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Arguing politics with right wingers is like arguing with creationists

Everything they say is based on beliefs, not evidence. They seem to have no interest in an honest discussion of the facts. Instead they hang on to their naive ideologies like "Freedom" and "govt is incapable and corrupt". I hate taxes as much as the next guy, but sometimes the best solution is a public solution.

For right wingers, the only solution is a capitalistic solution - everything else is "socialist".

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on tactics that might get these people to open thier minds just a little bit?

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Permalink Reply by Patricia Plunkett on July 19, 2010 at 5:40am

The Scottish Mafia, is exactly what I am against.They are all unionist based parties, which are denying us Scots self-rule. I am sick of hearing about our subsidies as if we didn't deserve them, we pay taxes to you know, and are entitled to our subsidies, they are not freebies or handouts they are supposed to be a share of the wealth, not that anyone living the UK does get a fair share from London.You chose to deride Alex Salmond wrongly in my opinion because he has to face the sleekit mafia day and daily in Edinburgh. If you are so unhappy about English politics then start your own independence party and get rid of the Mafia, Scots or otherwise. We will sort out our own when they come back to earth and take part in Scottish politics instead of showing their political prowess abroad. We in Scotland are sick and tired of being the 'cause' of English ails, blame your own MP's for selling you down the river. Look to the future not the past, as we have done here in Scotland, I could give you quote after quote about the past but I won't. The Labour Party is to blame for the ills of our countries not the Scots. Die hard nationalists were taken in by them once again and voted for them in the last elections to keep the Tories out, not because they actually like them.If they had voted for the right party we would be talking full blown independence for Scots,not at the mercy of the Thatcher children.

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Permalink Reply by LarryL on July 19, 2010 at 11:42pm

Great discussion - thank you all for contributing. I have learned a great deal - especially about the politics of Scotland and England (thanks Patricia and Meddlesome).

The question remains, however, of how we "get to" the right-wingers. I have found that employing facts and reason with right wingers has about the same effect as they do with christians. Facts just seem to bounce off their thick skulls.

The saying "you can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into" (or something like that) seems to be the most descriptive phrase.

I just finished reading the on-line book "Thinking Points" by George Lakoff. The main idea is that conservatives have been much better at "deep framing" the issues than liberals. Has anyone read this and applied the concepts? feedback?

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Permalink Reply by D R Hosie on July 20, 2010 at 1:47am

Larry, I think if you go back and look a the comments made, starting about here, on pages 7 'n 8, and in particular finishing up with the 2nd paragraph of Spicer's comments here, I think we just about cut to the heart of the matter. I'm just guessing that it's probably somewhere in line with your term 'deep framing,' although we could no-doubt stand to hear a little bit more about that, from you.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on July 20, 2010 at 2:39am

When it comes to framing the issues, the right has an advantage in that they are simply more willing to lie or distort than the left. Since fairness is a core principle on the left, it's just harder for the left to push bald-faced propaganda. Since the right thinks fairness is for weaklings, they just go all out for the win, without much regard for the truth.

As to how to get to the right-wingers, all we can really do is continue to expose their lies, show their heroes with their pants down (which happens with alarming regularity because, well, see my previous paragraph). The problem, of course, is that by the time we can expose them, the damage may already be done, as in the electoral fraud in 2000 and 2004, the Iraq War, etc, etc. Exposure may not change the minds of those on the right, but at least it might make them cynical enough to withdraw from the public square. And with enough data points, who knows? Hell, a lot of seminarians become atheists.

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Permalink Reply by LarryL on July 20, 2010 at 7:12pm

Besides a greater willingness to lie, I'd suggest that they also have a louder microphone.

While we love to dismiss Rush, Fox and co as willfull liers, they do have an extraordinary reach of very devouted followers. "We" is a very small number of people with a limited audience. I'm not suggesting we give up, but the challenge is great.

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Permalink Reply by LarryL on July 22, 2010 at 12:20am

Yes, but that core demographic is getting larger and louder everyday. Where will it end? Will Fox put CNN out of business?

I'd also like to know where all these rational people are (besides on the Nexus). I sure don't find many in my town of St. Louis. I'm literally surrounded by FoxZombies everywhere. I hope my network isn't representative of the rest of the country, or else we are all in a heap or trouble.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph P on July 22, 2010 at 1:57am

The midwest is a bit more conservative, yes. I figured St. Louis would be better than the rest of Missouri, though. I dunno.

The east coast is definitely not Fox country, at least in the cities. The Raleigh/Durham area, Charlotte, and the Triad (Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point) are so liberal that we brought the state over for Obama. Jesse Helms is gone, and more importantly, his Republican replacement is gone. Once you get out into the rural areas though, yes, North Carolina is Southern Baptist everywhere.

And of course you know how liberal the New England area is. Same with the west coast.

I really thought Missouri would be more similar, considering it was the closest to 50/50 out of all of the states, in 2008.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on July 22, 2010 at 1:03pm

Another thing to keep in mind is that Fox News has no competition. They own the market of propagandizing the wack-job right. The center and left are served (and that's using the term loosely) by multiple news outlets, so that market is splintered. This gives Fox News much larger ratings than any one of the real news outlets, but in aggregate, the mainstream news outlets get massively more viewers than Fox.

I disagree that ignoring demagogues is the way to get them to go away. That doesn't really work. They just continue demagogueing their nutjob followers. Having it underground is bad. Media Matters, FactCheck.org, and PolitiFact.org are important watchdogs. Because the mainstream media aren't pointing out the lies like they should.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph P on July 22, 2010 at 2:53pm

Do liberals eschew tv so much that they don't watch it so a large demographic isn't counted?

I don't watch TV. My roommate and I don't even have cable. We watch all of our TV online. Everything I want to watch is streamed off of the shows' websites, now.

Of course I think online viewing is taken into account. It's easier to track online viewing than actual TV viewing. The TV ratings system is broken, useless crap. It's been shown, on several shows, that the viewers are not reflected properly somehow. There seems to be some flaw in their algorithm.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph P on July 23, 2010 at 1:09am

Yeah, I had digital cable, back when I had cable.

I was thinking more along the lines of the Arbitron rating system, and Nielsen ratings. Those have been shown to be unreliable as hell, for several types of shows.

Permalink Reply by LarryL on July 20, 2010 at 11:22pm

Okay, these are the specific recommendations that I've gathered from the discussion:
a: call bullshit when you see it
b: make them look stupid when they deserve it
c: move to Australia when "a" and "b" fails

Did I miss anything?

re "deep framing", the suggestion is that we challenge the very premise of the argument - the foundation that the argument lies upon, and suggest a more honest, fact based, framing of the issues

Examples:
-the "War on Terror" is in reality an "Illegal Occupation" by US forces
-the "illegal Immigrant Problem" is really a "problem of Illegal Hiring Practices"

While this seems like a relatively simple solution, the fact is that the right has most of the microphones. They have Fox plus right wing radio, while we only have a few islands in an ocean of conservative mouthpieces. How to get the "alternative" framing out "there" remains the challenge.

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Permalink Reply by Terry McCoy on July 21, 2010 at 8:08pm

I read this entire threat tonight from start to finish, and I must say it was everything I thought it could be a more. Thank you atheist nexus community!