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November 13, 2007

Intolerance of Ideological Minorities

Glenn Greenwald on Ron Paul:

And -- as the above-cited efforts to compel Congress to actually adhere to the Constitution demonstrate -- few people have been as vigorous in defense of Constitutional principles as those principles have been mangled and trampled upon by this administration while most of our establishment stood by meekly. That's just true.

Paul's efforts in that regard may be "odd" in the sense that virtually nobody else seemed to care all that much about systematic unconstitutional actions, but that hardly makes him a "weirdo." Sometimes -- as the debate over the Iraq War should have demonstrated once and for all -- the actual "fruitcake" positions are the ones that are held by the people who are welcome in our most respectable institutions and magazines, both conservative and liberal . . .

This whole concept of singling out and labelling as "weirdos" and "fruitcakes" political figures because they espouse views that are held only by a small number of people is nothing more than an attempt to discredit someone without having to do the work to engage their arguments. It's actually a tactic right out of the seventh grade cafeteria. It's just a slothful mechanism for enforcing norms.

via Daniel Larison

Posted by Zach Wendling at November 13, 2007 09:36 AM

Comments

Oh, come on. Could you Paulists PLEASE stop pretending that there aren't oodles and oodles of perfectly good argumentation out there against your boy's views? This ooh-you-meanies-calling-names-instead-of-giving-evidence line would work a lot better if it weren't for the fact that there's plenty of evidence on offer.

And there's a bald instance of post hoc, ergo propter hoc in that last paragraph. That Ron Paul is (i) defending views held by only a small minority and (ii) labeled as nutty, does not entail that (i) is the causal explanation of (ii). A much, much better hypothesis is that there is a third factor -- (iii) Ron Paul's views are, in fact, nutty -- which causally explains both (i) and (ii).

That the guy promotes weird paranoid conspiracy theories on his campaign website is surely further evidence in this regard.

Posted by: philosopher at November 13, 2007 04:08 PM | permalink

References to facts you believe are untrue does not equal "promoting" anything. What conspiracy theory is Paul "promoting?" From what I can tell, he's "promoting" smaller government, lower/no taxes, and more freedom. He may have some facts wrong (I'm sure I'm wrong about all kinds of things I think are "facts") but he's promoting values, not facts.

Posted by: Phil at November 14, 2007 04:45 PM | permalink

This whole concept of singling out and labelling as "weirdos" and "fruitcakes" political figures because they espouse views that are held only by a small number of people...

...would be pretty dang hypocritical, I think - doesn't everybody have certain beliefs shared only by small numbers of people?

As philosopher said, Paul's critics are attacking his ideas on the basis of not their popularity but their merit.

Posted by: Alan K. Henderson at November 17, 2007 01:22 AM | permalink

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