Civil Discourse & Global Warming Canary

Civil discourse is being well-informed, engaging in courteous communication, and being open to considering or, at least, respecting other points of view, and having the humility to be open to changing information and conclusions. Better understanding and peaceful progress emerges, in a dynamic and democratic process.

By contrast, aside from the profane and intolerant, there’s the elitist view of discourse, self-labeled as “rational” by Al Gore and some fellow Democrats, that intrudes the government, and political power, into deciding which discourse deserves to be heard.

I wrote about one variant of this power-grab earlier this week, the use of Democrats of the “Fairness Doctrine As Political Intimidation.”

Today, on the anniversary of his 1000th post, oft-quoted by me, Democrat campaign law expert Bob Bauer, extends the analysis:

On this anniversary day, the subject is one to which these postings return with fair frequency: the fashionable trepidation over failed democratic "discourse" and the urge, through regulation, to bring it back to life. This is the view that speech has gone bad, imperiling good government: and that in government action to improve speech lies the road to salvation. Regulated political speech becomes the stated condition of sound policy and good government.

This seems quite wrong-headed….

Bauer presents Al Gore’s case (common to many others):

Gore says many of the usual things, about the evils of television and the horrors of declining newspaper readership. Like others with his outlook on the dilapidated state of national discourse or "conversation," he is certain that the citizen is misinformed, the victim of deliberate lies and her own indolence. There is a wealth of facts which will yield the "truth" if reason—real logic applied to hard information—is brought to bear in analyzing them. Nothing less than the "truth" is within our grasp if only we would employ the tools of reason, availing ourselves of facts. There are right answers and wrong ones and we can have the right ones to each of the major and complex questions facing our nation and world—specific questions of national security or climate policy and also, breathtakingly, the more abstract, loftier challenges of "human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness." But we must not be ignorant, illogical and unreasonable when we have the choice of being well-informed and logical and reasonable….

Some who think as Gore does are blunt in the statement of their purposes. Dennis Kucinich, for example, would like to exhume the Fairness Doctrine, demanding balance from broadcasters in the treatment of contemporary policy issues. As Kucinich told Lou Dobbs (another man of reason) in January, he, too, is worried about protecting the "marketplace of ideas. That's what the First Amendment is all about." It is clear to him that the market is failing, because the public has chosen poorly, on Iraq and free trade, having been starved of the facts and reasonable argument necessary for the correct conclusions. "How could we have the trade policies which we have, for example, if there was a free and uninhibited exchange of ideas over NAFTA and GATT and the WTO?" Well-informed and reasonable people would never have agreed to such travesties!

However, Bauer points out:

This is elite judgment masquerading as populism. The people need elite protection, against themselves and those who habitually con them: protection against the excesses and distortions of the speech market. Bad speech, the unreasonable and poorly supported kind, must be molded into "discourse." Speech is the raw material that government can process into healthy discourse. Discourse is the lingua franca of good policy. It is the way to truth.

To his credit, Gore has made his case to the public on the issues he cares about with films and books. He has spoken, written and filmed his points. Others can judge whether, on those issues, he has been well-informed and reasonable. In his analysis of "what has gone wrong in our democracy," he is not.

I’m not a scientist, and have environmental leanings, so I’m willing to believe that there are possible dangers from global warming. But, unlike politicians jumping on a bandwagon, I’m still open to varying viewpoints, particularly when informed scientists move toward skepticism, others toward dismay at the argument, and others decry a stifling of scientific discussion. The huge costs of transforming the world’s economies, and effects on those most poor, require more consideration than just calling for radical government programs, indeed as this study points out some alternatives are far more benign and salutary.

The Wall Street Journal reminds us of scientific humility and caution:

Every dogma has its day, and we've lived long enough to see more than one "consensus" blown apart within a few years of "everyone knowing" it was true. In recent decades environmentalists have been wrong about almost every other apocalyptic claim they've made: global famine, overpopulation, natural resource exhaustion, the evils of pesticides, global cooling, and so on. Perhaps it's useful to have a few folks outside the "consensus" asking questions before we commit several trillion dollars to any problem.

Instead, with some exaggeration, but not offbase, Bloomberg TV reviewer says of a typical network program on global warming, “You'll find more dissent at a North Korean political rally than in this program, which would have benefited from contrarian views…”

To win an argument, one may stifle opposition, or engage in civil discourse. I prefer the latter, and am concerned that those now in Congressional and media power miss the distinction, in regards to global warming as to so many other critical issues to our future.