Reductio ad Absurdum: My Two Cents of Civility, Dissent, and Racism

Spare Change | 18 September 2009 | David J. Aland

[SpareChange]

Reductio ad Absurdum: My Two Cents on Civility, Dissent, and Racism

By David J. Aland 18 September 2009

Mike Godwin once observed that online debate has a natural tendency towards hyperbole. Godwin’s Law states that the longer a debate continues, the probability of someone making a comparison to the Nazis approaches 1. While there certainly appears to be no reduction in Nazi references since the “BusHitler” days, racism now appears to be the new Godwin’s Law.

While debating Joe Wilson’s punishment for blurting “You lie!” during President Obama’s speech, Rep. Hank Johnson declared that a failure to censure Wilson would mean “people will put on white hoods and ride through the countryside.” Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Cosby ratified this notion, saying racism underlies all opposition to President Obama. Nothing new here: they are just repeating what Keith Olbermann, Rep. James Clyburn, Maureen Dowd, Howard Kurtz and others have already said: disagreeing with this President is racist.

It’s been said by celebrities and politicians. According to the Washington Post, it was a central theme of conversations at the Black Family Reunion on the National Mall last Sunday, immediately following the massive protests of the day before. While this certainly cannot mean that everyone is a racist, it certainly shows that the racial discourse in this country, after the last four decades of effort, is regressing rapidly.

Accusations of racism have become the new f-bomb of national discourse. Just as that particularly pungent expression can effectively end a conversation, so does saying “you’re a racist.” It peremptorily ends debate, regardless of the grounds of the discourse. It says: I don’t have to listen to you if you’re a racist. It is dismissive and intellectually dishonest.

That is not to say that there aren’t racists who are upset by an African-American President. But to hear Johnson, Carter, Cosby, et al, that group now includes the entire Republican Party, many Blue Dog Democrats, and anyone else who objects to the most sweeping revisions to the American government since the New Deal. Reducing the political process to partisanship is bad enough, reducing it to racism is worse.

While Joe Wilson’s outburst was rude (and, incidentally, unacceptable behavior towards our Chief Executive), many have made the point that there was truth in that declaration of lies. Giving the President the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he did not mean to misrepresent or oversimplify legislation that he has not yet read himself, but he definitely spun the facts so hard that the Earth must have wobbled in its orbit from the extreme gyroscopic effects.

But let’s be clear: this is not about Joe Wilson. This is far more important than one man. This is about how a nation chooses or does not choose a pathway and pursues it. This is not a time for rushed regulation and parliamentary parlor tricks. This is a time for sober debate, and sometimes passionate disagreement. There are many Americans whose voices are sounding who should not be dismissed, especially through cheap and unproved accusations.

That would include fiscal hawks, who object to the spiraling debt, and any taxpayer who objects to increased taxes. That would include every doctor wary of reform, and every patient wary of reduced services. For the legion of valid objections to this President’s policies – which should be debated, examined, and resolved – Hank Johnson sees only suburbanites burning crosses while draped in Martha Stewart linens, while Jimmy Carter and Maureen Dowd primly smirk that everyone is a racist except them.

Obviously this debate has been going on long enough for the probability of reductio ad absurdum (reduction to the absurd) to approach certainty, as predicted by Godwin’s Law. What many seem to forget is that, as a rhetorical tactic, such reductions are a losing proposition. The corollary to Godwin’s Law is whoever brings up the reductio first loses the argument by default. The careless and ceaseless throwing of the race card has fouled the discourse, poisoned the debate, and set the stage for even worse confrontations to come.

It is not too late to salvage this discussion on health care, but the only one who can now do so is the President, whose forays into racially charged issues earlier this year were clumsy at best. The putatively post-partisan and post-racial candidate must now deliver as President, and not allow the debate to be reduced through cheap name-calling, false distinctions, and questionable tactics.

It’s called leadership, Mr. President.

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David J. Aland is a retired Naval Officer with a graduate degree in National Security Affairs from the U. S. Naval War College.

[lady lawyer]

The Left is employing two of the classic logical fallacies — ad hominem and poisoning the well. They can’t refute an argument on the merits, so they attack the person making the argument.

[17th Miss Regt]

I think your second one is also important - poisoning the well. Liberals know that they can get away with poisoning the well forever as they have never seen conservatives really get riled and strike back. They might eventually get a big surprise, but so far, conservatives have been pretty civil about things.

[Natty Bumppo@frontier.net]

Aland’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law:

Whoever invokes a charge of racism first in an argument concedes the intellectual emptiness of their position.