That was asked on the original post, and I’ll just quote the response – which itself is an excerpt from Electric Kool Aid Conservatism.

Escaping this ghetto requires understanding why the media slants left. Contra the least-thoughtful conservative critics, there isn’t any elite liberal conspiracy at work. Bias creeps in largely because the narrative conventions of journalism are poor at capturing basic conservative and libertarian truths. An instructive example is rent control. A newspaper reporter assigned that topic can easily find a sympathetic family no longer able to afford its longtime apartment in a gentrifying neighborhood. Their plight is a moving brief for a rent ceiling.

As almost everyone long ago conceded, however, opponents of rent control offer superior counterarguments. Limiting rent degrades the quality of a city’s housing stock, causes shortages as a dearth of new units are built, and spurs a black market where well-connected elites game their way into subsidized flats. A talented reporter, given enough time and space, could craft a narrative that illustrates how rent control ultimately makes poor families worse off. His job is relatively difficult, however, for he can hardly write a pithy anecdotal lead about the hundred families that won’t occupy a non-existent apartment building because a foolish policy eliminated an unknown developer’s incentive to build it.

The right, in other words, has a problem with narrative. The stubborn facts of this world contradict pieties left, right, and libertarian, occassionally forcing each group to revise its thinking. But the core critiques of liberalism intrinsically resist the narrative form. Who can foresee the unintended consequences of government intervention in advance? Who can pinpoint the particular threats to liberty posed by an ever-growing public sector?

Nor is it always easy to make a positive case for a conservative theme. Take the argument for gradual social change, which is predicated on the notion that certain societal traditions add value we do not always fully understand. Even after the breakup of the nuclear family in African-American communities, for example, we cannot explain precisely why the absence of fathers has proven so disastrous, though facts confirm the effect so unambiguously that old conservative warnings are now accepted pop-culture themes.

The difficulty of critiquing flawed liberal positions and asserting alternatives before it’s too late is exacerbated by the conservative intellectual tradition’s lack of penetration into academia. Colleges and journalism schools rarely teach Edmund Burke, Friedrich Hayek, or Milton Friedman. How can journalists unversed in such thinkers recognize when facts validate their ideas?

That seems like a good explanation to me.

Now Kathy, I’m not sure even the Inklings would be interested in greater “discourse” in the blogosphere. For one thing, it’s not face to face. For another, there’s no beer. And even if the first two conditions were met, with some jokers present, it’s doubtful there would be much talking at all. … Bar brawl!

The problem with the notion of greater “discourse”—which is not to discredit conversation that is conducted with civility—is that there is no accounting for trying to talk to people who are intellectual swindlers, people who aren’t interested in the truth, but, rather, SIMPLY GETTING THEIR WAY, by whatever means.

Sometimes a clever insult, or what your opponent always calls “ad hominem argument”—as though I didn’t know that when I levelled it!—is the only way to force your opponent to face the truth. When you insult someone, if they want to carry on conversing with you, they have to make a come back. And in making a come back, they have to actually think about why, or how, what you just called them isn’t true.

Often it takes a while, but the result is always the same: either your opponent shuts up and goes somewhere else (sometimes directly to a human rights tribunal) or they STOP LYING and the conversation continues.

A few years back I purchased a small book by C.S. Lewis entitled, “Paved With Good Intentions: A Demon’s Road Map To Your Soul.” The great insight of this book is that there are individuals that you can’t talk to because they are “hellish” creatures.

There’s a quote inside the cover of this book from another of Lewis’s writings:

“I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes’ to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved; just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.” C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Mr. McLeod, perhaps you could explain this passage for poor dumb me?

stopped reading after the first ten words. why do these pretentious gits always try to sound like one of the Inklings fer f*ck’s sake?

“All my work”? He was going on like that in his loser email to me. The guy is TWELVE!

I’m finding a growing chasm among conservative political bloggers these days. There are a handful that still welcome dissent and discussion – Jay Currie is usually one – but most of the others are simply self congratulatory echo chambers.

Here’s a simple challenge. Find a single thread on any of the following blogs – Small Dead Animals, Blazing Cat Fur, Halls of Macademia, Dodo, Sentinel – in which people of divergent views debate an idea thoughtfully and with civility. Let me save you some time. You won’t,

The kind of culture of dialogue that Dr. Dawg, on the progressive side, is trying to foster on his blog- where is it happening on the right?

To give credit where credit is due, by the way – after a long and depressing hiatus, The Politic is becoming an interesting site again, for just that reason – some new posters and some new commenters actually interested in discussion. Kudos.