“Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.”  Saul Alinsky in ‘Rules for Radicals’

George Rebane

In the effort to reflect here ‘observations and interpretations of events from the last great century of man’, illuminating the ideas and attitudes of our polarized population is part and parcel of RR posts.  Here we do a little dissection of today’s leftwing vs rightwing thought to illustrate how early 21^st century polarization is progressing.  To wit, we again have on parade in these pages a delicious example of how the liberal mind works – especially in its ability to apply standard garden variety logic to reason.  The comment stream of ‘Ruminations – 26sep19’ is an education in progressive thought and another Exhibit A on the machinations of such minds when they attempt to understand and then address a contended issue.  In this example it all started with commenter J. Barron stating –

It is blatantly obvious that if billionaires can save millions in their taxes from going to the under class, they can invest that money in something else. Jets, hot tubs, young boys . . . it's famously known as trickle up economics. Show us the proof that ain't so. Reagan would not approve.  Posted by: J. Barron | 29 September 2019 at 09:02 PM

To which I made a generic observation on Barron’s attempt to contribute to the resolution of his strong assertion about misspending of tax savings by billionaires.  I observed –

In more tempered and reasonable societies the one making an assertion is required to substantiate it with some supportive evidence. In insane societies it's the asserter who demands that his audience prove his assertion to be false, else it must be taken to be true.  Posted by: George Rebane | 29 September 2019 at 09:53 PM

In such references to ‘insane’ I use the term in its technical sense as in describing approaches and solutions to problems in the fields of mathematics, the sciences, and engineering.  This exchange gave rise to an intense discussion thread into which several additional progressives contributed the fruits of their thought.  The careful reader will immediately note that none of them understood my 953pm, or they thought it better for their case to change the subject.  In either case, my critique of Barron’s 902pm was not only not addressed, but it was duly mischaracterized as something completely unsaid – a common liberal tactic displayed in these pages over the years.

This tactic has shown itself to be somewhat effective, and so it was again in this comment stream.  Conservative commenters leaped to contend Barron’s original assertion.  Barron himself nailed his misunderstanding, deficit to reason, and/or sidestepping to respond with –

What is insane is for someone to demand "proof" that when people pay less in taxes that they keep more money to spend. Just as insane is to demand "proof" that when WIC, food stamps, and school meals are denied because supportive taxes are cut, that some people are denied the ability to eat well.  Posted by: J. Barron | 30 September 2019 at 06:51 AM

So this guy doesn’t have a clue about my generalized critique, and went his merry way to suddenly start talking about ‘demanding proof’ about a tax issue when no one had demanded any proof of any specific assertion, other than introducing a procedural notion in standard debate that requires the asserter to support the verity of his assertion, instead of claiming verity by default if his counter doesn’t disprove his assertion.  In the pre-progressive era, such an approach would have been laughed out the amphitheater.  Today, as this comment stream attests, it is de rigueur.  (In the same context I cite the many suddenly terminated and redirected exchanges over the years with commenter Paul Emery.)

Mr Barron was quickly joined by several other progressive colleagues, all equally oblivious as to the point I had raised.  Standing out among these was the local Left’s leading literatus, Mr Steven Frisch, who specifically attempted to address my 953am, and missed completely with his 759pm –

Posted by: George Rebane | 29 September 2019 at 09:53 PM  Seriously, there is proof that what Barron stated is true coming out your ears…including data coming from official analysis coming out of the Trump Departments of Commerce and Treasury. …

At which point he goes on to cite support for Barron’s original assertion – in other words, this carries Mr Barron’s water as he attempts to justify Barron’s debating approach.  Things quickly start getting really jumbled at this point.  With commenters going all over the map with taxing issues and the continuance of welfare programs.

In his 827am Mr ScottO attempts to bring the comment thread back to some semblance of order and sanity (again used in its technical sense) by asking readers to “notice that JB started with one idiot premise and then pivoted to something completely different.”  But as witnessed by his subsequent 840am and 846am, ScottO gives up and continues to expand on correcting Barron’s initial “idiot premise”, a worthy enterprise on its own.

The conversation then diverges and dilutes further into charges and counter charges about rent and stock buy backs, anti-AGW demonstrations, until Mr Robert Cross attempts to circle back to my 953pm with a new spate of charges that depart the rails claiming that there is no profit at all to leftwingers providing “supportive evidence” because rightwingers will simply respond with a counter of their own evidence that discounts the Left’s evidence.  In short, proper progressive debate on an issue should halt when the progressive side presents its supporting argument.  To ignore this and do otherwise would be an expression of lese majeste.

Sensing blood in the water, progressive sackhead Jig Wiggly joins with some snark on purported rightwing publications, all being “peer reviewed and fact checked sources.”  His attempt at a dubious point gains no traction in the thread.  To all this we have a reprise by Steven Frisch who now takes off on one of his regular wide-ranging harangues about RR with the classic page from Saul Alinsky’s playbook –

Robert is entirely correct…there is no real point in using data or information to support a point of view here because the participants are not longer governed or motivated by reason. … In a world where truth is critical for the making of rational decisions, and a firm grip on reality coupled with openness to new ideas is essential to solving problems, this site is a place for the opposite. It is the place where motivated reasoning, ego/radical overconfidence, obfuscation, outright lies, conspiracy thinking, tribalism, and illogic reside. … This place is simply humor for many of us. Posted by: Steven Frisch | 30 September 2019 at 10:51 AM

… to which Paul Emery and Jig Wiggly pile on with more RR disparagement.  And finally Mr Frisch comes in with his usual, but this time belated, total fabrication in such threads, to wit –

Yes, for example I think I laid out a pretty good set of links to stats on how the Trump tax cut helped the rich and fucked the poor….after George bemoaned no data. … And the game of discounting the other sides facts, and never actually being able to agree on what a "fact" actually is will go on…to be leveraged to sow division and demonize the opponent… in order to soften the ground for authoritarian leadership.  Posted by: Steven Frisch | 30 September 2019 at 12:13 PM

As even a reader with primitive reading skills can ascertain, nowhere did George ‘bemoan’ the lack of data.  To top that, Frisch gives a quick once-over to the assertion that the right wingers here are really big government collectivists promoting a authoritarian government, which is again another baseless verse from the Alinsky Anthem.

From there the discussion really goes off the rails and is beneficial only in illustrating Frisch’s primitive understanding between taking money from billionaires’ and corporations’ spending on progressive no-nos, and making it directly available for feeding some children who are – seatbelts please – hungry because of such licentious misspent monies that should really go to them through government coffers.

And we are now supposed to come together to make coherent public policy as citizens of the same sovereign nation-state?