Rational “Pandering”

In the days before broadcast media, a politician could tell a grange meeting that he was going to increase farm subsidies and a banker’s organization that he was going to decrease farm subsidies, and no one would find out until after the election. Of course, this kind of thing is unethical, as well as irrational, but it is not always wrong to present different arguments to different groups of people. Reasoning always starts from premises and moves step by step to a conclusion. This means that when you argue rationally with someone, you must assume that you share certain premises, despite your many disagreements, and that you must start from those premises. Consequently, you must tailor your argument to the person you are arguing with, because no two people share exactly the same set of agreed-upon premises.

Last week an environmental group released a television ad that criticized Sarah Palin for authorizing the hunting of wolves from helicopters. That gave me one more reason for not voting for her and McCain, but as I was never planning on voting for her anyway, that wasn’t much of an accomplishment politically. That ad probably created a sense of solidarity between hunters and Palin, because many hunters probably also felt attacked by that ad. The argument of the ad was a modus ponens that used two premises: The explicit premise “Sarah Palin supports hunting wolves” and the implicit premise “If Sarah Palin supports hunting wolves, you shouldn’t vote for her”. It’s irrational to believe that somebody should be persuaded by this ad if they don’t accept the second premise. This ad might have been effective if it had supported the second premise in a way that would be persuasive to hunters. For example the ad could have distinguishing this kind of hunting from other forms of hunting i. e. by arguing it is exceptionally cruel and unsportsmanlike, or that it may lead to the extinction of the wolf. This could have been a fairly effective tactic. Hunters are one of the largest contributors to conservation efforts, because they want to preserve species so they can continue to hunt them.

Some people think that this line of argument would be hypocritical if you personally think hunting is barbaric and cruel. However, it is only possible to have one argument at a time, and if you both agree that wiping out species is a bad thing, there is no reason to have a different argument over the morality of hunting. Rationality can never get off the ground if you don’t have a shared set of premises. Because no people are in agreement on all their premises, to insist that arguments can’t focus on shared premises and ignore points of disagreement is to give up on rationality itself. It is dishonest to pretend that you share a point of agreement when you don’t. But to focus on shared points of agreement is a sign of respect for the person you are trying to convince.

For that reason, I think the following two facts about Sarah Palin are among the most effective and legitimate points for the Obama campaign.

1) From
the Huffington Post:

Despite denials by the Palin campaign, new evidence proves that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin had a direct hand in imposing fees to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams conducted by the city to gather evidence.

Palin's role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online.

Under Sarah Palin's administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today earlier this week that the GOP vice presidential nominee "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test...To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Palin, as mayor, fired police chief Irl Stambaugh and replaced him with Charlie Fannon, who with Palin's knowledge, slashed the budget for the exams and began charging the city's victims of sexual assault. The city budget documents demonstrate Palin read and signed off on the new budget. A year later, alarmed Alaska lawmakers passed legislation outlawing the practice.

*****

My comments:

Even Ayn Rand and the Libertarians believe that the Government is morally obligated to pay for police protection. Sarah Palin apparently sees Rand as some kind of socialist, for Palin is willing to charge a woman on a minimum wage salary over a thousand dollars before she will let the police get the evidence to catch her rapist. What's next, charging crime victims for police bullets fired while trying to catch a criminal?

The thing that is particularly repellent about this is that unlike everywhere else in the USA, vital public services in Alaska are not cut for financial reasons. Alaska has so much money they that they give over a thousand dollars a year to every citizen of the state. Apparently Palin feels that letting rapists go free is a policy that should be followed as a matter of principle, not as a last resort.

Oh yes, and there is also the fact that she lied about it.


2) From an article in the Berkeley Daily Planet by Paul Glusman.

“A few months before Palin spoke to the Republican convention, she addressed another party’s convention: the separatist Alaska Independence Party which wants to take Alaska out of the United States. That party’s slogan isn’t “Country First” but “Alaska First—Alaska Always.” Palin’s husband Todd is a long-time member of that party. Joe Vogler, the founder of that secessionist party, said (before he died in a plastic explosives transaction gone bad—I’m sure there are lots of good civilian reasons for a separatist to be buying plastic explosives) “I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.” The Alaska Independence Party trumpets those words on its website, right above the introduction to the party. You can see that at www.akip.org/introduction.html.”


These facts show that Sarah Palin is out of step with voters on all parts of the political spectrum. Surely saying “I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions” is as outrageous as Wright’s use of the rhetorical trope “God damn America.” Surely we can all agree that rapists should not go free because of budget cuts, that police protection is a universal right, and that it is wrong to lie about your own history. The Democratic party has at least the right, and arguably the obligation, to build their campaign around these kinds of facts.