By Daniel Greenfield ——Bio and Archives--February 12, 2017
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You’ll hate it because we liberals tend to pride ourselves on caring about evidence, science, and accuracy. Being factually right, or at least grounded in reality, is something we value, something meaningful to our self-concept. But if we’re going to avoid the worst effects of this administration’s parade of whoppers—which is more important than defeating the whoppers themselves—then some of us, sometimes, are going to have to engage with voters and representatives who are mired in pernicious misinformation.
“If someone says that the Muslim ban is OK because all terrorists are Muslim, it might be more worth it to ask about their fear of terrorism than to rail against the falsehood about terrorists. That can yield a more useful conversation. What’s really going to make them safer? How much safety is really possible, and what are we willing to trade for it? We should probably all practice saying, “There’s no evidence for that, but the important thing is … ” and “Well, I disagree, but let’s say you’re right. What about … ” without choking.”This is how the left tries to approach talking to people it disagrees with. Sure we haven’t convinced you with our lies. So we’ll condescend to you instead. While being incredibly irritating. Then 5 minutes into the conversation, when you still don’t agree with us, we’ll lose our tempers and start screaming you’re a racist. This article first appeared at FrontPageMag.
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Daniel Greenfield is a New York City writer and columnist. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and his articles appears at its Front Page Magazine site.