I don’t have much patience for – I’ll try to be civil, here – really dumb arguments.

The one that I hear the most on blogs and talk shows, lately, is “you’re just reciting talking points”, stated as a way to simply dismiss an argument or point of view.

Let’s take a moment to unpack what a misguided and nonproductive statement that is, when abused – and these days, it most usually is abused.

Let’s take a hypothetical example:  Say you, a liberal, construct an argument about, hypothetically, a political issue, one that springs from your perspective.  That perspective has a lot of background to it; your background, your own life experiences, conclusions you’ve reached after a lifetime of thought and – since the issue in the example is a political one – bits and pieces of the political philosphy you’ve adopted. 

Given that you are a liberal, is it not reasonable that, in among the bits and pieces of your argument will have things in common with some of the overarching ideas and ideals of liberalism?

So what are you doing?

• Creating an argument based on your interpretation of a philosophy that you agree with – knowing that since you agree with the philosophy, and are not alone, that there may be points in common with other people? Or…
• “Reciting talking points?”

I thought about this while guesting on Marty Owings’ “Radio Free Nation” last weekend.  A caller responded to one of my statements with “you’re just reciting conservative talking points”.

And the possible responses ponged about my mind like four-year-old boys who’ve gotten into the chocolate espresso beans:

• Of course, the oldie but goodie: “Please show me where this memo is from which I supposedly get these “points”, because I sure never read it”.
• Given that these are supposedly “conservative talking points”, please tell me – who is the “authority” that makes these “points” up for the rest of us?  The “Conservative National Committee?”  There is no such author or authoring body! 
• Perhaps you mean “Republican” talking points, since there’s actually a group of officials that do that kind of thing for the GOP?  But wait!  Given the abysmal record of the National and State GOP in getting anything done over the past four-eight years, what makes you think that even if a GOP official were to send me some “talking points”, I’d use them?  What has the GOP done for us lately?
• I’m 46.  I’ve been “working” as a self-appointed pundit of sorts for most of my adult lifetime.  In that time, I’ve developed some form of opinion or another about just about every topic you can think of, from cuisine (Mediterranean!) to liquor (Polish Vodka!) to music (Springsteen, Richard Thompson, Tchaikowski, Mahler, Marah, Emmylou Harris!) to literature (Dostoevskii and Hemingway!) to sports (don’t care about much but Baseball!) to guitars (rosewood fingerboards!) to firearms (Garand, Colt, Heckler und Koch!) to politics (need I go into details?).  In every case, if I’ve bothered to develop an opinion, it’s because I’ve become convinced that “that’s the way it should be”, through a process whose intellectual rigor you are not equipped to understand – merely emulate, in your own way, in  your own mind.  In short, I don’t need anyone to give me “talking points”; I write my own. 
• The same, indeed, holds true for pretty much everyone (who doesn’t write for “Minnesota Progressive Project”, anyway). 

In other words – Duh.  I’m a conservative.  Some of the things I believe will be common to many, even most, other conservatives.  That’s why it’s called a “movement”, rather than a “completely random instance of applied interpersonal chaos theory”. 

I think the actual response I used with the caller was “You need to quit snacking on the lead paint chips in your efficiency apartment, go gather up the scraps of the pathetic excuse for a life that you are supposedly living, try to find a sack so you can sack up and head out on the street and try to make something other than “a piece of walking semi-sentient suet” out of yourself”. 

Karl Rove told me to say it.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Conservatism, Deep Thoughts, mitch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.