Quote:
Originally Posted by detbuch
That common sense, rational, grown-up approach has been used against Progressives for a long time. That has not been as persuasive to the voters as you seem to think it must be. When Progressives have academia, the mainstream media, Hollywood, on their side of the debate, polite conversation is not an effective weapon. Has any of your common sense, adult conversation on this forum persuaded any of those you debate?
Policy is not the last thing the Progressives want to talk about. They talk policy all the time. Policy is totally what they are about. Government policy is government rule. The more policy, the more rule. Their policies may be asinine to a classical liberal who sees government as a necessary limited evil, but they are manna to people who have been conditioned to view government as the benevolent answer for all problems. Engaging in policy debates assumes the importance of policy, and places the debate within the Progressive framework of what government is.
And Progressives don't want to trade insults. They only want to dish them out to belittle their opposition while schmoozing the public with policies that supposedly make the people's lives better. Trading insults exposes their own as such and neutralizes one of their tactics.
The emotional side of politics, in the end, is the most powerful. It is easier to win over the minds of relatively free people by promising them more comfort with less responsibility than it is by just promising to protect and defend the freedom they already have. It is only among an enslaved people that liberty can evoke the strongest emotions.
As the Progressive notion of government keeps flooding us with its never ending tangle of policies that direct our lives, some of us begin to understand that we are losing something valuable in exchange for all the government's "gifts." In the freest part of the World, the West, there is this growing "feeling" that the exchange is a Faustian bargain. After incessant debates over policy which don't change the direction of government, the first emotional reaction is to raise the middle finger. The next step is to emotionally energize people to fight back against encroaching despotism. Trump is merely a step "in the right direction."
We may still have what's left of a Republic . . . if we can keep it.
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"That common sense, rational, grown-up approach has been used against Progressives for a long time."
Not by a President. Bush just sat there and let everyone dump all over him, he never responded at all. Which is also not an approach I like.
When we show up and make our case, we win. That's why these wussies on college campuses would rather riot than let a conservative speak, because they know they have no response.
"When Progressives have academia, the mainstream media, Hollywood, on their side of the debate, polite conversation is not an effective weapon."
I disagree. When the left controls things, they don't
win fact-based debates, they
avoid fact-based debates. I watch NBC and MSNBC, I rarely see a conservative on there making effective points. Every once in a while MSNBC will throw a Klansmen out there, under the assumption that he represents everyone who isn't liberal. Show me a debate that Ann Coulter has ever lost. Or Trey Gowdy.
I do agree that control of media, academia, and Hollywood, is a massive obstacle. Bush responded by sating nothing when they attacked him. It didn't work. Trump responds by flying off the handle like a teenager. That won't work. The answer, I think, is in the middle somewhere.
But most people don't watch Foxnews, which means, most people only get the far-left take on everything.