re: #61 goddamnedfrank

I don’t think it’s admitting being wrong per se that’s the problem, it’s the connected realization that they’ve been complicit for years, in most cases their entire adult lives that’s presents the emotional hurdle.

Subconsciously they’re terrified of how that admission will injure their egos and wound their sense of self worth.

Conservatism is something like religion. In religious tussles with hard-core Fundamentalist types, I note the problem is that they confuse “what they believe” with “who they are.” As an atheist, when I say “I don’t believe you” to someone making yet another religious pitch to me, they don’t take it as a disagreement over what to believe. They take it as a personal insult. I haven’t repudiated their belief, I have repudiated him or her personally.

The same seems to apply to many conservative supporters. If I say “I don’t accept your political proposition about X,” they take it as a personal attack.

Someone who is arguing their position in good faith [not religious] can see he or she needs to provide evidence for an assertion (say, tax cuts spur growth) to overcome my scepticism.

Instead, in person it’s “you simply don’t understand how it works” (or for the more assholish ones, “you don’t have a real education”), and on the Internet, out come the pithy insults such as “libtard” or “social justice warrior.”

I am open to be convinced of a particular conservative (or religious) proposition with good arguments or evidence to back it.

Simply not accepting a proposition on its face is just like the Fundamentalist I mention above: I have rejected him or her, not his or her proposition. (Religious people are compelled to use the word “rejection” as well. They cannot imagine a person who simply does not accept the truth of their propositions without evidence, therefore you must be actively rejecting them.)