Posted on 05/04/2013 3:54:55 PM PDT by kreitzer
- More Milton Friedman, Less Rush Limbaugh
You all remember, in the wake of the most recent electoral defeat for Republicans, I went on at length about how we need to speak to liberals in a language they understand? I maintain that we need to stop saying things that make us feel better about our positions and instead say things that people who think differently than we do would find persuasive. It's a big theme with me lately, and is something I learned from my father.
My father wins a lot of arguments, but he usually does so by personally attacking the intelligence and character of the person arguing with him. "Your an idiot" may be his most widely spoken phrase. Most often, the result is that they will either concede his point simply to shut him up, or will walk from the verbal battlefield, unwilling to engage in childish name calling. He takes either of these as 'victory' but I've always found it unproductive. The only thing he ever really convinces anyone of, is what a monumental jerk he can be. He changes no-one's mind, and persuades no one to his position. In effect he wins every battle and still loses every war.
After watching him do this my entire life, I've tried to take a different path. I never want anyone to feel like they have 'lost face' because they've argued with me. I don't need anyone to ever concede my position if it's in direct opposition to theirs. Their personal justifications are their own business. All I ever care about anymore is what they do after the discussion.
So that's my schtick. "I'd rather have people think I'm wrong but still do what I want them to, than have them admit I'm right but by then be too angry to do things my way." I don't see arguing with people as a battle for status. I don't see disagreement as an excuse to try to make people admit I'm smarter than they are. Nothing productive comes from that. I literally have nothing to prove. All I want is an outcome that matches my goals.
And I maintain that the way to get people to do things your way, is to make it easy for them to do so. If you worry about how smart they think you are, or making them "admit they were wrong in the first place" that only makes it harder. If you really want to accomplish something, that's going the long way around the barn. Remember, for liberals their politics is more like a religious belief than a series of rational goals and first principles. So if we really want to persuade them we need to find a way to make our arguments seem consistent with their religion.
Talking about the morality of the free market is an excellent example. The free market fully understood, is far more 'fair' than anything ever imposed by any government, no matter how noble the person whose running it. Liberals care deeply about fairness even if they don't know the first thing about how to actually achieve it. So if we frame our arguments for the free market in terms fo the 'fairness' it can deliver, it will be more persuasive for them.
That was Milton Friedman's great trick. He educated neo-marxists about what the free market actually does and in the process helped turned all of western civilization in the direction of economic liberty for a generation. He only ever spoke to those opposed to economic liberty in language they they understood.
Anyway I'm sure you get my point. Our goal when speaking to liberals should not be self congratulation but persuasion. We haven't done nearly enough of that lately.
Luckily for us, they haven't either. The left knows how to persuade conservatives just as poorly as conservative know how to persuade liberals. Have a look at this spectacular failure of a liberal trying to change the mind of conservative gun owners:
Every Second Amendment Rights Advocate Should Hate the NRA
I can't imagine a less persuasive piece for conservatives or gun owners. It truly is breathtaking in it's wrongheadedness. It isn't how gun owners think - it's how liberals 'think' gun owners, think, but it's really only how 'liberals' think. It's the liberal equivalent of a Freerepublic thread. **
I'm sure the author thinks it's incredibly persuasive. And the liberals who read it will all be emailing it to their conservative friends on the assumption that they have finally found a piece that conservatives can't argue with. They'll view it as a transcendent piece that strikes all the relevant and self satisfying points of their arguments for gun control. they'll believe that the conservatives they send it to will be stripped of any rational response, and the discussion is now over, with their side having won.
But to conservatives (myself for example) it seems like nothing more than pointless chatter, unrelated political flotsam and name calling. It's simply not the kind of thing upon which we base our decision making.
Anyway I call attention to it because it's so perfect an inverse example of what I've been talking about. We on the right need to avoid making our own arguments that same way. We need to quit convincing ourselves how right we are and start convincing people who don't already agree with us instead. We need to learn to speak the language of liberals, and quit demanding that they admit we're right.
We know logic and reason don't mean nearly as much to liberals as their emotions. We know that intentions matter much more to them than outcomes. We know they care about fairness and equality, and that their decisions must be framed in a self congratulatory way. none of that is so difficult that we can't accomplish it. Rush Limbaugh offers an incredibly satisfying rant, but he doesn't convince people like Milton Friedman did. We meed more of the latter and less of the former.
We complain that our country isn't being run by adults. But the fact of the matter is, if there is going to be an adult in this discussion, it's going to have to be us. And if we want the kids to modify their behavior, we need to tell them so in language that they understand.
**
For those of you who don't know, Freerepublic is a venue by conservatives for conservatives. For all the liberals that have ever been persuaded by what they have read there, it might as well be printed in Chinese. That doesn't make it wrong of course. It's a venue designed to support conservatives not win over liberals. And there is certainly a place for that kind of discussion. But the problem is that it's become the only way that conservatives know how to make their arguments, and we need to learn to persuade again as well.
I always liked his explanation of how a pencil is made.
How many folks here think the Liberals care about fairness and equality? What a load of B.S.
They demand fairness and equality for themselves while dishing out a complete lack of fairness and equality to whoever they're talking to. They can't win in a debate unless the questions, the audience and the judges are all in their favor. They demand that we accept their Weltanschauung as gospel much like they demand we acknowledge climate change/global warming as 'settled science'.
So this article doesn't hit the target or even come near it; it sounds like a RHINO trying to get us to go along with liberals on things like immigration and gun control and if we just do that, then the world will love us and we'll win the next Presidential election. I'm sure Hillary will be healthy enough to run then (actually she'll be healthy as soon as Benghazi is swept under the rug).
Rush persuades people all the time, but you cant persuade anyone who refuses to deal with reality, which, in my view, is the primary symptom of the mental disease called Liberalism. Rush is the Mayor of Realville which is a place most liberals refuse to go.......
"Here's some free stuff confiscated from your neighbors and handed over to you in exchange for your vote."
Like that?
Sorry, but no sale on this. Liberals can't be persuaded. They are incapable of linear thought ("If this, then this") and are, ultimately, the most humorless, selfish people on earth. They walk into the polling place and vote for big government to confiscate more from their neighbors and from complete strangers. How rude and boorish is that? You don't "persuade" that knid of scum - - you smash it in the mouth and beat it into submission.
I am grateful, though, that thanks to Milton Freidman's persuasive arguments Phil Donahue became a conservative.
Very naive and poorly thought out post.
Liberal advocates cannot be reasoned with. They aren’t concerned with the truth. Their quest is power and winning. Period.
Find liberals who aren’t advocates and use logic and reason with them. You have a chance with them if they are honest.
I can tell Tom is not real familiar with Rush nor Friedman
You will never see Rush go Alinsky someone. Sandra Fluke truly was a pair of panties short of being a lady.
And if you told the whole story on Friedman...you get Alinsky-ed by his supporters
Liberals are divided up into roughly three groups:
The first third are the ones we all know and the author thinks we can reach. The problem is, of that third, a portion of them are not capable of thinking through an argument, no matter How persuasively or artfully constructed. They just aren’t capable. Another’s portion of that third simply is unable to allow logical argument to override their emotion. The last segment of that third are people Who are so easily swayed that as soon as they leave your presence and watch tv or speak to another liberal they will be un-convinced.
The next third that liberals are divided into Is composed of people who have bought the whole liberal argument hook line and sinker. They are the ones with spittle on their lips and glassy eyes screaming slogans like “no blood for oil” and such. They are the real honest-to-goodness “useful idiots”. They’re the ones who do all the dirty work for the last third of liberals.
The last third of liberals is composed of people like Barack Obama and Bill Ayers just as examples. These are the liberals who don’t buy into the whole thing, but understand completely that liberalism is about power over others. It’s about domination.
Bottom line, we are at a divide in this country, and the news media and large portions of the government are determined to keep the divide in place.
Arguing with liberals is like arguing with pigs.
One doesn’t persuade liberals. One defeats them.
In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln wasn't trying to persuade Douglas - he was trying to defeat the Democrats. Would it be nice if the defeat was so convincing that the opponents gave up their beliefs and came to your side? Sure. But you don't get that by being nice and meeting them half way.
I’d submit more Rush and more Milton would be fine. They are not in the same arena. Rush is an entertainer and Milton was an economic theorist.
I find Rush entertaining though I listen to him seldom now, as I have already read most of what he covers on the net before his show comes on.
Milton is fascinating to read, but of course we are limited there since he passed away some time ago.
Let me just jump on gaijin’s same train off thought, as clearly, this man has rarely (I could almost say never, because he may very well have picked up on some of Rush’s satire and mistook it for reality) truly listened to Rush Limbaugh. He’s mouthing the language of the drive-by media. I’d suggest that he go back to his own father, apologize for defaming him, and then sit down and listen to what he has to say. Perhaps he may actually learn something.
Wow, if only the author had been around in the 1930s. He could have persuaded Hitler that the peaceful approach was the best way to solve problems. The allies powers could have further disarmed to show Hitler that they were not a threat. If only he had been around with this wisdom.
I would say more Freidman, and MORE Limbaugh. It is impossible to exagerate the positive influnce Limbaugh has been in this country.
Should we mention that Friedman claimed that our entire monetary policy could be determined by one man sitting at a desk for one day out of the month?
How is that basing monetary policy on market forces?
It isn’t.
It is a form of dictation. And having that power spread out over 12 branches of the Fed makes it no less dictatorial and socialist.
As I’ve said many times, I really like and appreciate Friedman’s books and lectures on free-market economics, but his Monetarism (which is a darling of the Keynesians) and backs a central bank, is as anti-thetical to free-market principles as you can get.
As I’ve said many times, compromise with leftists is like agreeing to be bitten by only one of the viper’s fangs.
Check my first post to this thread. I know exactly what you mean.
Which was an excellent analysis of the true power of market forces and market knowledge, a power that bureaucracies and agencies can never imitate and can never dictate to successfully.
However, throw into that description of the bewildering complexities of all the industries and market agreements and exchanges to make a pencil that you allow a small group of people on the outside of that industry to dictate the value of the currency being used at every exchange point and giving them the ability to vary the easy or difficulty in obtaining capital and credit because of the interest-rate policy and quantity of money in that same market, and you begin to get an idea of how Monetarism is completely antithetical to Friedman’s excellent analysis and support of free markets.
I will take Limbaugh over Friedman any day.
And you are correct sir!
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