Tag: debate

Free Trade debate podcast

Tom Woods has posted Episode 684 Debate on Free Trade, with Bob Murphy and Vox Day, on his site. Below is part of my 10-minute presentation opposing the resolution, which stated:

Free trade is always economically beneficial in the long term,
and the more free trade is practiced by a country, the higher the
standard of living of its inhabitants will be.

The Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki once wrote: “The memory of having sat at someone’s feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot.” While I have been seated, metaphorically, at the feet of the great Austrian economists for most of my life, I harbor no desire to trample them. I retain genuine affection and respect for the Austrian School of economics.

However, just as the classical economists eventually gave way to the superior understanding of the Austrians, so Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard will one day be surpassed by the post-Austrian economists of the future. Is that day here yet? I will argue that it is, at least with regards to the doctrine of free trade.

The world has changed in many ways in the 240 years since Adam Smith triumphed over the mercantilists. The most significant changes, with regard to the topic at hand, concern the mobility of capital, a factor which was not accounted for by either Smith or Ricardo, and the mobility of labor, a factor which was never taken into consideration by Mises or Rothbard.

Let me first state that I accept Bob’s general terms with regards to both free trade meaning unlimited transactions between domestic and foreign parties, and national wealth being measured on average. I am presenting five arguments against free trade tonight: they are empirical, mathematical, existential, practical, and logical. Given the time constraints, it is not possible to go very deep into any of them, but each of the five represents a very serious and substantial challenge to the claim that free trade makes a nation wealthier in the long term.

My first argument is empirical. The conventional argument in favor of free trade has changed very little over the centuries, and was repeated this very week in a major essay by Francis Fukuyama in Foreign Affairs. It states:

  1. International trade has become increasingly free over time.
  2. Wealth has increased during the same period.
  3. Therefore, free trade produces wealth.

Or to put it another way, as Bob did in his excellent textbook, Lessons for a Young Economist, “If we imagine an initial situation of worldwide free trade, and then further imagine that an individual country decided to “protect” its domestic industries and “save jobs” by preventing foreign goods from crossing its borders, its residents would become much poorer.”

But this is not true. We have considerable evidence that freer global trade does not necessarily make an individual country wealthier. For example, although the free trade in goods has considerably increased over the last 50 years, real wages are lower in the USA than they were 43 years ago. So is the country wealthier? Proponents of free trade often cite growing GDP per capita, and it is true that since 1964, US GDP per capita has risen from $3.5 thousand to $54.6 thousand, a 15-times increase.

That means the USA is wealthier, right? No, because over the same 50-year period, total US debt per capita has risen 34 times. If your income doubles, but your personal debt goes up by a factor of 4.5, are you wealthier? No, of course not. Your perceived increase in wealth is a mirage.

Freer trade has clearly not produced greater wealth for America or Americans, but rather, greater indebtedness. This is not to say free trade can never benefit a national economy, but we have clear empirical evidence that in the case of the United States, it has not. Therefore, the resolution is false.

My second argument against free trade is mathematical. Free trade theory relies, at its core, upon the Law of Supply and Demand. But in Debunking Economics, Steve Keen cites the work of William Gorman, who in 1953 utilized mathematical logic to prove that the Law of Demand does not apply to a market demand curve. It only applies to single individuals, and it is not possible to derive a market demand curve by simply adding together the quantities demanded by all individuals at each price. In other words, the combination of all rational consumer preferences results in an irrational market where lower prices may or may not increase demand.

This proof has many implications for economics that have not yet been explored, and among the obvious casualties is David Ricardo’s theory of Comparative Advantage. The math literally does not add up. Therefore, the resolution is false.


Listen to the rest of it there. Brainstorm members will receive a full transcript once it is complete. I should note that Steve Keen informed me that there is a more substantial mathematical case to be made against free trade than the one I presented, but as it was his point and not mine – and frankly, I don’t fully understand it yet – I did not utilize it in the debate. I will devote a separate post to it later.

Mailvox: debate responses

We had a nice turnout for the Day-Murphy debate on free trade last Friday, and most of the 250+ registrants showed up for it. It generated more than a few questions, and here are some that later showed up in my email. NC wonders about the role of the state:

I greatly enjoyed the debate. Thank you broadcasting the debate and the work you put into the arguments.  I found the debate valuable as I mull over my own thoughts.

I’m curious if you have thoughts on this:  I think that your arguments depend on the existence of the state.  I compare your arguments to a similar case of discriminately acting on relationship principles; that is, if one is interacting with a sociopath, one would not act on relationship principles of openness and honesty, for the sociopath would not conform to those principles, exploiting them for advantage.  I think Trump emphasizes “good deals” over free trade because of the realities of coercive government institutions–nation-states which would violate principles of free trade like a sociopath would violate principles in a relationship.

If, after a generation of peaceful parenting, the nation-state dissolves, would not a free trade environment be the principled and logical environment of such a society?

No, my arguments depend upon the existence of the nation, not the state. If there is no coherent group of self-identified people sharing traditions, characteristics, and values, then there is no need to concern ourselves with their collective fate, as we owe nothing to them, share nothing with them, and can abandon them and ignore their interests without a thought. This, of course, is one reason why the globalist elite wants to destroy cohesive, coherent nations, for much the same reason they want to destroy the family. The individual is easily corrupted or destroyed, the nation, not so readily.

The dissolution of the nation-state on the basis of peaceful parenting does not logically lead to a free trade environment, moreover, it is about as credible as a monetary system that relies upon leprechauns distributing gold harvested at the rainbow’s end. That is pure libertarian fantasy babble, which is even less coherent than the Marxian withering away of the state leading to the worker’s paradise.

GO also thought rather well of the debate, a transcript of which will be provided to Brainstorm members:

I thoroughly enjoyed the debate. I have enjoyed Mr. Murphy’s writings over the years. I thought he mildly tried to take you on personally. You didn’t do that and stuck to the debate issue making excellent points. I also like Tom Woods. I think they both learned a lot by getting involved with you. I have begin to wonder about the rigidness of some of the Austrians. I am happy to see a challenge to them from a non-communist or socialist perspective.

I was actually quite pleased that Bob was sufficiently concerned by the arguments I presented in the Miller debate to view me as a potential threat to the conceptual status quo. This is extremely unusual, as for the most part, free traders consider their position to be utterly unassailable. As for Tom, he was not only an excellent moderator – I was very impressed by him and think he would make a great talk radio guy – but he made a very interesting comment when we met the day before the debate to make sure everyone’s system was working correctly.

He commented that the free traders had not helped strengthen their own position by failing to seriously consider the arguments on the other side. This is understandable, as for two centuries, their underlying assumptions more or less held. And it was easy to dismiss the impact of the Japanese mass-immigrating to Australia, as Mises did, so long as they weren’t actually doing it.

So, I think that even if I’m not able to convince either Bob Murphy or Tom Woods of the inimical nature of free trade, I suspect this debate may mark a step towards stronger Austrian arguments in defense of free trade. Unless, of course, I am able to convince the entire Austrian School that a rethink of its core position on the subject is required.

JK saw the same flaw in one of Bob’s arguments that I did:

Great brainstorm yet again! I was annoyed by Bob’s use of a country giving a bunch of free SUVs to the US as a reductio ad absurdum, but a country might use that strategy to destroy another country’s infrastructure, and that would definitely not enrich the country who receives the goods.

But  I would have loved to have asked him this, had I thought of it: if the receiving country is enriched by cheaper imports then surely if the other country produces all things and therefore the receiving country nothing, then that country should be infinitely enriched, no?

Well done Vox.

I wasn’t annoyed by the argument, I was amused by it. There is a very good reason dumping, or selling goods below their cost, is legally prohibited by most countries, and that is because it is correctly seen as harmful to the recipient. As I mentioned in the debate, I don’t think Bob quite grasped how damaging the welfare analogy is to his neo-Bastiat “free sunlight” argument. Free goods damage an economy in much the same way free welfare checks damage an individual; in neither case do they make the economy or the individual wealthier in the long term. Quite to the contrary, they make them dependent.

Are tropical countries where everything grows easily and the fruit just drops from the trees generally more wealthy than others? No, because the effect on the populace is not wealth-generating, but enervating.

Over the next week, I’ll attempt to respond in detail to some of the questions that were addressed to me during the debate that Tom did not pass on to me because we did not have time to address them.

Another free trade debate

This exchange with Louise Mensch on Twitter vastly amused me. In my book, it is right up there with the digression into sexbots in the James Miller debate:

Louise Mensch ‏@LouiseMensch
The idea you need free movement of people for a free market is a lie. We have free trade with USA without free movement

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
It’s not a lie. Read Mises: the same arguments apply. For full benefits of free trade, free labor mobility is required.

Louise Mensch ‏@LouiseMensch
no; we presently enjoy free trade with America no free movement between us either way

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
You can see exactly how NOT free UK trade with USA is here. Complete with tariff codes and rates.

Louise Mensch ‏@LouiseMensch
live animals?

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
3.8 percent on the sale of domestic rabbits, to be precise. Just one of thousands of examples. Demonstrably unfree trade.

Louise Mensch ‏@LouiseMensch
er… I honestly don’t think most people are going to count bees and rabbits Vox

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
It’s 5.7% on nuclear reactors. Would most people count them?

In fact, the USA and UK have neither free trade nor free labor mobility.

Anti-semitism debate, part two

Louise Mensch and I continue to debate anti-semitism, Ann Coulter, and the #AltRight on Heat Street:

Louise Mensch:     So you don’t care that the left was correct about your racism and sexism? 

Vox Day:     We don’t care what they say or what they think, at all.

Louise Mensch:     You obviously do care because you’re employing tactics against this, you’ve just described.

Vox Day:     No, we don’t care what they do or what they think, but we are certainly engaged in a cultural rhetorical war against them, but we don’t care what they think about us. We’re their enemy, they’re our enemy, and that’s fine.

Louise Mensch:     But you’re not employing this against the enemy. I never see these memes employed against the left, ever. I only see them employed against people on the right. John Podhoretz, Ben Shapiro, Cathy Young, people who are 100% on the right. You don’t seem to bother with anyone of the left. Not that … By the way, God forbid that should be taken as an encouragement to go off to burn Hillary supporters with this stuff, but it’s red on red fire.

Vox Day:     I’m pretty sure they get sent to anyone who attacks them.

Louise Mensch:     You’ve put Ann Coulter in a difficult position, because she has said, not convincingly at all, that she isn’t anti-Semitic. And you’ve just described how …

Vox Day:     I don’t believe she is anti-Semitic.

Louise Mensch:     Right …

Vox Day:     She’s not anti-Semitic.

Louise Mensch:     … but then a whole bunch of anti-Semites are running to her defense by tweeting Holocaust cartoons at Jews?

Vox Day:     That’s what you’re not understanding is that the fact that one is not anti-Semitic does not mean that you have any obligation whatsoever to disavow anyone.

Louise Mensch:     Ann Coulter though, is being defended by a bunch of anti-Semites who as their weapon use anti-Semitism. In order to try and prove she’s not anti-Semitic, that’s not very helpful, is it?

Vox Day:     Well, but again I don’t think that that’s the objective or the concern.

Louise Mensch:     Do you guys even have an objective?

Vox Day:     Absolutely.

Louise Mensch:     What is it?

Vox Day:     The chief objective for … I probably … I don’t speak for the entire alt-right because the alt-right doesn’t have leaders, but I am alt-right, and my objective is the preservation of Western civilization.

Read the whole thing there. Jerry Pournelle did, although he’s been finding the whole thing a little hard to follow:

I’m afraid I wasted my time in trying to follow yet another debate about anti-Semitism, but I never did understand what they were debating about. While America has a small number of genuine anti-Semites (under any definition of the term), they are pretty well irrelevant. As Irving Kristol once said, America is a safer and generally more pleasant place for Jews than Israel is ever likely to be. Now of course there are organizations, mostly but not all Jewish, that equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, but serious people, including Kristol, found that absurd.

There are of course places where there is real anti-Semitism, but most of them are Semitic now that the National Socialists no longer rule Germany. Fascism isn’t even anti-Semitic although the Nazi’s (who weren’t really Fascists) were. Mussolini had many high ranking Jews in his Fascist regime right up until he gave up trying to prevent the Anschluss with Austria and made alliance with Hitler. At Hitler’s insistence he began persecuting Jews, but it was not part of the Fascist – rods and axe – agenda until imposed by Germany.

But Islam certainly is anti-Jewish, right down to their Holy Koran; since many Islamic nations are Semitic – certainly not all, since neither Persians nor Kurds nor Turks are Semitic – the term anti-Semitic has more political meaning than descriptive accuracy, and is rather useless in rational debate – but on a practical level anti-Semitic in the Middle East means anti-Jewish, and at least to those who believe the Koran, means war to the knife. After the end of days, the rocks will cry out, O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him. Now that’s anti-Semitic. Only of course the Muslim who is to do the killing is likely to be a Semite.

Adding to the confusion is the very real problem I mentioned in the debate, which is that the only thing as potential dangerous to the Jewish population in the United States as 1940s-era German-style anti-semitism is insufficient anti-semitism. After all, DNA is destiny.

Anti-semitism debate, part one

Louise Mensch and I debate anti-semitism on Heat Street:

Louise Mensch:     This may surprise the people that have been following our debate thus far, but, I feel like those were all small, little, light-hearted warm up debates, because now we’re going to get into it. Because we’re going to debate anti-Semitism. I want to get a bit granular, because I was surprised and disappointed to see you flaming a very good friend of mine, Cathy Young – who is an equity-based feminist, for those of you that don’t know her, reading this debate – and a long time ally of Gamergate and has worked extremely hard to separate genuine feminism from the kind of “fauxminism” that bullies men for no good reason.

I can’t remember the exact tweet so you can correct me if I’ve got this wrong, but: “…as she would know if she were a real American,” as though she were not an American, or she were less American that you are, which I think is a) racist; b) completely ridiculous; c) unbecoming of an alpha-male who ought to show some loyalty to a tried and tested ally. What I don’t like about this, apart from racism in general, and I say it with reverence, because you of all people know that I’ve been #notyourshield forever, is that it seems to give quite a lot of comfort to those fauxminist harridans, who’ve always said that Gamergate is just about abuse etc … This is a woman who stood strongly with movement forever, and the first sign of disagreement on anti-Semitism and you guys throw her under the bus. So I’ll let you come back, what do you have to say?

Vox Day:     Well, I’m perfectly prepared for things to get hardcore, I’ve been listening to Ministry all afternoon in preparation for this. By the way, I did not know Cathy’s work on Gamergate. We are loyal; until now I did not know.

Louise Mensch:     (Laughs) OK, now I’m scared. Go on.

Vox Day:     First of all, let me point out that, in terms of feminism, Cathy Young committed something that is, in the eyes of the alt-right a … A significant error of the sort that removes any right to avoid criticism. She, very very publicly, and very very vehemently, attacked Ann Coulter. The response that she got was a direct result of that, from me and from others. You can even, if you wish to, portray it as the alt-right white knighting for Ann Coulter. I don’t think that would be accurate but you certainly could do that if you wanted to.

Louise Mensch:     Well Ann Coulter’s been … I mean, you know, please, she attacks herself. She’s been attacked by me and others. She’s said some rabidly anti-Semitic things, about the Jews etc. So …

Vox Day:     I don’t think Ann Coulter’s reasonably said anything that can be considered anti-Semitic. 

Louise Mensch:     How many goddamn Jews do they think there are in America, that kind of thing.

Vox Day:     There’s a difference between … Anti-Semitism, in its historic form, means hatred of Jews.

Louise Mensch:     Yes.

Vox Day:     And there’s a huge difference between hating Jews and wondering why the hell everyone is babbling about them, again, when the subject really has nothing to do with them.

Louise Mensch:     Well in this case Ann Coulter used the words “Jews.” “How many goddamn Jews does he think there are in America,” quote unquote.

Vox Day:     Well yeah, because ..polls show Americans think that 33% of Americans are gay, and certainly there … I don’t know what the exact figure is, I don’t recall a similar study being performed with regards to what percentage of Americans other Americans believe are Jews. I don’t know. But I would guess that the perceived percentage is seriously overestimated, due to the constant discussion of Jews, by American Jews, in the media, because American Jews in the media are prone to navel-gazing.

Louise Mensch:     Vox, Vox, this was Ann Coulter who brought it up herself, who made the remark, herself. Really, as an “Ayn Randian radical,” don’t you recognize this is entirely Ann Coulter’s own fault? She brought it up, nobody else did, she ranted on about the Jews. She outed herself! Nobody else was talking to her about the Jews. On the left it’s people like Ken Livingston in London. He doesn’t seem to be able to go into any interview in London without mentioning the word ‘Hitler’ five times a second. And it was Coulter’s own fault. No one was talking to her about the Jews in Israel. She was commenting on the first Republican debate, and she brought it up, herself, entirely herself, unprompted.

Vox Day:     Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t she discussing the fact that the candidates were discussing Israel, or Jews or something like that?

Read the whole thing there, and discuss it here.

Real vs imaginary democracy

Another selection from my suffrage debate with Louise Mensch at Heat Street that I think is worth discussing:

Louise: Let’s start with the fact your argument is,  if women vote, it will have a given outcome that will move society to the left. On those grounds, you should surely object to voting of any description, including by men, because your argument appears to be that if the people vote a way that you don’t think that they should vote, this shouldn’t be allowed.

Your argument in fact, as logically stated just then, is not against women voting. It’s against democracy itself. You think that if people vote, in this case you think women should be banned because they’re more likely to vote left-wing. That is an argument saying that if somebody votes the wrong way, they should be banned from voting, which is of course itself an argument against democracy at all. What do you say to that?

Vox: I say that you are mis-applying it, because as I said, I support everyone voting in a direct democracy, because there everyone is directly expressing their own will, and whatever they get, they deserve. If we all vote to burn down our houses, and then we burn down our houses, yeah, there was no deception there. We all knew what we were getting in for, and we got it. What we’re talking about is representative democracy, which is by definition not democracy. We’ve already decided that we’re going to limit the will of the people.

Louise: No, we haven’t. The will of the people in a representative democracy, for example the United States, is that they choose, they have realized en bloc that it is too much to vote on every single decision directly. You’d have a referendum for everything from your local dog catcher to gun control, abortion, et cetera, and you’d presumably have as many referenda as people wanted to make motions. It doesn’t work.

In a representative democracy, the decision that the people are taking is we are going to elect you to exercise judgment for us in this way, right?

 Vox: No, but that was never made. This structure was imposed on us, and so no one has ever, there’s never been a referendum supporting this. There’s never been any votes for that, but the rules of the representative democracy are such that they are intentionally designed to limit and even eliminate democracy. For example, in California, when you saw Section 8 pass, and then it was overturned by the will of a single judge.

The whole system of representative democracy is to a certain extent a misnomer because it is actually entirely anti-democratic. The whole reason these structures, both on the parliamentary side and on the judicial side, is specifically designed to prevent democracy. Once you’ve accepted that principle of, “Okay, we’re going to limit democracy,” then it’s really a question of where you’re drawing the line. I’m just suggesting that a line should be drawn in a different place than it happens to be drawn today.

 Louise: But you are suggesting, you just said, which I don’t agree with, but you just said that representative democracy doesn’t equal to the will of the people, period, so you’re not really arguing against women having the vote. You’re arguing against anybody having the vote in representative democracy. You’re arguing for an anarchic … On the one hand you say you’d like to conserve things. On the other, you wish to tear down representative democracy, which would mean dismantling the entire United States’ constitution and system of government, because what you have just to women applies to everybody and everything.

If representative democracy is so bad, it can’t be okay, even if only men have the franchise.

Vox: But we’re talking about two different issues here. We’re talking about on the one hand a discussion within the context of representative democracy, and obviously it’s much more conceivable at this point in time to modify the rules of the existing system, and then we’re talking about completely trashing the system in favor of something else….

I would like to see the transition from representative democracy to a techno direct democracy simply because it’s possible now. Not only that, it’s actually entirely viable considering, at least in the United States, most of the so-called representative don’t even read the legislation that they vote on.

Louise: I can tell you, the fact is, again, just like I can speak to this, having been an elected representative. Those are incredibly complicated. It would in fact, while commentators often make this point, you rely on summations, as we all do, in order to understand what the bill is arguing. Otherwise, you would have to be a lawyer in order to be an effective politician, which I think it’s one of these canards.

“Oh, they didn’t read the bill.” The fact is that bills are written in highly legal language, and as a elected representative, the responsible thing to do is to read, understand, and familiarize yourself with a summary of a given bill, because only a lawyer can understand the ins and outs of the clauses in which legislation, and that’s why it’s called legislation, is written.

Now, before you comment on this, read this article about the Montana Supreme Court striking down legislation that was a) passed by the Montana State legislature, then b) passed by 80 percent of the Montana electorate.

The Montana Supreme Court has barred state officials from reporting the immigration status of people seeking state services, striking down the last piece of a voter-approved law meant to deter people who are in the U.S. illegally from living and working in Montana.

The court’s unanimous decision on Tuesday upholds a Helena judge’s 2014 ruling in a lawsuit that the law denying unemployment benefits, university enrollment and other services to people who arrived in the country illegally was unconstitutional.

The justices went further, rejecting the one remaining provision that required state workers to report to federal immigration officials the names of applicants who are not in the U.S. legally.

“The risk of inconsistent and inaccurate judgments issuing from a multitude of state agents untrained in immigration law and unconstrained by any articulated standards is evident,” Justice Patricia Cotter wrote in the opinion.

The Montana Legislature sent the anti-immigrant measure to the 2012 ballot, where it was approved by 80 percent of voters. The new law required state officials to check the immigration status of applicants for unemployment insurance benefits, crime victim services, professional or trade licenses, university enrollment and financial aid and services for the disabled, among other things.

Now, if you are so inclined, please attempt to defend “representative democracy”, which is observably neither representative nor democratic. And recall that you will receive neither points nor credit for citing the outdated “mob rule” objection which preceded these events by more than 200 years and quite clearly did not anticipate them.

The debate between direct democracy and so-called representative democracy is more accurately described as a debate between democracy and a deceptive parody thereof.

Should women vote?

Louise Mensch and I discuss everything from conservative feminism to universal suffrage and Native American intelligence at Heat Street:

Louise:  We’re now debating feminism. Vox, you go first. Hit me with your best shot, as Pat Benatar once said.

Vox:  Okay. Louise, I know that you identify yourself as a feminist, and you also identify yourself as a conservative. Given the connection between feminism and progressive politics, I am curious to know how you rectify those two positions, those two identities.

Louise:  I don’t see that there is any reconciling to be done.  I can’t stand the social justice warrior thing of identify as. I am a feminist. I am a conservative. I said in our last debate to you that conservatism was about equal opportunity, and to me feminism is therefore a subset of conservatism. If conservatism is principally about equal opportunity, personal liberty, free trade, etc, feminism is a subset of that – because feminism argues that men and women should have equal opportunities.

Which is not to say the same opportunities, but equal opportunities. I recognize the biological differences between the sexes. To me there is no distinction between conservatism and feminism, except that feminism is a smaller version of conservatism, it’s a subset of it.

Vox:  I agree that the logic holds. That’s within the logical structure your proposing that that is consistent, but the problem I have with that is that surely an aspect of conservatism is to conserve something. It seems readily apparent to me that feminism is intrinsically incapable of conserving anything from Western civilization, to even a functional, civilized society.

There is more, considerably more, there. Read the whole thing. Then discuss it here, keeping in mind that it is a transcript of a free-flowing conversation and I frequently have absolutely no idea what she’s going to throw at me next.

It’s actually a rather interesting challenge, especially in light of the fact that I know people are going to have hissy fits over anything that is worded in an infelicitious manner.

Brainstorm: Murphy vs Day

I’m pleased to announce that on Friday, June 17th at 7 PM Eastern, Brainstorm and the Tom Woods Show will be co-hosting an all-Austrian free trade debate between the well-known Austrian School economist Robert Murphy and Austrian School heretic Vox Day. The debate will be moderated by the noted Austrian School economist Thomas Woods.

It’s too soon to open registrations, but as always, Brainstorm members will have first crack at seats to the event. A transcript will be made available to Brainstorm members and the audio will be available via the Tom Woods Show.

#Trump2016 vs #NeverTrump

A short debate on Donald Trump’s victorious campaign for the Republican nomination and the nature of conservatism between me and Louise Mensch of Heat Street:

LM: This is obviously a sad day for me and a terrific day for you as Donald Trump is crowned the presumptive nominee by the GOP establishment. Last night, while we were talking with each other, we were discussing the nature of conservatism.

To me, my duty as a conservative is to oppose Donald Trump because he’s not a conservative. I said that, to me, conservatism stands for equality of opportunity. You said in your view, it never had done. How do you define conservatism?

VD: I define conservatism as an attitude more than a coherent ideology. If you look at the history of conservatism, which you as a British individual will be aware, it really is something different to the ideas that underlie the British Conservative Party or the Tory Party. Russell Kirk attempted to turn that inherited tradition into a more coherent ideology, and he came up with the 10 foundational points of what he terms conservatism. So it’s less an ideology than an attitude – and a relative posture.

 Equality of opportunity is merely something that fits that attitude more than it is a founding point of the ideology, in the way that the “labor theory of value” is something that underlies the ideology of socialism.

LM You think that leftism is ideological, but conservatism is only an attitude?

VD: To a certain extent. Socialism is clearly a distinctive set of ideologies. There are of course different socialisms, from Fabianism to Marxism. Progressivism – today’s liberalism – is also a coherent ideology. Conservatism is intrinsically a reaction to other ideologies rather than an ideology of its own.

LM: You don’t think Conservatism stands for anything apart from opposing Liberalism, to use that umbrella term for the left?

VD: Exactly correct. There’s a common saying that today’s conservative is yesterday’s liberal. Conservatism, if we look at the positions that it holds, is usually 20-25 years behind what yesterday’s liberals were. Today, John F. Kennedy would be regarded not only as a Republican – but one who was a little bit to the right.

LM: To me, that seems defeatist for a guy that I see, though I may differ with you on many things, at the very least as an alpha male go-getter. You’re not behind any particular set of principles. You just want to oppose somebody else! Doesn’t that put all the power in their hands?

VD: It does, but it’s not defeatist for me because, as I have repeatedly told people for well over a decade, I am not a conservative. I am an extremist and I’m a radical. That’s why I don’t identify with this conservatism that never conserves anything, that goes from one noble defeat to the next, and has completely failed to conserve anything, even the United States of America.

Read the whole thing there. It was an oral debate, not a written one, but I think I managed to avoid tripping over my convoluted sentence structures for the most part. The bet was funny; I don’t think she was quite expecting THAT!

Cargo Cult debate

One thing science fetishists can’t bear is to have their obvious ignorance of science pointed out:

Babak Golshahi ‏@bgolshahi1
I love being able to back up what I say with hard evidence, peer reviewed scientific consensus.

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
50 percent of which is proven to be wrong when replication is attempted. You’re out of date.

Babak Golshahi ‏@bgolshahi1
replication of what? You got a peer reviewed piece or really any article that backs up your claim? Waiting.

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
Mindlessly repeating the words “peer review” and citing “articles” shows you’re a low-IQ ignoramus.

Babak Golshahi ‏@bgolshahi1
you apologize for that or you’re blocked

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
Block away, moron. It won’t fix peer review or change the fact that you’re both stupid and ignorant.

Babak Golshahi ‏@bgolshahi1
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I wish more of these morons would use Randi Harper’s anti-GG autoblocker, so I wouldn’t be subjected to their repetitive idiocy.

It is important to understand that if you’re prone to demanding “peer reviewed pieces” or shouting “logical fallacy” at people with whom you are arguing, you’re probably a midwit who doesn’t really understand what you’re talking about. In both these, and other similar cases, what we have is a person who has seen someone else win an argument successfully refuting another individual’s argument by comparing scientific evidence or identifying a specific logical fallacy being committed, and trying to imitate them without understanding what the other person was actually doing.

But if there is no genuine substance behind the demand or the identification, if you don’t have your own competing scientific evidence or you can’t point out the actual logical fallacy – and there is a massive difference between the set of flawed syllogisms and the subset of logical fallacies – then you have no business talking about such things.

The failure to cite a peer-reviewed study means nothing in the absence of competing citations. The claim of logical fallacy means nothing when the precise fallacy is not identified. If you don’t understand those things, stop embarrassing yourself by arguing with people and start reading.

Otherwise, you’re no different than the ignorant South Pacific islander building runways in the hopes that the magic sky machines will descend bearing gifts.