There have been several occasions in my lifetime when I have found myself in the presence of some red faced, very angry person yelling at me about some political issue or another. Indeed, there was a time in my life where I might have become just as red faced and yelled back. In fact, such an occurrence could possibly happen today if I was to be caught off guard or in some emotional moment when such a conversation comes up. Let's face it, people just get real emotional when it comes to politics. They get these ideas in their heads and they're so enamored by them that it becomes inconceivable that someone else could have a different view on things. Some people even become zealots about their politics, just like some do about religions.
When discussing politics, I feel it is important to have an idea about what you are trying to accomplish. Many people who engage in such a conversation will be mulling things over in their heads trying to find some kind of logic in the actions of politicians. This can be an exercise in futility, but people do like to think that those entrusted with public office are somehow looking out for the best interests of everyone they are supposed to represent. So, if you are like me, you are trying to win a heart and mind if you strike up a conversation or engage yourself in such an activity. When someone asks a question or offers his opinion, it becomes an opportunity to get that person to think about freedom.
So, with this in mind, that you are trying to convince someone of the validity of your point of view, there are a few rules I think everyone should follow. First and foremost, be respectful! Remember that it's not mere politics your talking about, it's someone's deep belief, it's as strong as a religion and when you point out flaws in the system it seems to people with these deeply held beliefs that you are attacking their very essence. Since they were young they've been taught in government schools that they should look to government for the answers to society's woes. To say otherwise to them is blasphemy. It's sacrilege. The way to open the door to their mind is to be respectful of their beliefs. If you in any way, shape or form express disrespect for that point of view, they will slam the door shut and enter defensive mode.
So often I hear a conversation such as this:
"I think so and so should do such and such to solve this issue."
To which there is this response:
"That's stupid! So and so is a blah blah and whomever should do this and that."
That really is no way to start a conversation. One person just called the other's idea stupid. It may well be stupid, but to put it so bluntly may be injurious to the other and create a situation where he closes his mind to the other's ideas. Besides, the second speaker in the above example doesn't know how stupid his idea is going to sound to the first. In fact the whole conversation can quickly evolve into a "You're stupid," "No, you're stupid" situation. Nothing has been accomplished except that two people have fomented anger against each other, perhaps put a wedge in a friendship, and created an environment for hatred to flourish. There are those who would claim this is what the political elite want, that it is an important part of their divide and conquer strategy, and perhaps those people are right.
This brings me to the second rule I would like to discuss, avoid name calling at all costs. Nothing turns off a mind faster than name calling. Nothing is more counter productive. If you want to call my ideas crazy, I don't want to talk to you anymore. I you want to call me crazy, I don't even want to see you anymore. I certainly don't want to hear your ideas. I certainly don't want to consider anything you have to say as legitimate. My mindset is going to be turned to an "I'll show you who's crazy" attitude. Even if you have proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that your point of view is correct, or the truth, or whatever, I'm going to be loathe to ever admit that, at least publicly, because your name calling has created in me a certain dislike toward you.
Name calling will only serve to cut you off from potential allies. If you think about it, just because someone's ideas on one issue might seem crazy or stupid to you, doesn't mean you disagree on all issues. It is said that politics make strange bedfellows and that's because sometimes even the most opposite of people find some issue that they can agree upon. I realize that it is often hard to show respect for an idea you have utter contempt for. I know that sometimes it is difficult to hold one's tongue when someone strikes one as an idiot. God knows I don't expect everyone to go out there and keep every political conversation civil. Politics, by its very nature, is emotional, not reasonable. It is important, however, in my humble opinion, to try to remain civil.
Perhaps some kind of approach like this could work:
"I think so and so should do such and such to solve this issue."
To which one responds:
"Well, that's an interesting idea, but have you ever thought about it this way..,"
Or, "I see where you're coming from, but here's another angle to consider..,"
A third rule to consider is don't be condescending. This is perhaps the most difficult behavior to overcome. It is something that I've been accused of and a character flaw I need to address. No one likes a know it all. No one likes to be made a fool of. Sarcasm can be funny, but it can also be hurtful. I know many of you might be thinking "But you use sarcasm and a condescending tone often in your writings," and you'd be right. When I do so in my writings, however, the target is usually someone who has put themselves out there to public scrutiny or even someone who is not named. This is quite different from a public display where one might be verbally defending himself. It is very likely that someone who is so enamored with the statist point of view that he would write or blog about it will never change his point of view. In a verbal discussion, particularly in a public venue, the last thing one wants to do is create an enemy who is dug in to defend his point of view.
I realize it can be difficult to change one's approach to political discourse. God knows I was so poor at doing so that I turned to writing in an effort to avoid a verbal exchange. Still, with practice and a little bit of information at your fingertips, it is not that difficult to keep political conversations just that, conversations, instead of having them devolve into shouting matches. I suppose it can be summed up in two words, be courteous. At least do your best to remain courteous. Try not to insult others, and try to be empathetic.
Try to be the bigger man (or woman). If a person is so emotionally attached to his political beliefs that he resorts to name calling and screaming, just bite your tongue and walk away. You are the adult, he is the childish bully. Give up on that person and any others who may have witnessed that exchange will likely respect you more for it.
I know that for some of you this may sound like common sense. In fact, this may be good advice not only when talking about politics, but when conversing with anyone about anything. The point is, often times these practices are already taken into consideration when discussing other facets of life, but they are somehow forgotten when talking politics. That is why one should remember these basic manners when the subject comes up. It also helps if you already know who has a proclivity to become loud and boisterous so that person can be avoided. If you're lucky, everyone else will also avoid them when politics are discussed and they will get the hint. You, on the other hand, should want to nurture a reputation of being one who listens and offers sensible alternative views when it comes to political discourse.
As I said earlier, people who worship the state will always look to the political class to solve problems, even their own personal problems. This is due to how they've been programmed by many influences we've all grown up with. These influences are subtle and quite pervasive in every day life. This makes it even more difficult to change the hearts and minds that are needed to get the numbers to help create a voluntary society. The few of us who have been able to shake the programming and see the tyranny need to be respectable and likeable in order to become an influence in another's life to juxtapose against the more harmful statist influences.
In a movie I recently saw called "The Hunger Games" one of the characters tells another that in order to survive she needs to get people to like her. There is wisdom in that advice. The more people who like you, the more likely they are to adopt at least some of your ideas. These ideas do, however, need to make sense to them. Now that I've outlined a few behaviors that will get them to actually listen to your point of view, I'd like to point out a few general stances that can be made to support the freedom point of view. I will write about those in part 2.
This was by no means meant to be an all inclusive list, but what I felt were some of the most important things to keep in mind. My hope is that it may help us all achieve a more peaceful society through civil discourse.
Part – 2
There are a couple of things one might want to accomplish when talking to worshippers of the state. I think that first and foremost one wants is to turn the brain of the worshipper back on. One wants to get the state practitioner to think. That isn't to say that worshippers of the state don't think. It is simply that they have decided not to think about certain issues. They have been taught certain paradigms and have accepted them as truth. They simply don't want to think more deeply about those issues as they go about their lives. The difficulty is getting through their programming to get them to reconsider the paradigms which they learned at a young age and continue to be propagated in the life they observe around them.
If you read the
first part of this article, then you will understand that the toughest part of cutting through the propaganda and turning on the subject's brain can be to simply get them to listen. If the person you're interested in influencing has started huffing and puffing or has resorted to immature shouting, I hope you have dropped the subject, walked away, or otherwise avoided further agitation and refused to lower yourself to that level. We are not a nation of Bill O'Reilly's all pounding our chests and trying to be the biggest bully on the playground. In fact, in a nation where the scourge of bullying has been highlighted as of late, I'm surprised his program still gets enough viewers to exist.
The freedom philosophy has the moral high ground. That is likely one of its most attractive aspects. It is, in fact, the stance I like to take most often when discussing politics. Those whose minds are entrapped in
state worship will often shift gears into the real tough questions when they want to be validated and ask what about the roads, or the courts, or the military. How would these things be handled without government? These are services that quite honestly I don't know how they'd be handled without government. I do know this, however, I shouldn't be forced to pay for such services through a monopoly that gives me no choice in the matter.
One of my favorite things to try to do is to point out the proverbial gun in the room. I like to point out that government is force, pure and simple, and that force and the threat of force are the only tools government has to get people to behave the way government wants them to behave. That's a fear based method. For instance, if you didn't have to pay income taxes, if you weren't afraid of going to jail, would you pay? There are others besides government who use the same methods to get people to behave as they want. Slave owners and extortionists come to mind.
Many people are not going to accept this argument at the outset. They're going to make the claim that government is different because they were elected by a majority or because they're working for the greater good. They will seriously balk at the concept that taxes are theft. After all, how else would one get money to fund the roads? This is the point in many conversations where I stop, unless I can see whoever I'm talking to is able to accept the concept of free market opportunity and the idea that someone would figure it out. The important thing isn't to convince someone right then and there and win them over to your point of view, the important thing is that they've heard you and the gears inside their head have started to turn.
The morality approach has worked for me on people who were both left leaning and right leaning. It seems morality is something that people from all points of the political spectrum hold as important. Only the power brokers or power broker wannabes or authoritarian control freaks seem to disregard morality. Only the elite seem to throw it to the side and not care about it. It is not always going to be an effective approach, however, and has also failed for me with people that I considered both liberal and conservative. It seems people have a great capacity to make excuses and equivocate when their deeply held beliefs are challenged.
Another aspect of politics is economics. Politics is about money. It is about where wealth should and should not be spent. It's about the super wealthy figuring out how to protect their wealth, gain more power, and steal more money from the lower classes. It's about determining who can conduct business without fear of government agents and who can't. People think it's about helping other people, providing services at a fair price to all, or providing security. Those things are only true to the extent that economics is involved. Political systems are constantly growing because they strive to create monopolies in such services and use the power granted them to knock competitors out of the market. The political system wants all the money and power for itself.
When engaging in political discourse about the economy, it helps to know whether the person you're talking to leans to the left or the right of the political spectrum. People on the left have a tendency to worry about the poor and underprivileged and so want to spend money in the social services sector while people on the right have a tendency to worry about security and so want to spend money on the military and law enforcement. I'm not saying this is always the case, but it is a point of reference to start from.
I remember one gentleman who seemed to be leaning to the Democrat side of the spectrum as he harbored an intense hatred for Republicans, yet he expressed an appreciation for the wars we are currently engaged in and felt they were necessary for our protection. He told me with great fervor that he thought I was dangerous because of my political pro peace views. I was stumped on several fronts when trying to convince him of the superiority of freedom over tyranny, and I do still hold hope that he may someday see the value of my point of view, but I have given up on talking to him about politics.
I try to touch on something I think the person I'm conversing with would agree with. I will, for instance, discuss my pro peace stance with a liberal. If he shares my views, as most do with the exception of the man I mentioned above, then I will talk about how we could shrink government by ending the current occupations we are involved in. I will express sympathy for the downtrodden and empathize with the need to provide charity to those who have run into bad times for some reason or another and point out that billions can be saved by reining in the military. Only after this is digested and accepted by the person I'm talking to will I tackle trying to convince him that the private sector can handle charity better than the government.
When talking to someone who is right leaning, I approach this in the opposite way. I can start with discussing how cutting social programs can help society, and from there move on to discussing how cutting military costs is also an important step in scaling down the federal government. I think it is important to find something you can agree on to form a sympathetic bond with the other person before expressing disagreement. To disagree first immediately puts the two of you at odds.
One of the most difficult things to get by is other people's idea of what freedom is. If we are to try to frame the debate as a freedom versus tyranny discussion rather than a discussion as to which big government tyranny is better, it is important to define freedom. Some people believe that freedom means equality, that we are not free until everyone has the same stuff and is economically on the same level as everyone else. In other words, freedom is freedom from want. They would use government to accomplish this, to redistribute wealth especially from those they feel did not honestly earn the wealth they have to those who have nothing or next to nothing. This is not freedom, it is mommy government.
Others feel freedom means security, that we are not free until we can all walk down the streets anywhere and not have to worry about getting mugged, or board an airplane without having to worry about it getting blown up, or walk into a famous building without having to worry about planes flying into it, etc. In other words, freedom to these people is freedom from fear. This is not freedom, it is daddy government.
In both the above examples, it can usually be agreed upon that government has failed in providing the freedoms wanted. Again, if you run into someone who believes the government has done a good job providing for such things, chances are you have run into a government zealot whose mind will likely never change no matter what. Once you get the feel for what the other person believes freedom to be, you can present your idea of what freedom is. The idea here is not to tell them they're wrong, for that could turn their minds off instantly as they go into defense mode, but to get them to listen to a different point of view. Many times in order to achieve this goal it is important for you to listen to them first.
Most people that I know will agree that freedom means the condition of being left alone so long as you are not harming another. I've also had quite a bit of success getting people to agree that freedom is the condition of being allowed to do as you please so long as you are not infringing on the rights of others. A third approach is to state that freedom amounts to being able to determine for oneself where to spend the money one earns. That is sometimes a little more complicated to explain. Then there is the definition of being free to determine one's own destiny, or the search for happiness, or even property, but those can be a little ethereal for some people. In any case, the important thing about those freedoms is that it empowers the individual and takes the ability to be free away from government. Indeed, these conditions become achievable only when government intrusion is removed.
The question of what it means to be free is going to differ for nearly every person. That's at least partially because it's such a nebulous concept. It should be more thoroughly discussed and explained to young children. Instead, in many public schools, the young of this country are taught that freedom means the ability to elect representatives and that government is created to take care of all problems. This kind of thinking helps only to prevent true freedom from reining and keeps big government growing bigger. The younger the child is when a belief system is instilled, the harder it will be to dislodge that belief system when one becomes an adult.
In many cases, it will take a while for the ideas of freedom to sink in. If one tries to give another too much information too fast, it might overwhelm that person and lead him to never look into these matters. If, however, you work with the other slowly, before you know it people may be coming up to you and asking your opinion during political discourse. When this happens, you know the ideas of freedom are starting to make sense to others. You know you have gained their respect. It's a good feeling to have when you're sitting at a bar watching a sporting event and two people diametrically opposed in their political views ask you for your opinion on some issue they're arguing about. Give someone some food for thought and some time to chew on it, and eventually even the most zealous of state worshippers can come around to the freedom perspective.
This is just a small bit of advice from one who is not the most persuasive when it comes to verbally explaining or expressing these ideas. I have been helped greatly by those who have explored these philosophies before me. For more and better ideas on how to present the freedom perspective to worshippers of the state, check out
Mary Ruwart's work. For this purpose, I think her book "Short Answers to the Tough Questions" is particularly relevant.
