It really seems to me that there are two principle motivations: rhetorical dominance, and a desire for reasoned consensus. In the first, “winning” is the primary goal. Typically, the tactics used are derision, partial and decontextualized use of facts, and repetition. The growth that happens in the use of such rhetoric is in the direction of conformity or exclusion. You have to pick sides, since there is no movement in the direction of compromise.
In the second, it will optimally begin with a shared goal, say world peace. It will then define that goal, such that you know when you have reached it. It will then discuss methods by which that aim can be achieved. This is where genuine difference can be a factor in generating an optimal solution, since varied perspectives tend, in aggregate, to scope out various pathways well, determine their relative merits and dangers, and include differing factual accounts of present reality, which can be researched and debated.
As I have argued elsewhere, the transition from liberal to leftist, and from reasoned debate to rhetorical duels, happens when you NO LONGER CARE about the actual consequences of your actions.
Take the issue of race, for example. It would seem to me that the shared goal would be the thriving of the African American (among others) community within the United States. Success would be defined as full employment in jobs which pay reasonably well, educational attainments on par with everyone else, rates of criminality on par with everyone else, and rates of family success and failure on par with everyone else.
Patently, none of those outcomes have been achieved in the last 50 years. Rather, what we have seen–as a direct result of leftist policies–is an eradication of most good jobs from inner cities, exceedingly high failure rates in high school, rates of crime that are astronomical, and the virtually complete eradication of the nuclear family in the inner cities.
These are problems, and to claim otherwise is to show a cynical disregard for the suffering that underlies these facts.
Is anything solved by calling anyone who suggests these might be problems a racist? Is it helpful for comfortable white suburbanites to spend enormous energies figuring out who the “racists” are, and dedicating NO serious thought to how we might address these problems?
If you look at Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson, or Jerry Wright, you aren’t looking at people trying to solve the problem: they ARE the problem. They act as if the African American community HAS to rely on them, and on the government programs they get funded, and that they should play NO role, as individuals, in trying to solve these problems.
This is bullshit. Until leftists got that community addicted to getting money for nothing, all of those communities–take Harlem as an example–were growing in wealth, serious about education, and dedicated to the nuclear family and church. Their streets were not crime ridden, and they had self respect that did not come from some preacher telling them “black is beautiful”. They had self respect because they EARNED it.
It is not conservatives who are polarizing. We want government to do nothing but not get in our way. It is the LEFT who has a political interest in permanent dependency.
If you look at Greece, today, what you see is that they are failing because they thought that public sector jobs were sustainable. They thought the credit cards would last forever. Yet ALL public sector expense and all government money that is handed out represents a current or future tax. As such, it represents a drag on the only jobs that are SUSTAINABLE, which are those in the private sector.
To be clear, if you borrow money to fund such programs, they are inflationary, and inflation is a regressive tax that takes from the poor and gives to the rich. If you take the money in actual taxes, you provoke the flight of capital, which is what has happened in so many large urban areas. New York actually, in effect, went broke, in much the same way Greece is today. Detroit is a “failed state”.
I see clear parallels between the actions of the IMF and the actions of the Left in the so-called “War on Poverty”. What you do is take a group of people who are maybe not doing great, but who are growing, and give them money with no strings attached. If you do it in the developing world, you give it to the government. They then take that money and promise their nation the moon and the stars. Everyone is getting rich, at least those who are connected. Whatever business ventures they had, they give up, since the money is so easy. This derails private enterprise in a big way.
One day, the money runs out. All the private infrastructure that had been there, is gone. And people are addicted, as fully as if the substance were crack cocaine. They want more, more, more. So they get more, in exchange for some part of their personal or national sovereignty. They now DEPEND on that supply of money, they can’t imagine living without it.
How else can you explain people thinking Barack Obama was going to pay their mortgage, or that all healthcare was now free? Many generations have been taught that the way to get ahead is to trust people like Jesse Jackson, who would FIGHT for them. But how much can they get? You can only draw out without paying in so long.
The IMF says it is for development, but it simply props up dictators, and facilitates corruption and the flight of capital from the industrialized democracies to the developing world.
The Democrats say they want to help African Americans, but all they seem able to propose are programs that don’t work, and larger social aid packages.
Clearly, if we want to develop the world, we need to loan to enterpreneurs and capitalists. Clearly, if we want to develop the inner cities, we need to do the same.
What I think would work would be, first, educational vouchers, such that the parents of the children can pick the schools their kids go to. Schools need to be developed that brook no violence or disrespect, and which enforce discipline, and the self respect and self possession that goes with it. Graduates of such schools can be enrolled in a microloan database, such that business start-up ventures can be funded by private capital.
When you say to someone “go create something”, good things flow. When you say to people “do as I say”, you disempower them. The irony is thick that leftists think that it empowers anyone to presume to speak for them.
I have faith that most people, if you expect them to succeed, will. I likewise think that if you expect people to fail, they will likewise often accomodate you.
All of these problems can be solved, but you must begin with the goal in mind, not a preoccupation with “message management”. If your sole focus is on how these things are TALKED about–not end results–you are complicit in the pain you claim motivates you; you are not compassionate: you are a self important bully.