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DUMB CONSERVATIVE TALKING POINTS (part 2 of ???): "IT'S JUST LOGICAL"
Don't get me wrong, when somebody says some shit like 'paying poor people less will make the economy better', the appropriate response is to laugh them out of the room and disengage. But if you can't leave well enough alone, or if the shitbrain takes are coming from someone you can't disengage with like a family member, might as well know how to do it properly.
The Facts and Logic^TM arm of conservatism paints itself as being above the corrupting influence of ideology, pure and untainted, despite the fact that they're actually taints. The thing is, they don't really know what logic is.
Logic is only a process. It can take you from one statement to the next, and it can ensure all the statements down a chain are consistent with all of the previous ones. But it never actually guarantees something is correct, because it never gives you the starting point for the chain.
In math and logic, the starting points are called axioms, and in ethics and politics, they're your values. There is no such thing as a "logical" value to hold, because they come before logic.
So when you hear somebody say that society would be better off if we let the children work in the mines for which they yearn, don't go after the process they used to arrive at that conclusion. Debating about whether child labor is effective will only validate the values that their argument originates from. Instead, identify that original value and let them know that it's absolute baldercrap.
- Putting more people to work is logical if the meaning of a life well lived is to maximize productivity and consumption.
- Gender essentialism is logical if "nature" is a good thing to obey
- Private ownership of the economy is logical if the only valuable part is the people at the top barking orders
Being a shitty person is logical if you choose to hold shitty values. Choose to care about and respect others, or I will show up at your house and write long blocks of text at you. You've been warned.