A Norm of Intellectual Dishonesty

On Republican hypocrisy regarding filbustering in the US Senate, from FindLaw courtesy of Eschaton:

(George) Will, a historian of sorts, frequently opines on legal and constitutional issues. He generally holds himself out, as most commentators do, as an honest broker of ideas, albeit a broker with a distinct perspective. In that role, Will has twice addressed the issue of Rule XXII.

The first time was in 1993. At the time, Democratic stalwarts, such as Cutler, were challenging Rule XXII. They feared that, despite Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, Republicans would use the filibuster to frustrate the agenda of the new Democratic president, Bill Clinton.

And

Wait a second. So Will now agrees with Cutler? And not only that, he reads both the Constitution's text and "two centuries of practice" relating to filibusters entirely differently than he once did? What's prompted his change of mind? And doesn't he owe Cutler an apology?

Obviously, conscientious commentators do change their views when they re-examine them and find them in error. I am no fan of a "foolish consistency" in such matters. But this kind of change of mind - without explanation or apology - is quite troubling.

Also troubling is the fact that Will's close analysis of the Constitution and the First Congress's proceedings, so important to him in 1993, is entirely missing here.

And

Intellectual dishonesty is pure poison to the enterprise of the law. Yet countless examples show intellectual dishonesty has now become a routine, expected part of American discourse. The most obvious half-truths and hypocrisies are greeted with shrugged shoulders and a grunt of "what did you expect?"

These dishonesties that we have come to accept too easily range from the non-reasoning of Bush v. Gore, to the logic-defying economic rationale for more tax cuts, to the ever-shifting justification of war in Iraq. And they extend to just about every other significant issue of law and policy that affects American life.

Click here for the rest.

This is what really drives me crazy about conservatives. I think it would be much easier to deal with honest, simple disagreements with the right wing if that's what we actually had. Alas, conservatives seem to argue for the sake of winning, rather than as a way to discover the truth. I hit on this a bit last summer in my massive meditation on Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent in the Supreme Court sodomy case--the last few years of the Court's history have made it achingly clear that when conservatives decry "judicial activism" they actually only mean it when liberal justices are doing the activism.

I remember when such intellectual dishonesty on the right became evident to me some years back. As a brief bit of background, I actually consider myself to be more of a principled pragmatist than a leftist or progressive or whatever--it just so happens that my principles are pretty left wing, but I'm no utopian by anyone's standard. For years, I've heard conservatives talk about finding "market solutions" to social problems--crime, poverty, disease, all these things have been presented by neo-liberals as opportunities to make money. And of course, these social ills are opportunities for business. The thing is, no one ever seemed to present an example of the market actually doing a good job of dealing with social issues--lots of money, yes; ending misery and suffering, no: just take a look at how well HMOs have done with health care.

Pragmatist that I am, trying to be open minded, for some years I thought, "What the hell. If the market can help people who are hurting, what does it matter whether it's capitalist or socialist or whatever. Just do it." Of course, there weren't ever any "market solutions" to any social problems. It became clear that the voices calling for this kind of crap didn't really care about society: "market solutions" is simply a cooked up non-idea for justifying savage capitalist exploitation of the suffering and miserable. "Market solutions" simply makes exploitation appear to be friendly.

When I figured this out, I learned what total snakes these guys are: they don't fight fair, and cannot be trusted to say what they mean. There are, of course, reasonable, principled conservatives out there, and they often make good points that liberals ought to consider. However, in this age of illusion, the honest conservatives aren't nearly as loud as the dishonest ones, and it is increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the two. Democracy depends on rigorous and fair debate; all of America loses when the debate is rigged.

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