groceries, I cannot stand guard outside of Wal-Mart all night, even defending it from thieves and vandals, and then expect that they must pay me the next morning.A government, of course, could make a contract with every single one of its citizens – but it has to be consented to unanimously for it to be valid. Every new immigrant or birth in the country would also require a new contract.

To my knowledge, there is no government on earth which has done this, and there never will be. This is because government, by definition, uses aggressive force. Its very existence breaks the non-aggression axiom (regardless how small or limited it is). Government is hardly “free market.”

How To Sabotage An Argument, Part 1

Written by Colin. Published on July 6, 2009 ago in Essays, Philosophy, Politics and Religion. 2 Comments

Before I take a look at the meat of this article, I want to use a situation common to most of us to try and lay out my argument.

When I get upset with other drivers on the road, regardless of how “legitimate” my case is, and I actually become angry (as opposed to simply annoyed) it is often because:

I am not merely upset at the other driver, but am engaged in part of a universal quest to educate/set straight the mass of bad/discourteous drivers ruining the roads for others.
I question the ability of the driver in question (this is especially true of the very old and the very young – and sometimes the female gender) and wonder how they have managed to get licensed, let alone insured.
I am ticked off directly by what they have done.
I lack empathy for people who have circumstances which require them to drive slowly (transporting breakables, they have medical issues, they are enjoying the scenery).
I forget that there is actually a driver in the other car.

In many ways, this is a microchasm for human interaction when it comes to debate in general – especially intellectual discourse. Our base instinct, in discourse, if often to act like this with people with whom we are arguing. As the debate wears on, the chances of seeing the implosion of the discussion increase as instinctual techniques begin to take over and our very own words and ideas start to lose the argument before we begin.

I want to lay out a few common ways to sabotage your argument (this often happens early in the argument) by way of tactics I have seen on this site, other sites and mistakes that I myself have made over the years. Feel free to add your own thoughts on items I have missed or not explained well enough.

Not Understand What “Winning” and “Losing” Mean in Debate
In some ways, this is starting with the basics. What is the point of debate? If it is to convince others that I am right and they are wrong, then I’ve already “lost.”

The point of debate is not intellectual conquest, or the winning of hearts and minds to your cause. Debate should be a cooperative exercise that discovers, communicates or clarifies truth between individuals. When I am arguing about capitalism, or if I am witnessing to someone who is sceptical, it should not be my hope to decimate their current thinking and replace their conclusions with my own. Rather, I hope that I am contemplatively leading them to understanding that they were yet unaware of, while, at the same time being aware that I don’t know everything myself, and can learn from their counter-points.

Winning a debate doesn’t mean that each side comes away agreeing with the other side. But in a “won” debate, each person has new information to add to their own frame of reference, and hopefully has made a meaningful contribution to the collected knowledge of another.

Make Your Argument an “Us Versus Them” Battle
At times, I do feel like I am on a crusade when it comes to debating about certain ideas about which I am passionate. Take Ron Paul supporters in 2008. I felt a lot of solidarity with these people and I found myself more agitated over certain issues than I normally am. I was so zealous about what I viewed as my “us” (big-tent libertarianism – from the libertarian GOP to newly converted democrats supporting Ron Paul) that it became easy to believe that those who were arguing against me were part of a “them” (Neo-Cons, Compassionate Conservatives, Theocrats, etc…). But the moment that collective motives and group activism are attached to our debating – are we really sharing the intellectual road to discovery with someone, or are we stereotyping, classifying, dismissing and attempting to “war” with them as if defeating an “enemy” rather than working with an ally, albeit one very different than ourselves.

A tale-tell sign of this is ad hominems and other demonisation tactics. The second I begin painting my opponent with broad brush strokes is the moment where I’ve stopped seeking truth, and started zealously proselytising and regurgitating some kind fo party line.

Ascribe an Entire Ideology to Your Opponent Because of One Point, Line of Reasoning or Word
This could be viewed as a sub-point of the”us versus them” problem because it uses the same categorisation, stereotyping and dismissal – but it is different. Allow me to explain.

We all have certain words, phrases and concepts that conjure up past experiences (perhaps even traumatic ones) or simply evoke knee-jerk reactions based on philosophical or intellectual dislikes. Some of these for me are:

friendship evangelism
tithing
gossip
freedom isn’t free
free X (where X is healthcare, school or some other social good)
global warming
credit crunch

There are lots of different reasons that these words are more likely to reveal argumentativeness in me. But the point is that when someone uses these phrases (and others) I get a quasi-instinctual urge to correct them in ways that vary – from merely making a face, to opening a canned lecture and going on for half an hour.

But worse than that – it is part of that process of making uninformed conclusions and ascribing entire ideologies to your opponent because they’ve used language that triggers something in you. In other words, they may have meant something completely different (and the unique perspective of each individual almost guarantees that this is the case) but in one fell swoop, all of your own prejudices have been heaped onto their argument.

Aside from my own blunders in this area, I see this a lot with traditional hot-button issues for people such as abortion, feminism, supporting the troops and drugs. I think there are a lot of people in the academy, for example, who can accept my classical-liberal economic views. But if I spoke very loudly about my views on abortion or feminism, I might be practically blacklisted. By the same token, there are a lot of left-leaning bible-believing Christians who have trouble finding places in conservative churches because they might be anti-war or for universal healthcare.

Belittle/Disparage the Credentials/Lack Thereof of Your Opponent
I hope to do a whole piece on this soon, but one place where I see this being commonly practised is in the pulpit and some churches. Because of the heresy coming out of the academy (this has been a problem for thousands of years, by the way – it is hardly a “post-modern” phenomenon), it has become fashionable to broadly criticise education, theologians and academics.

A PhD doesn’t automatically make someone arrogant, proud, idolatrous, humanistic or a heretic (among other words I’ve seen). It simply means that someone has spent a lot of time specialising in a certain area of a specific field. If an academic (perhaps even one who went to a bible college) who researched Israel in 750-735BC wants to then go and talk about why Jesus didn’t exist and all religions lead to God – it says nothing, absolutely nothing about formal education, other academics or academics and Christianity. By the same token, I have seen some well-educated clergy and church leaders dismiss men who, with little formal bible education, were able to do great works from God, start large churches and write edifying books.

But the broader point is this – the other side in an argument has education and experience that is different that yours – and this is going to lead them to different conclusions. Rather than judgementally classifying and then dismissing their experience and education, try to come to grips with thier findings and consider that they might have an angle on things that you have missed. Where their experience and education are misinforming them – correct it.

In the second half of this series [go to part 2], I hope to look at more ways to sabotage an argument, including issues of motives, practising versus preaching, self-righteousness and the fact that were are debating with people (which may seen self-evident, but you’ll see what I mean).

Making Anti-Government Alliances

Written by Colin. Published on May 5, 2009 ago in Essays and Politics. 25 Comments

The fact of the matter is, there has been, is now, and will always be an alliance in the United State’s federal government. At times it is uneasy – spats emerge between Democrats and Republicans, normally over irrelevant side issues – but the truth remains that ultimately Republicans and Democrats are in this thing together.

The non-event of Arlen Specter’s recent switch of parties (with almost no switch in ideology) reminds us that we have an unholy binity in Washington: one party, manifest in two political factions. Despite the appearance of debating and battling over the years, these two parties have formed a bipartisan coalition to increase the power of the state, enrich the state and subvert the freedoms of the individual.

The primary way they have enlisted the support of individuals in the dismantling of their own freedoms has been through the appearance of fundamental, ideological divisions. Republicans have warned that if the Democrats are elected to power, there will be a kind of atheistic socialism – higher taxes, private property regulations, debauchery, immorality, appeasement and economic collapse. Democrats have said that if Republicans are elected to power, there will be Christian fascism – corporatism, erosion of civil liberties, big-brother, integration of church and state, wars and environmental destruction.

By painting the evils of the opposition with broad brush strokes, the average person has been scared into a never ending cycle of anti-government behaviour when not in power and support for pro-government behaviour when holding power. Since those in power actually have the reigns of the state – the pro-government movement always ends up accomplishing the majority of changes in the direction of expansionary government.

For example, all it took to pass the PATRIOT Act were a few days of Americans frightened over Islamic terror with Republicans wielding power. However, the PATRIOT Act has been immensely unpopular since, it has been opposed for years – yet very little has been done. Net gain: the state.

Now That We’ve Admitted We Have A Problem…
Recognising this reality is the first step towards breaking this cycle. This means being anti-government both in and out of season. It also means, and this may be difficult to accept for those who are deeply invested in partisan politics, that we must stop viewing those who are in the other party as 100% politically evil. We must abandon “our team” and forge a new alliance with those who abandon theirs.

I’m not suggesting forming a new party – God knows that will fail. Rather, we should being to recognise common ideals and goals and work together to support them.

Every political ideology, even those advocated by people who are genuinely Marxist, fascist, Anarchists, etc… would prefer to see some aspects of the current government eliminated. It may mean that a Republican is going to have to help a socialist protest the war. It may mean that a Marxist is going to have to help a conservative oppose hate crimes legislation.

Obviously, some issues are going to be deal-breakers – a Marxist probably wont join with a libertarian on certain tax reductions. But they might join together for a reduction in certain regulations. The key is acknowledging that some ideas of the “opposition” are held in common, and can be supported to a mutually beneficial end.

Words like “liberal” and “conservative” need to cease to be used as curse-words for the other side. Because a person takes an opposing view on one issue – does not automatically make them in opposition to your side in general. It definitely doesn’t make their pragmatic goals in opposition to yours.

One Example of This Happening Now
A current example of “alliances of issues” is Ron Paul’s HR1207. Ron Paul has dedicated his political life to, above other things, fighting the power of the Federal Reserve. He has hitherto had almost no support in this effort. But he has been able to get over 100 cosponsors for the Federal Reserve Transparency Act by appealing to common anti-government sentiments across ideologies. It is now actually possible (though still probably not likely) that the Federal Reserve could get audited in the future.

“But Ron Paul wants to legalise drugs! Ron Paul is ok with homosexual marriage! Bad bad bad! Liberal! Libertarian!” These are the words of a zealot – these are words that prohibit progress to be made in deconstructing the apparatus of government power. Fine, oppose Ron Paul on drugs and homosexual marriage – fight him until the bitter end. But admit that auditing the Federal Reserve is a good thing! As it stands, 100 other people, whose general disagreements with Ron Paul range from 50 to 99 percent, have formed an alliance around HR1207 to see something constructive done.

The ideas of bipartisan alliance have been used far to long to compromise the rights of the individual for government expansion. This weapon should be used for good – to slowly dismantle the state. Libertarians, Republicans, Anarchists, Democrats, Socialists and Marxists each have some anti-government issues that are important to them. Rather than seeking alliances on expansionary measures – alliances should be formed against the government.