Why Today’s Conservatives Are Useless Debaters, by Paul Gottfried.
In a recent commentary in The American Conservative, editorial assistant Maria Biery made it clear who won the annual CATO (libertarian) vs. Heritage (conservative) interns debate earlier this month:
Conservatives should take notes from the libertarians at this debate. Their speeches were filled with hard, fact-based evidence, and they drove their core points home repeatedly. The conservatives were taking a roundabout approach to get to the central thesis of their arguments, and the fleeting references to philosophers that most young people have not read did not help. If conservatives in the future figure out how to better channel their audience they will be much more persuasive. …
Although I wasn’t at the event, I’ve attended so many like them featuring representatives of different groups from the establishment Right that I can easily imagine what Maria was seeing….
The conservatives were clearly less prepared for a high-stakes debate. …
The “conservative movement” … has been driving out heretics, many of whom have been rhetorically gifted deviationists, since the 1980s and in some cases since the 1950s.
“Conservative” enterprises or “Conservative Inc.,” now peddle in narrowly-focused policy-wonks and (oh, lest I forget) cultural conservatives. Their audiences are usually people in their late sixties or early seventies, judging by the average age of Fox-news viewers; and these true believers are not impressed by mental acuity as much as they are by thematic predictability in their favorite news commentator or conservative celebrity. A younger generation of conservative celebrities repeating the same soporific talking points hardly bodes well for Conservatism, Inc. …
Example: conservative debaters on gay marriage.
They might pull out a passage vaguely in support of that position from an ancient classic. These reluctant debaters might also quote from the King James Bible and indicate there is biblical disapproval for the practice under discussion but then also suggest that they’re happy to live in an age that is so tolerant of gay lifestyles. A cultural conservative might then segue into an anecdote about Russell Kirk or Flannery O’Connor meeting someone with an unconventional lifestyle and expressing friendly feelings toward him. Cultural conservatives engage in such bizarre practices because they are terrified of conflict. If you want someone on the Right to debate with social leftists, then please don’t call on such discussants. …
A serious debater avails himself of all evidence at his disposal. If evidence can be found that a gay lifestyles correlates with certain pathologies, then an able and honest debater won’t hold back in pointing this out. If it’s clear that the enforcement of gay rights has extended government control over speech and social interaction, then the debater will bring this up.
The right is usually represented by the wrong people. Boy is it ever.
Those on the Right who can debate effectively, however, are often on the outs with the conservative movement. Try John Derbyshire or Steve Sailer if you need someone to debate CATO about the cultural effects of immigration or about any other forbidden topic. …
Good debaters on the Right are not hard to find. But the “Washington policy community” may not want to push forward such controversialists. …
Another practice among inept conservative debaters who don’t do well outside of Republican nursing homes is belaboring the observation that Democrats back then in the distant past were slave-owners, eugenicists or admirers of Benito Mussolini. Anyone but a total cultural illiterate or a GOP fanatic would recognize the fact that American national parties have changed over time, and that the present Democratic Party bears no significant resemblance to the party of Jefferson and Jackson. …
Even more fatuous is the attempt to link Democratic presidents to interwar fascist leaders because they all favored social security. Needless to say, Republicans who make this spurious argument are not about to repeal FDR’s measure—or the even more extensive federal intrusions into our lives since FDR’s presidency. …
Perhaps conservative movement publicists should stop these old tired games and start giving their side an edge they can work with, with people who can mount a coherent argument, and know how to win. Until then they can’t expect to best anyone, even interns, in any debates, anytime soon.
Tired of seeing the non-PC side lose?
hat-tip Stephen Neil
