You’ll have to excuse my inner nerd. After I learned of the passing of Walter Williams, I posted a few times about what he had meant in my educational and political maturing. In reminiscing about some of those days, I happened upon an old documentary where Mr. Williams was on a panel and supporting his arguments from his book, The State Against Blacks.
Also on the panel were two other gentlemen, both arguing against Williams. While the point of the book was to assert that the state measures actually harm those it seeks to help, such as minorities, these other two gentlemen supported all of the measures, such as the minimum wage and occupational licensing. They argued that without those measures, minorities would be further harmed.
As was usually the case with his books and other works, he was head and shoulders above them in having a command of the data and controlling the conversation.
What caught me by surprise in the discussion, was that one of the other men on the panel attacking Mr. Williams was none other than the infamous Charles Rangel, Democrat from New York. In one exchange, Walter Williams essentially cornered to the other two men on a point. They were asserting that the minimum wage wouldn’t exclude some people or price some people out of work.
He deftly cornered them on that topic asking why they wouldn’t support a sub-minimum wage. What that was, essentially, was a wage underneath the minimum wage that companies could hire young or inexperienced workers at. It was an exception, because of the high and rising youth unemployment. His point was that since they argued it had no affect on unemployment, they shouldn’t be concerned with an exception to address a rising problem. Mr. Rangel took the moment to try and dominate the conversation. He rephrased Walter’s question to be something completely different than what he was asking.
It is a deft trick of politicians. They answer the question they want to answer, rather than the one that was asked.
Not to be outclassed, though, Mr. Williams interrupted him and repeated his question, stating explicitly that what Rangel had rephrased it to be was inaccurate. Rangel then repeated what he said, complete with the incorrect rephrase of the question.
It hit me then. What is really wrong with our discourse in this country is that we have adopted the techniques of political discourse into our daily lives. Watching Rangel repeat the incorrect question so he could provide a scripted answer to the question he wanted to address brought me flashbacks of numerous political debates. Watching Clinton squirm around her involvement in Benghazi or the questions about the emails and destruction of hard drives. Watching Obama sleaze his way out of questions about how we didn’t actually get to keep our healthcare plans like he promised. Bush had some scorchers trying to weasel out of questions about weapons of mass destruction, or the lack thereof.
I was fortunate that I only watched highlights of the 2020 debates, or I’m sure I would have numerous examples of Biden avoiding questions about his son, talking about how he lost the other one, or Trump avoiding questions about telling people to ignore Congressional subpoenas insisting instead on talking about Hunter smoking crack or meth, or whatever that stupid pipe is for.
The real issue is that the overwhelming majority of us are not politicians. Even if we were, the politicians we should be mirroring ourselves after aren’t these types of people. We have adopted their speech patterns into the way we discuss political issues with each other, though. That is a pretty big problem.
Even if we don’t use the exact language, we carry the sentiment into our dialogue. I can see it on the face of both groups when I talk with them now as a libertarian. The joke among libertarians is that to a progressive, I’m just a Trump supporter, and to a conservative, I might as well be Antifa. I see hatred from both sides. Seething hatred.
To someone who goes to Trump rallies or hashtags “back the blue” at least weekly, if I voice concern over his border policy, I am caricatured as an evil villain that wants all of the lower economic citizens to lose their jobs. Someone who marches in BLM protests or wears vagina hats will quickly see me as deplorable, or a bible and gun clinger, for merely dissenting to the idea that the welfare entitlements are working or, especially right now, saying that evidence indicates masks aren’t working.
What Walter Williams did with that panel is something I have also witnessed in political debates when a moderator is any good. By repeating the question that was asked, it becomes painfully apparent that the politician avoided the question. It is sometimes harder to catch in the moment unless you are paying close attention. By simply repeating what was actually asked, though, the smoke and mirrors of politics are briefly pulled back and you realize the illusion for what it is.
Unfortunately for conservatives, most of the moderators are overwhelmingly progressive, so they like to let their preferred candidates slide with their garbage answers, but it is painfully obvious when they repeat questions to conservatives.
So I’m going to take a page out of that playbook in honor of Walter Williams. When I ask a legitimate question in discourse, and I see someone trying to pull an old wry trick to answer a different question, I will simply state that wasn’t my question and then ask the question again. It is not worth my time to continue down their preferred rabbit hole to knock down whatever obscure, anecdotal nonsense they are willing to throw at me. Not if they are not willing to even answer my question.
Will it help discourse? Maybe. I’m not hopeful on that front. We have never had a formal national religion, but our informal religion is politics. People cling to their political beliefs as if they are infallible. As such, they are quite zealous in their defense, even if they are protecting the indefensible.
What it will do is protect my sanity. It will take some practice, though.
In the meantime, if you also want to protect your sanity, you need to join Liberty Classroom today. You’ll learn the history they didn’t teach you in school from people that should be getting paid top salaries at schools to teach classes. Academia isn’t about correctly interpreting history, however, as it is not about thinking correctly about history. They already have a narrative and your job is to fit history into that narrative. These teachers weren’t having it. Join today!!!
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