MY PROBLEM WITH ‘FALSE’ EQUIVALENCE
John Cole of the blog Balloon Juice and I used to have a rather cordial relationship back in the day. A few angry back and forths later - not so much anymore.
Cole’s party switch over torture and the mismanaged Iraq War (along with GOP corruption and the excessive ideology of the base) endeared him to some on the left but I think even they may be uncomfortable with his demonstrated independence from orthodoxy from time to time. Sadly, his blog has morphed by and large into a collection of bitter denunciations directed at most conservatives who fail to meet his rather stringent ideological standards for relevance and correct thinking.
That said, now that he is a self-identified Democrat, Cole himself can be guilty of being as nasty a partisan as any on the left:
Rick Moran is a libertine the same way Glenn Reynolds is a libertarian. They are both Republicans. Moran occasionally chastises some of the obviously crazy nonsense on the right, but only when he can also include a false equivalency about the Democrats. It sometimes seems like he is making sense, but ignore his schtick of not being a party man. Ask him if he voted for McCain or Obama? For Bush or Kerry? For Bush or Gore? For Clinton or Dole?
I read him for years and finally gave up reading him regularly, because the only core principle I could ever find from him was “The Democrats are worse.”
First of all, I am a libertine the same way the dictionary defines the term:
- One who acts without moral restraint; a dissolute person.
- One who defies established religious precepts; a freethinker.
adj. Morally unrestrained; dissolute.
The first definition could certainly have been applied to my behavior in my dissolute youth. And my atheism would meet the definition of defying “established religious precepts.”
But it is a large part of my self image that I consider myself, and strive to be, a “freethinker.” I make an effort to eschew a dogmatic approach to life and politics - not always succeeding but finding that it is in reaching for the goal that we learn the most and better ourselves. Some may glimpse sophistry in such an admission - nothing I can do there. You either take what I write as being what I think and feel or not.
In Cole’s case, he views my writing through the prism of partisanship. By dismissing my attempts at fully vetting a subject by presenting both sides, or pointing out that whatever nuttiness has been perpetrated on the right finds an equal or almost equally loony counterpoint on the left, Cole himself is guilty of dogmatic thinking.
It is the idea that I am guilty of “false equivalence” that betrays Cole as a less than neutral - and honest - observer. I will admit that there are times that I may, in fact, stretch to make the equivalence point. But does that make it “false?” Only if you have an agenda beyond trying to be objective. I have never knowingly perpetrated a fraudulent analogy and don’t think I ever have. Sometimes, it’s not possible to find an exact counter to the idiocy one side has engaged in. I expect if you were to really examine my 3,200 posts, you would probably find some inexact correlations on both sides. Demanding perfect symmetry is unrealistic and proof that Cole is unwilling to accept the fact that the excessive ideology and hatred of the opposition he so rightly condemns is a mirror image of the same idiocy found among his friends on the left.
Any reasonable analysis of “movement conservatives” and “movement progressives” would find a vast kinship in paranoia, the use of logical fallacies, slippery slopes, strawman arguments, as well as a quest for ideological purity, and other manifestations of a kind of absolutism regarding their political opposites that has infected our politics and made it extraordinarily difficult for presidents over the last 20 years to get anything done.
Guilty as charged, on occasion. I am not immune to emotionalism and spite and I apologize for being human. But it is dishonest for Cole to issue a blanket condemnation of my writing based on his idea of “false” equivalence when I take both sides to task for acting idiotically or saying insane things. You can nitpick my analogies and no doubt find differences in the examples I utilize to make my point. But substantively, I don’t believe you can argue that there isn’t at least a rough symmetry involved in my analyses. Denying such marks one as a partisan more concerned with scoring minor points in disagreement than in taking a hard look at the actions and beliefs of one’s own side to discern the truth.
By the way, why not voting for Clinton makes me a party man is beyond me. And Holy God almighty what conservative in their right mind would have voted for Kerry? Cole certainly has a limited idea of what does or does not constitute blind party loyalty. Perhaps John hasn’t voted much in his life. Most ballots I’ve marked in the polling booth have contained dozens of candidates for dozens of political offices. If Cole’s end all and be all definition of “party man” starts and stops with who I voted for president, that is pretty shallow indeed.
I did not vote for president in 1972 or 92, I wrote in Reagan’s name in 1976, did not vote in 88. I voted for Paul Simon twice because he was the most honorable politician I ever saw (Wellstone runs second there). I have voted for local Democrats for town and township races in the past although not in the last couple of election cycles. I vote for Democratic judges every few election cycles based on the theory that judges should not be career politicians.
I may vote for Rep. Debbie Halverson if the GOP runs Ozinga again (”Everyone in America has health care. All they have to do is go to an emergency room.”). She seems harmless enough and is thought highly of here in Streator, IL. She got on my good side when she introduced legislation when she was state senator that would have effectively killed the white elephant of an airport out in Peotone being pushed by Jesse Jackson Jr.
No, I am not a party man. I am a nominal Republican in that the GOP fields candidates more regularly who reflect my views. Give me a Democrat who does so and I will seriously consider voting for him/her as I have in the past.
For Cole, it would be interesting to find out the last Republican he voted for since he switched sides.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rick Moran. Rick Moran said: http://bit.ly/W8jja via @addthis A defense of the charge from John Cole that I use "false equivalence" in my writing [...]
Pingback by Tweets that mention Right Wing Nut House » MY PROBLEM WITH ‘FALSE’ EQUIVALENCE -- Topsy.com — 9/8/2009 @ 10:44 am
RM wrote: “his blog has morphed by and large into a collection of bitter denunciations directed at most conservatives who fail to meet his rather stringent ideological standards for relevance and correct thinking.”
Don’t forget the pet pics!
Comment by HyperIon — 9/8/2009 @ 10:54 am
John Cole has really surprised me in recent years. Although his style was always flamboyant and over-the-top, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise that when he went to the hard-hate-Republican left, he’d jump with both feet and swing wildly at anyone who ever disagreed with him. It’s kinda too bad, he’s really a nice guy when he wants to be.
Comment by Dean Esmay — 9/8/2009 @ 10:59 am
If you’re going to list the issues that made him drop the GOP you have got to include the single biggest one.
The joke that was the GOP’s reaction to Terry Schiavo.
I believe that would fall under “excessive ideology” - as would most other specific beefs he’s got with the base, don’t you think?
ed.
Comment by Davebo — 9/8/2009 @ 11:44 am
“Rick Moran is a libertine ”
Cool, can I come to your next party?
Maybe this is an Alinsky isolation technique
“the only core principle I could ever find from him was “The Democrats are worse.””
A false claim wrt RM., but not that there is anything wrong with that. As core principles go, it would beat the pants off of whatever is animating the left side of the political spectrum these days.
“No, I am not a party man. ”
Heh. I am sure Redstate would back that up. Not sure how admitting you might vote for a Pelosi peon would endear you to the party regulars.
As for me, I am a patriot first, conservative second, and Republican third. Seeing how Obama’s collosal $9 trillion deficits, his egregious attempts to funnel billions in pork to favored special interests, his disastrous foreign policy apologetics, his power-grabs in the energy and healthcare industries, these are threats to our liberty, our prosperity and our future. It all reminds me of why indeed “Republican” follows naturally after ‘patriot’ in my political thinking. I care about the future of this country, I care for what the next generation will have to face. This is a partisanship rooted in logic.
If seeing the Republican party as the best vehicle for stopping the foolish stampede of Democrat kleptocrats and preserving American prosperity and freedom makes one a GOP party hack, then God Bless the GOP Party Hacks.
Comment by Freedoms Truth — 9/8/2009 @ 12:03 pm
Of all the things that give me the gripes about the blogosphere, the number of talented bloggers who are more interested in engaging in pissing matches instead of commentating on the affairs of the day, let alone actually doing some spade work themselves, is depressing.
You usually fall well outside that realm as a blogger who does do his spadework, and in my book certainly get a pass if John Cole tries to rain on your parade and you rain back.
The more important point, which Cole should be taken to the woodshed for, is that while you do occasionally slide down the slippery slope of false equivalency, I don’t think of you as a partisan blogger, let alone a party hack.
That is why I keep coming back here.
When smaller bloggers attack, I rarely respond on my blog. But Cole has a big enough voice that when he questions my integrity, I think I have little choice but to respond. I agree that it is largely a waste of time and effort. I may have had a half dozen of these blogger dust ups over the last 5 years of blogging and in the end, no one’s mind is changed, and everybody forgets what all the fuss was about to begin with
ed.
Comment by shaun — 9/8/2009 @ 12:13 pm
This is completely related to your previous blog post, wherein you asked someone on the Left to explain why Van Jones would be defended. Your question went unanswered, in my opinion.*
The Left, and I won’t draw a moral equivalency here because it doesn’t exist, learned the wrong answer when they were in the minority for more than a decade. It wasn’t the circle the wagons at any cost, be shrill as hell when asked to explain, and utter failures to embrace logic that ushered them back into power, however long it lasts. It was the Right’s failure and events divorced from tactics that did.
Nonetheless, the Left now believes that it is beyond reproach, that it in no way deserves criticism, and people on that side are to be defended at all costs.**Therefore, you were attacked for even bringing up Van Jones. John Cole, when he reads anything you have written that criticizes the Left, simply dismisses it as wrong.
You also have made some strained analogies in the interest of fairness between left-wing lunacy and the Right, too. But these have been honest if mistaken attempts and quite rare. In Cole’s world, the Left always is right, the Right always wrong, and anything to the contrary is wrong. If someone’s side doesn’t have perceived excesses, there can be no moral equivalence.
*busboy offered a very good reason but for only a small portion of the Left, black Americans, whose tendency in recent years to subscribe to whacked out conspiracy theories has grown scary.
**There are many thoughtful liberals and this is an over-generalization, but less than it was two decades ago. Minority status truly drove most nuts.
Comment by jackson1234 — 9/8/2009 @ 12:46 pm
Rick- you just in the past 48 hours had a post at The Next Right discussing the future of the right and the Republican party. You attended CPAC, if I remember correctly, and your blogroll is a Who’s Who of the right wing blogosphere. And you are pretending I am questioning your integrity for saying you are a Republican? Please.
And I harbor no personal animus towards you whatsoever. In fact, my recent archives is littered with favorable links to you and nary a harsh word. Here’s Tim. F with kind words. Here’s me. I know I have linked you repeatedly, approvingly, on issues of torture. I’d link more but because of that guy with the “get a brain, morans” a couple years back, searching my site for Moran is brutal.
But here is what frustrates me to no end. No matter how often you denunciate the crazies (and if I remember correctly, you and I were both living about Schiavo), you never do anything about it, because your calculus is always that the Democrats are worse. You’ll continue to support and try to rebuild a party that tortured, because Charlie Rangel might be a crook (I would argue he is a crook) or something else. There is never any big picture. You’ll continue to support a party that cheers people bringing guns to town hall events and screaming socialism because some idiots had paper puppets in anti-war protests. It is maddening.
And really, Joe Klein is a liberal?
Dean:
What is there to like about the Republican party right now? The party of torture, blown budgets and fiscal irresponsibility, warrantless wiretapping, cheap cynicism and contempt for science and the rule of law? What redeeming quality is there in the GOP? Just look at their behavior in the recent health care debate. You may not agree with the Democratic approach, but the Republican approach has been to forget all about the unpaid for prescription drug plan they passed that cost more than the social security unfunded liability, scream socialism and death panel, convince old people Obama wants to kill them, and then talk about fiscal responsibility while the RNC chair defends out of control medicare spending indefinitely.
What is there to like about the GOP?
Jackson:
What blog are you reading?
Comment by Comrade John Cole — 9/8/2009 @ 1:10 pm
Bleh. Third paragraph, “living” should be livid.
Also, I’ve been a Democrat for exactly one election. There weren’t even any Republicans on most of the down ticket slots, and I sure as hell was not voting for McCain and Palin.
Comment by Comrade John Cole — 9/8/2009 @ 1:17 pm
Rather a shame about you and John Cole; the 2 of you are both on my top 10 daily blog reads. (There’s something about his snark and your rage that just gets me going every day!) Ok, so there sure is a lot that John Cole blames the GOP for, but he’s largely on target with his criticism. The man clearly feels betrayed by all that he had been led to believe, and now its payback as far as he’s concerned. He may eventually find equivalence with the Democrats, but seeing the damage the GOP has inflicted on its core principals, I doubt that day will come soon. (As to why Mr. Cole is upset at you, that’s harder to say. Perhaps he needs to go on a month long sabbatical like Andrew Sullivan just did.)
BTW, Charles over at Little Green Footballs is gradually turning away from the GOP not because of a change in his philosophy, but because their lack of rationality is growing impossible to ignore. I find the day-by-day change at LGF irresistible to watch!
Comment by Surabaya Stew — 9/8/2009 @ 6:49 pm
Gosh Rick, It’s not all that clever to throw up a post claiming John Cole is wrong about you practicing false eqivalence and then proceed to do just that.
When top US Senators and Congressmen go around validatinng “Death Panels” “birtherism” Socialism, marxism and about every other nutty ism’s, then throwing up post with a sign of Bush as Hitler from some past anti war march as equal is the very essence of what Cole is talking about.
Your side has just gone nuts, from top to bottom. We have ours, but you have to search to find them and they sure aren’t top elected officials, or primary pundits, blogs, or whatever..
Comment by Comrade Stuck — 9/8/2009 @ 7:42 pm
Jackson 1234
Ahem,
Also,
You’re right, there is no equivalence.
Comment by A guest — 9/8/2009 @ 9:00 pm
The man clearly feels betrayed by all that he had been led to believe, and now its payback as far as he’s concerned. He may eventually find equivalence with the Democrats, but seeing the damage the GOP has inflicted on its core principals, I doubt that day will come soon.
Bullshit - Cole has always been a lefty - he never believed in anything that can be called conservative and no,he has not been “betrayed”!
He has been on anti-GOP for the last 7 years and will always be - he does have a lot of chutzpah to call Rick partisan, when he is a hyper partisan himself.
Rick, thanks for responding to his nonsense without silently taking it.
Comment by Nagarajan Sivakumar — 9/8/2009 @ 9:06 pm
John Cole is spot on. Its almost always ” the democrats are worse”Its Rick’s way of bashing crazy conservatives and still not alienating his sane conservative readers.
So, I have no integrity? There is no such thing as equivalency? Pretty heavy charges to make with no examples, no proof, nothing.
Of course, if you just want to stick your nose as far as it will go up Cole’s ass, you’re doing a damn fine job.
ed.
Comment by Joe — 9/9/2009 @ 4:56 am
Cole:
Yours, but the tense is “were.” You didn’t help yourself with the little tirade above, either.
Comment by jackson1234 — 9/9/2009 @ 9:07 am
Really? 4 years ago, Cole was as Right Wing as they come! You can’t have read the man and not seen his gradual evolution since the Terry Schiavo disaster. Admittedly, me calling him “betrayed” by the GOP is my interpretation, but I think its a reasonable interpretation that explains his frustration and snark that pours out every day. (He’s a little like Sullivan in that he supports Obama while at the same time being aloof towards 90% of Democrats.)
And for the record, I don’t see him being very partisan towards the Democrats either. (In fact, the week after he changed sides, the Democrats caved into bush on the wiretap bill, and he was talking about how “I hate my new party already!”) Even if Cole is not being honest about his own partisanship, he’s not wrong for calling Rick “partisan”. After all, who comes to Right Wing Nut House for un-partisan opinions?
Comment by Surabaya Stew — 9/9/2009 @ 2:41 pm
Dear Rick -
I read your blog almost daily. I read Balloon Juice daily. You and Mr. Cole are both terrific writers with passionate voices. However, Mr. Cole has pegged you perfectly, and you should attempt to refute his direct points above. In my opinion, based upon reading your blog for the last several years, you are first and foremost a party man. You may not think you are, but, based on your writing and blog radio show, you are.
Regardless how badly you think some in the GOP are, your criticisms are ALWAYS couched in a manner which proclaims the Dems are worse.
As for me, I’m a registered independent who voted Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, No Vote, Obama. For Governor here in California, I have not voted for a Democrat since Bradley. For Senate and house, I think I have voted equally for Dems and Repubs since 1980.
It’s hard to claim to be any sort of independent if all your energy is spent trying to help one party win over another. The truth is that neither party has all the answers, so blindly following one party is a recipie for disaster.
Comment by EddieInCA — 9/9/2009 @ 5:38 pm
Freedom’s Truth said: [i]As for me, I am a patriot first, conservative second, and Republican third. Seeing how Obama’s collosal $9 trillion deficits, his egregious attempts to funnel billions in pork to favored special interests, his disastrous foreign policy apologetics, his power-grabs in the energy and healthcare industries, these are threats to our liberty, our prosperity and our future. It all reminds me of why indeed “Republican” follows naturally after ‘patriot’ in my political thinking. I care about the future of this country, I care for what the next generation will have to face. This is a partisanship rooted in logic.[/i]
Where to begin with the lies and flat out distortions in one simple paragraph:
1. (From Sully) If you believe in fiscal conservatism, the last place on earth you should look for salvation is the GOP. They have single-handedly destroyed America’s finances since the 1980s, with the sole exception of George H W Bush, who was rejected by his own party precisely because of his fiscal sobriety. The current debt is overwhelmingly inherited by Obama, and it would have been nuts to enter office in the downdraft of the sharp recession and set about cutting spending. Bush had eight years to restrain it and he didn’t. He let it rip. Think of the GOP’s phony concerns about the cost of the current healthcare bill and compare it with the GOP’s prescription drug entitlement that Rove rammed through the Congress when the GOP held total power. The costs then were about eight times as great as the proposed costs now. But that was a Republican measure and so it doesn’t somehow count as evidence of fiscal irresponsibility…. Somehow - thanks in part to dishonest partisan hacks like Glenn Reynolds and Sean Hannity - the Bush-Cheney debt is all Obama’s fault and you need to get Republicans back to fix it.
The last Republican who left the office of the presidency with the federal public debt as a percentage of GDP less than when he entered was Richard Nixon (FY 1975). The last Republican who left the office of the presidency with a federal deficit less than 2.7% of GDP was Dwight Eisenhower (FY 1961). Since WW II no Democratic president has ever left office with the federal public debt as a percentage of GDP more than when he entered. And since WW II no Democratic president has ever left office with a federal deficit more than 2.6% of GDP.
We already have at least one party of fiscal responsibility. It’s called the Democratic Party.
2. The US standing in the world has greatly improved since Obama took office.
3. Which power grabs, specifically, in energy and health care? Seriously, which power grabs?
Your paragraph, like many from ideologues, lacks intellectual honesty and specificity. It’s a collection of pablum designed to push emotional buttons, not engage the mind.
Comment by EddieInCA — 9/9/2009 @ 5:46 pm
@Jackson1234:
As happy as I am to take a compliment (he likes me! He really likes me!) I think you mean FunnyMan. I’m pretty sure I didn’t comment about the mindset of The Black Americans and their opinions on conspiracies or any other issue.
Comment by busboy33 — 9/10/2009 @ 4:43 am
I just want to add that it is interesting to see others comment that they like both this site and Balloon Juice. I do to!
Comment by Mike — 9/11/2009 @ 12:12 pm
Heh. Comrade John Cole. Freud would have a field day with that handle. So he self identifies as a commie now.
I’m not convinced that what was done was torture. “Blown deficits and fiscal irresponsibility.” Obama’s first year deficit eclipses Bush’s entire 8 years. No end to the red ink in sight. Obama hasn’t done much about the warrantless wiretapping. To Steal a line from Glenn Reynolds, “Hope and SAME.”
What’s to like about the Communist Party, Comrade?
Comment by David R. Block — 9/11/2009 @ 12:18 pm