Tam notes: “I manage to discuss politics with the Democrat Next Door just fine. I think she’s wronger than a monkey riding a poodle, but I’ll grant that she’s smart and well-meaning and came by her wrongness honestly, and I’m not going to change her mind on a single issue by shouting or belittling her.”
Most people’s views on politics are pretty amorphous and not generally all that philosophically consistent. That doesn’t make them evil. Politics is 10% inspiration and 90% bullshit. Whichever side has the best smelling specimen wins. Because of our meme-driven society, people are consuming mostly that 90% part, and therefore our most masterful philosophical constructs will always come face to face with that simple equation at the end of the day. That’s not to say philosophy isn’t important (the 10% part), but ends are not achieved by it.
I twice debated representatives of the old Brady Bunch on the radio. The first time was against Carl Bogus, winner of the title “Most Appropriately Named Law Professor.” He was incorrigibly obnoxious in style, manner, and personal presence. The second time was with a young volunteer attorney from the Brady Gang, who actually was quite interested in debating all points in a realistic way. After our session on the air, we stood and talked in the hallway of the radio station for at least an hour, and shook hands when we parted.
Carl Bogus, who obviously should have changed his name or found a different profession, has serious skin in the game, a game which probably wasn’t going well for his side when you “debated” him.
Strange, he comes across much more politely in print (Google search results, especially on his book about W. F. Buckley). On the other hand, his .edu site says his third major interest is of course gun control, and that he “proposed the thesis that James Madison wrote the Second Amendment to ensure that the federal government could not subvert the slave system by disarming the militia, on which the South relied for slave control.”
Race, gender and class, the modern academic Left is so boring.