Why Conservatives are Better Debaters

Thumbing through the latest articles on Sam Alito, I came across one by Jonathan Rosenblum (amazing what google will return with a search on key words).  This article was a little bit about Alito, but mostly it was about one man's observations of going from Liberal to Conservative in his life's journey.

Rosenblum was not always conservative as he details, in fact probably back in the 60s, he was (in his words) one of the last to don a suit.  But over time, he has gone from Ideologue to realist, and the sad part, lost many of his friends in the process.  They just could not stomach his conversion.

But the fascinating part of his trip down memory lane, was in how he describes the fact that conservatives are a minority on most Ivy League Campuses.  And being a minority, they look around and realize that there are smart people who do not believe as they do, so they have to adjust to the fact that they are not going to win debates by yelling louder, but by debating better.  And they learn to craft their arguments so that they can at least engage others in their beliefs.

Being forced to recognize that there are different points of view helps make bright young conservatives such good debaters. They learn early on the limited persuasiveness of shouting at someone with whom they disagree, "You're an idiot." Of necessity they have to develop the ability to cast their arguments in ways that appeal to those starting from very different premises.

While I have not made a life long study of debating skills of liberals versus conservatives, it does not take one long, to even a casual observer, that this tendency in college, carries over into later life.  We have seen many instances of a liberal, challenged in their beliefs, resort to name calling (and some conservatives, I will grant) and what in essence amounts to yelling here on both JU and the Internet in general.

Many of us love to pop over to democratunderground.org on occasion to check out the latest rantings there.  For that is what it truly is.  Simple rantings.  And who has not heard of the Daily KOS where anyone left of Mao Tse Tung is branded a right wing firebrand (with of course no rationalization other than a betrayal of their liberal beliefs).

This is not to say that liberals cannot be good debaters.  Just that, as a general rule (and we know about the exceptions), Liberals tend to use inflammatory rhetoric instead of reasoned logic in their disagreements.  We have all been invited to share in the 'debates' of recent years, where the conservatives are going to starve the children, ban blacks to the back of the bus, and kick old people out into the cold streets.  None of these charges have any basis in fact, but they make for good 30 second sound bites, and so the liberals use them with a regularity that makes ex-lax look tame in comparison.

The quote "Anyone who is not a liberal before 30 has no heart, and anyone who is not a conservative after 40 has no brain" has been attributed to many people, most recently by Winston Churchill.  But it is true that youth is an idealistic times for many, who feel, instead of know.  So the young do tend to be more liberal than the elder citizens.  So anyone who "has no heart", must learn early that they are not in the majority in their opinions, and thus seek to persuade others to their point of view through calm and reasoned logic.  The exact ingredients that a good debater needs.

But liberals are not exposed to that kind of cross pollination all the time.  Just look at du.org?  You can post anything you want there, as long as you do not dis another liberal.  Period.  Kind of narrow minded to me, and myopic.  They are welcome to wallow in their isolation and ignorance, for it is a free country.  But they are only depriving themselves of both debating and social skills needed to function in a society that is not homogeneous.