The Missing Favorite Part

When discussing politics with a lefty, my all-purpose rejoinder to practically any left-wing proposal:

"What's your favorite part?"

Because after all, whatever the proposal is, they haven't read it and don't know what's in it. So they can't possibly have a "favorite part". I enjoy reminding people of this, and observing their puzzled looks ("what do you mean favorite part? I'm for it isn't that enough")

See, most people haven't the first clue about the things they're so passionate in favor of. Isn't that strange?

This rejoinder works for whatever the "health care reform" package is. It worked for the "stimulus". It worked for the climate change bill. It worked for "campaign-finance reform".

It worked for the Kyoto Protocol. It worked for the Land-mines treaty. It worked for Hillary Clinton's health care reform in the '90s.

For all intents, practically all the people who wanted these things - and I'm even talking about the activist, politically-involved people who fervently, passionately wanted these things - didn't know what the hell was in them. They couldn't tell you the first thing about any of these things they wanted. Not really. Not more than a soundbite, a phrase, as in "um, well it's a climate-change bill. Duh!" or "dude, it's single-payer. Sheesh." That's a sufficient level of detail for the passionate activists of the world to make up their minds about something and become passionate about it to the point where they feel absolutely free to demonize anyone who dares disagree with their progressive viewpoint.

Why is that?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that all citizens need to read all bills before forming viewpoints. Obviously that is why we have a republic, not a pure democracy. We have representatives to do that for us. (Theoretically.) What I'm talking about are the passionate viewpoints that people form in favor of these things they know nothing about. Yes, I too might have a position on this or that item, without learning very much about it (let alone reading it), but the difference is I don't become passionate about something without at least becoming pretty versed about it - about its ramifications and details. When I don't have those details, I'm likely to hedge and phrase my support carefully: "From what I have heard, it's a good idea." But this is a sort of humility that is unknown to your typical 'activist' 'progressive'.

Take someone who supported the Kyoto Protocol and thought anyone who didn't was a Neanderthal, and thought President Bush was an evil cretin for tabling it. Where does such a person get off? Such a person has not read the Kyoto Protocol. Such a person does not even know what the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol are. For all Kyoto Protocol fanatics know, the Kyoto Protocol might have set up concentration camps in Indonesia. How would they know? Now, sure, they could say: "if it had something like that in it, I'd have heard about it". Well maybe. But isn't that an admission of studied ignorance? An admission that one is speaking from a position of ignorance and relying on others - authorities, trusted spokesmen - for their opinions? Which is fine, in its way. But here's the thing: if you're relying on authorities, and trusted others, for your opinions, then what sense does it make to make the leap from there to having passionate opinions? Such passionate opinions that people who disagree are evil?

In most modern political debate, what is lacking is humility. Most people participating in political debates don't know what the hell they're talking about. Literally. They simply don't know. Yet they form beliefs, and argue for them, and demonize those who disagree. Why is this?

It is because politics is mostly tribal, I'm afraid. It's about choosing a tribe and signalling your alliance to that tribe in front of others. Sure, if people were forming their political views based on sober rationalism, they'd have the appropriate humility of people who haven't read the bills they're favoring. But that's not why or how people form political views at all. People form their political views so as to align themselves with the Good Side against the Bad Side. And that's why no one needs to actually know what the hell they're talking about or arguing passionately for. All they really need to know is that the Good People are in favor of something. That's enough.

So try asking a lefty: "What's your favorite part of President Obama's health care reform bill?"

Well, I'll just go ahead and answer: Peoples' favorite part is that it involves President Obama, and other Good People. Good People are for it, so they are too. A close second: Bad People (like Republicans) are against it. That's their second favorite part. A third favorite part, related to the first, is that lefties in history and throughout the world have long clamored for socialized medicine. Lefties, and foreigners, are also Good People. So if we had socialized medicine that would align us with all sorts of Good People, present-day and historic. A fourth favorite part is that if you argue for socialized medicine, you get to show off to other people the fact that you're passionately in favor of socialized medicine. This automatically makes you, too, a Good Person, at little cost. (People like showing themselves to be superior to others at little cost, using only rhetoric. Who wouldn't?)

Stuff you don't need to know to favor "President Obama's" health care "reform":

* What's actually in it
* How much it would actually cost
* What negative side effects it may have
* Any level of detail regarding its provisions and implementation
* Who wrote it and based on what
* How it would affect them, personally
* What critics say about it.

Who needs to know that stuff?

The answer, basically: no one.


(Originally posted at Rhymes With Cars & Girls.)