George Rebane

I am a biased ideologue (q.v.).  My biases, along with their reasoned bases, have been spelled out in detail on these pages for well over a decade.  No other blog I’m aware of has so meticulously presented its host’s credo and glossary of vocabulary relevant to the topics covered.

Having again made that statement, I go on to the more universal contention that there are no unbiased presentations of facts or fiction by Man, especially when it comes to matters of human affairs.  We all have a specific world view, a specific way we receive and incorporate new evidence into that world view, a unique set of desiderata for almost all aspects of human striving, and, of course, our own way of communicating and convincing others of the correctness of our particular perspectives.

People who claim to be innocent or cleansed of bias, and therefore present views which they claim are in some sense ‘ex cathedra’, are charlatans, deluded, or both.  This assessment applies especially to those self-proclaimed middle-roaders who profess to clothe their preferences in various forms of authoritative infallibility.  Even in science and every other STEM field we find biased presentations and ongoing debates as to where resides truth, goodness, and light.  The most visible charlatans here are those who seek to buttress their biases with claims of non-existent ‘settled science’.

From this, I and others like me conclude that bias in human affairs is ubiquitous – it was ever thus.

Therefore, the best that disputants in a debate can do is present their case in the context of their respective utilities (definitions of ‘good’), and the reasoned bases which support their propositions.  Wise debaters know beforehand that even with the best intentions and transparent interchanges, all disputes cannot be successfully resolved.  In the art of negotiation, participants are advised to approach all such contentious proceedings with a firm handle on their own BATNAs (best alternative to negotiated agreement).

In our country’s gathering socio-political storm, ongoing debates, accusations, and indictments between the polarized sides are seen at all levels, from the national to the thousands of towns and villages across the land.  As detailed on these pages, the manner in which these contentions are conducted is highly asymmetrical – the Right always willing to spell out the America they want, with the Left keeping secret the details of their vision of a fundamentally transformed country.

From the Left’s published proposals and ensconced public policies, the Right cannot help but conclude that their desire is for a socialist (anti-capitalist) state under a much enlarged and intrusive government that controls almost every aspect of Americans’ lives, livelihoods, thoughts, and speech.  And the Left’s leadership continues to broadcast its vision of those on the Right as being racist, white supremacists who desire to return the country to Jim Crow days with an economy dominated by large oligopolies that pollute the environment and beggar their workers.  They present no evidence beyond repeated allegations to support their case.

[Addendum]  In discussions and debates with my leftwing counterparts in private communications and on this public forum, I often have my supportive citations of verifiable facts rejected on the basis of their having been presented by sources considered hopelessly biased, unreliable, and therefore rejected on their face.  Their opposition is seldom a substantive refutation of the message, it’s always based on the received credentials of the messenger.  The obvious reason for this gambit is that they have no substantive refutation of what has been cited, and therefore must needs be reduced to denigrating the source with claims that all of its output are widely known and acknowledged falsehoods – neither being the case.

A second gambit of the leftists is to require the rejected citation to be additionally buttressed by sources they consider unbiased and reliable.  It never occurs to them to simply go to their own sources and delineate the specific error(s) that were contained in the originally presented citation.  That may also be a too generous conclusion.  The reason they exercise either of these gambits is that they know the original citation to have presented the truth, and all that now remains for them is to deny, delay, and/or deflect the subsequent course of the exchange.  For the Left, countering citations with an equivalent depth of evidence seems to be terra incognita.