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Premises, Premises
There is nothing like a Sunday morning spent watching Sam & Cokie interview Bob & Elizabeth Dole to get the conservative blood to simmering. Curiosity alone impels one to ask, Why? Of all the newsmakers and people of interest available, why interview these two at this time? It makes no sense. But beyond that, it provides an excellent example of one of my favorite themes: political debate, never mind resolution or agreement, is impossible without a willingness to review and debate the premises from which we start.
As mere mortals, we are neither able nor willing to start each argument, debate or theory from the beginning. We all use "shortcuts", which we call premises, that allow us to define a starting point for discussion. Usually, these premises are unspoken, frequently they are assumed to be things that everyone "knows", or things on which everyone agrees. But the hard reality is that is the premise is flawed, the result cannot be correct.
There are two basic ways one can reach a flawed conclusion. The first is to start from a sound premise, and through bad logic, application of other bad premises, or plain old fashioned skullduggery, build a rotten edifice on the sound premise. The other, more common, problem is to start from a bad premise. If one has a bad premise, no matter how sound the logic that follows, one will reach a bogus conclusion. Understanding this makes it a lot easier to understand how good, honorable folks like the Doles can so consistently reach the wrong conclusions. This also explains why we see so many people "talking past each other". Unless we are willing to explicitly visit and debate the premises from which we start, resolution is impossible.
It is clear that the media is not up to exploring premises, indeed they are the source of many ridiculously wrong premises. So it is up to me. The pressure, the pressure. Three quick examples culled from ten minutes of discussion with Bob & Liddy will show the immensity of this problem.
Abortion. The mother of all premise disputes. Cokie asked Liddy whether the continued presence of anti-abortion language in the Republican platform would hurt them with female voters. Bad Premise: Women are overwhelmingly "pro choice", and being pro life costs one female votes. What a breath of fresh air it would have been to have heard Liddy say "You know, Cokie, I think your premise is wrong there. Polls and studies have consistently shown that women are more likely to oppose unrestricted abortion than are men." By changing the premise, you change the entire focus of the debate. Instead, Liddy and Bob waffled on about "big tents" and such things, unable to give an intelligent answer because they in fact shared the bad premise.
More Female Voting Patterns. Cokie ( a veritable fount of bad premises) tried to get Liddy into a discussion of the impact of a female VP candidate on the presidential race. Surely, she implied, this would help counter the gender gap and give Republicans more women’s votes. Bad Premise: Women care more about the gender of the candidate than the positions of that candidate. How this one survives amazes me. After the performance of the feminist left in the Lewinsky affair, which saw the nation’s leading self-described "womens’ movement" leaders throw Tripp, Lewinsky and their stated principles over the side in order to support their policy objectives, how can anyone still maintain that a "sisterhood" exists that is a driving force in politics? The correct premise would be that women span the exact same political range as men, from Christian Right to Socialist, in roughly the same proportions. It is, I believe, correct to assume that women and men communicate issues, and prefer to "hear" the issues, differently. But if you wish to assume that there is a "women’s vote" bloc out there, you will end up perpetually confused.
Taxes. When asked about "tax pledges", Bob Dole responded that he refused to take a "no tax pledge" in 1996, because you never know when a crisis of some sort would require a responsible President to raise taxes. It sounds sensible, but is based on what I feel is a Bad Premise: That government should never have to "tighten its belt" and adjust to circumstances. Let us assume that a recession or depression sets in. Individual citizens and families will have to suffer, tighten their belts, make choices in terms of what to buy with a shrinking budget. People who buy into this bad assumption feel that under no circumstances should the government ever be forced to do the same. This attitude is based on an even deeper Bad Premise: That government is properly viewed as the "solver of the people’s problems". By definition therefore, when times get bad it is more important to keep the government awash in cash so they can "help". God forbid the NEA or sugar subsidies would have to be axed in order to provide funds for basic government functions. One of the few things I like about Jesse Ventura is that he is unafraid to challenge this deep bad premise. I believe the correct premise resonates deeply with Americans.
In order to effectively challenge the liberal media hegemony, it is necessary for us to stop thinking about the words coming out of pundits and candidates mouths, and begin backing up to ask"what is the premise that this answer builds on?" What you find will frequently make you laugh or infuriate you, and will always give you ammunition to change other people’s minds.