Tastes Great! - Less Filling! vs “You’re drunk; go home.”
Often our debates are between two sides who are both missing the point.
We can get lost—or perhaps it is better said trapped—in a debate framework that misses the point. While it is interesting and perhaps meaningful to understand issues and problems from the conventional framing, I find that upon closer examination the real issue and hence solution lies orthogonal to how almost everyone is arguing.
Take whether drug laws are racist. We can talk about arrest, prosecution, and sentencing disparities (and they are stark), or we can talk about how policing should focus on the worst part of a problem as measured by violence, etc. (and this is a reasonable defense).1 But the real issue is the unethical/immoral nature of the drug war and the impracticality of trying to pursue it.
Think about the discussion around war deaths. Debating civilian deaths as either sad yet reasonable collateral damage or unacceptable at a given threshold with the common conclusion being just take more care when dropping bombs completely ignores the greater point that the war itself is unjust or undesirable. This is the more important argument that gets lost in the also very important concern over civilian casualties.
To consider a less consequential case, which might be more typical, take the proxy culture wars being fought in public government schools where quasi book bans, thought policing, and an elementary-level of race theory are the salient issues. All the while children are caught in the crossfire since the real issue is privatizing schools. Governments are not good (efficient, effective, fair, etc.) at running things. Anything and all things. They are not good stewards or honest dealers and they cannot adapt or ratch up to higher achievement. But in reality we have a gross squabble between cultural warriors on both sides leaving children in the crossfire.
Make no mistake, the matter is vitally important. But what is crucial is using the best method available to deliver schooling—the one that works marvels in all facets when it is allowed, the free market. People fail, governments fail, markets fail . . . use markets. Yet we are stuck bickering over who gets to impose their version of mind control and in the wrapper they find aesthetically correct.
The most recent example might be using immigrants and asylum seekers as political pawns in the recent theater performance of DeSantis & Abbot versus the federal government & Biden. There is nothing substantial behind the move to bus and plane people from where they are entering the U.S., Florida and Texas, to places like Martha’s Vineyard or the Vice President’s Residence. It is a political stunt. Republicans aren’t offering any meaningful ideas on how to reform immigration or manage refugees. They are simply throwing a tantrum with desperate people as the prop.
At the same time Congress and the President offer nothing more than empty gestures and flowery talk. Through their inactions generally and their inconsistent rhetoric specifically they are exacerbating a humanitarian crisis. People come to America seeking refuge only to be met with indifference if not disdain.
In this case both sides are making what should be a serious debate a game of political football. Missing from all of it is the economic and moral case for vast immigration expansion.
People too easily get bogged down in details. Perhaps this is because people are easily distracted. Or perhaps it is easier to get one’s mind around concrete specifics rather than abstract generalities.
Even though I’d like to be charitable, that defense seems to fall short. It is not as if people are usually focusing on critical issues. Generally they are aligning with their tribe to follow an opponent into the abyss. At other times they are ignoring the core, principled issue in favor of a flashy, sensational periphery.
More examples:
Election denial versus efficient and effective election processes—remember there is no one party with a monopoly on this garbage.
Industrial policy, which always amounts to cronyism and resource waste, versus the many virtues of a true free market
Draft registration requirements (age or sex) versus smaller military or versus no interventions
Tax policy (tax rate cuts/deduction changes/etc.) versus wholesale changes to the entire edifice—“tax resource use not resource creation”, which translates to tax consumption not capital growth and income earnings
Until we can find a way to zoom out to the bigger picture or see how the debate at hand is really beside a more important point, we will continue to lose the plot and let true progress elude us.
Here is a Soho Forum debate between those sides (and the two people in the above links) directly arguing the issue.