A Quote by Michelle Goldberg
How can arguments based on fact prevail in a nation where so many people know so little?
Related Quotes
I should have known better. Pro-life arguments are now based on scientific evidence and the pro-choice arguments are not. That is a cultural, historical fact.
Evolution is far more than a belief or an educated guess about how people came to be as they are. It is, in fact, the product of converging evidence from many, many different fields of science. Many, many thousands of studies that, in fact, have provided a theory, an organizing principal in fact, that describes how humans came to be.
Our whole educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities, is increasingly turning out people who have never heard enough conflicting arguments to develop the skills and discipline required to produce a coherent analysis, based on logic and evidence. The implications of having so many people so incapable of confronting opposing arguments with anything besides ad hominem responses reach far.
I think moral philosophy is speculation on how we ought to live together done by people who have very little clue how people work. So I think most moral philosophy is disconnected from the species that we happen to be. In fact, they like it that way. Many moral philosophers insist that morality grows out of our rationality, that it applies to any rational being anywhere in the universe, and that it is not based on contingent or coincidental facts about our evolution.
The United States is not a Christian nation. It is a great nation with Christians, among others, in it. But our greatness is based on the fact that there is no official religion.
Many of the racial problems in America are caused by the fact that people are innately tribal, and politicians know how to exploit that biological fact.
Most arguments for instituting or raising a minimum wage are based on fairness and redistribution. Even if workers are getting a competitive wage, many of us are deeply disturbed that some hard-working families still have very little.
FACTS Fact #1 Mean people suck. Fact #2 Bad things happen to good people. Fact #3 Good doesn’t always prevail over evil.
It is only on the battlefield of ideas that the best ones can be recognized and ultimately prevail. Only those afraid of the truth seek to silence debate, intimidate those with whom they disagree, or slander their ideological counterparts. Those who know they are right have no reason to stifle debate because they realize that all opposing arguments will ultimately be overcome by fact.
Highly technical philosophical arguments of the sort many philosophers favor are absent here. That is because I have a prior problem to deal with. I have learned that arguments, no matter how watertight, often fall on deaf ears. I am myself the author of arguments that I consider rigorous and unanswerable but that are often not such much rebutted or even dismissed as simply ignored.
The reality is there's a limit to how many people any country can bring in. And we as a country have a right to say we want to bring people based on their ability to contribute to our economy, to be safe, productive citizens, and to uplift the nation as a whole.
The Founding Fathers of our nation believed in the people. They created a new nation based on the radical notion that the people could be free and trusted - that the nation would be great if you trusted the people to be good.
Revealed insights should leave us stricken with the knowledge of how little we really know. It should never lead to an emotional arrogance based upon a false assumption that we somehow have all the answers - that we in fact have a corner on truth. For we do not.
Ramy' is based on a lot of personal things, and it's interesting to see how many people feel like it's their story. And how many people view it as this democratic thing that should represent them.
We cannot shun our values as an immigrant nation. This is a wrong path. And while possibly it is a short-term political victory based on division and based on creating a wedge issue that splits people in this country, it is a long-term defeat for this Nation.
While it is useful to rebut charges and get your arguments out in circulation, you have to understand that arguments and evidence have little impact on people as long as their feelings tilt them against you.
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