I have recently become a security guard at a small community college. While there have been times in my life when I was a manager of people or have been charged with protecting property, including a stint decades ago as a night watchman on a stud ranch in New Mexico, I can’t truly say I ever once thought I would actually be an official security guard at a community college or anywhere else. Be that as it may, here I am in the present, acquiring training for precisely that station. Life, for those who take it too seriously, has a sense of humor and it appears the joke is on me, at this point, and this presentation is in this life-is-a-jokester mindset, although, for progressively minded individuals, I think there is level of seriousness.
I’ve been informed that certification to legally carry and use, if necessary, a Taser at the institution for which I work requires that each security guard experience, firsthand, some degree of the Taser’s effect by having it applied directly to them, as have, supposedly, all the other members of the team to which I now belong. I’ve expressed my view, in no uncertain terms, that this requirement is beyond absurd.
I have now argued my point with two different team members, both of whom consistently express particular conservative views of various issues, and yet I have found common ground with both at different times. However, on this point of being shocked by the Taser, I have been intrigued by their inability to logically analyze the pointlessness of this shocking exercise. And as a result of my years living here in Conservative Ville, I have enough exposure to this kind of argument to recognize it as the illogical process that is an inherent characteristic of the typical conservative mind. That process consists of being convinced one is arguing logically while basing an entire argument on belief alone and ignoring evidence that refutes the belief.
My argument rested on two fundamental pieces of evidence that make this requirement ridiculous. My first argument relies on safety concerns and the potential for injury:
Police officers in at least five US states have filed lawsuits against Taser International claiming they suffered serious injuries after being shocked with the device during training classes.
Don’t assume that I’m completely opposed to use of a Taser; their potential for serious injury, and especially for death, is definitely significantly less than a handgun, and probably even a Billy club or some other blunt weapon used to beat on someone. The important point on logical grounds is that the potential is not zero and the source and likelihood of the potential is not readily apparent, so one never knows who might be seriously injured.
My second argument is based on deductive reasoning:
We do not require weapons to be used on law enforcement officers because of potential for serious injury.
Tasers possess potential for serious injury.
So we should not require law enforcement officers to be shot with Tasers.
Now, the above argument is rudimentary, Logic 101 stuff, but not for the typical conservative mind. Below are the two main arguments used by my teammates defending being shocked with a Taser against my arguments that being shocked is absurd. Teammate argument #1:
1) Being shocked is required to be legally certified to carry and use a Taser; so if you must testify about using a Taser, a lawyer cannot assert that you are not qualified to carry and use a Taser.
I addressed teammate argument #1 in this manner:
1) The logical issue here is obvious; one must ask WHY being shocked with the Taser is required to be certified in its use, which involves my deductive argument referenced above.
After 20 minutes, or more, of arguing with my teammate about this, he did finally half-way concede and admit that the exercise of being shocked had no experiential purpose, no value in terms of ability to use the Taser. I affectionately slapped him on the shoulder saying, “At this point, I’ll take half-way and we can move on.”
I was first surprised at the amount of effort it took on my part to get him to this point, and then I was equally surprised when he conceded ANYTHING in this argument. I didn’t know whether to believe my efforts had paid off or if I was being toyed with. Yes, life has a sense of humor and even with his concession, I felt I was, perhaps, being played. Pressing him further, though, evinced a sense of sincerity, which reassured me with a sense of hope that, once in a while, such persistence as I demonstrated is rewarded with just such a breakthrough of the conservative mind.
This insignificant encounter with my conservative teammate actually provided some small speck of hope that all is not lost. Unfortunately, it also further verified for me the failure of Obama’s insistence on capitulation to such right-wing, conservative obstinacy. The “compromise” that Obama says he seeks requires a frustrating process characterized by persistence and stamina to not concede and to keep finding new ways to present a correct-headed argument, not new ways to submit to illogical wrong-headedness. If I could do it with my teammate, it seems that such persistence as my own would be worth, at least, trying on the level of congressional issues that affect the majority of average Americans. At this point, I’m not sure who the butt of life’s jokesterism is.
Teammate argument #2:
2) If an assailant claims he/she was injured by your use of a Taser, you can testify that you were Tased and not seriously injured.
Once again, the obvious missing element here is logic. Since there are documented cases of individuals being seriously injured by Tasers, and it is clear that Taser effects vary from one individual to the next, my testimony that I was Tased and suffered no ill effects is moot in refuting the experience of any other individual. A trained medical profession might be able to refute a plaintiff’s claims of serious injury, but my personal experience with being Tased would have no relevance regarding the validity of a plaintiff’s claims of his/her personal injuries.
My argument with this teammate was interrupted, and we did not resume it when the interruption had subsided, so I’m not sure how this would have resolved or failed to resolve. After several minutes of discussion, though, he had shown absolutely NO inclination to concede. I may yet pursue it, if the opportunity presents and I’m feeling resilient enough to ignore being the butt of yet another one of life’s jokes.
Conservative Talk Radio: Single-payer promotes poor health
The next day after my encounter with teammate #1, I briefly listened to his conservative talk radio show on the car radio (his shift ended as mine began and I drove the same car he had been driving). Listening to the talk show host (I don’t recall his name, now) was an education in the twisted thought processes of the conservative mind. The talk show host’s point was this:
If you don’t have to pay for medical costs, you will be more inclined to be unhealthy; if you have to pay for the medical costs, you’ll be more likely to try to stay healthy.
So, in this man’s twisted mind, the only reason anyone wants to be healthy is so they won’t have to pay medical costs for being unhealthy. Yep, supposedly, you and I would LOVE to be UNHEALTHY, if only it were free of charge, so single-payer healthcare is bad. I don’t even know how to respond to that. Any suggestions?
Life is a jokerster, for sure. Are we all fools?
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Comments
Putting you and him out of your jobs. Quite the dilemma for him to ponder.
Congrats on getting #1 to the point you did. There are conservatives who value logic, but attempting to reason with the true believers (and this holds true with fanatics of any political stripe), is about as productive as beating your head against a brick wall.
I had not thought about a relationship between the talk radio host’s comments and the Taser argument, but I guess one thought regarding that scenario would be that people entering campus would be less likely to do something that would result in being shot with the Taser if they had to pay for being shot with the Taser. Otherwise, if it’s free, I guess according to that talk show host’s logic, they would want the misery of the Taser shot.
“appeal …to authority”
Yep, understood, and I knew that going into the argument, but just could not help myself. Sometimes I can ignore stupidity. Sometimes I can even ignore it when forced to partake in it, myself, as we often do in many jobs. But sometimes something is just so overtly absurd that I am completely dumbfounded by how many people just accept it without question.
Your warning that they are watching me has me on edge, now.
:-O
Understood and agreed about the “true believers”. Your post about comparative intelligence between liberals and conservatives reminded me of this event at work and by inductive reasoning, if we expand my insignificant experience outward to the general conservative ranks, we begin to see how they get to where they are mentally, how they are so easily exploited, although I can’t really say I will ever understand it; it’s just too absurd. There has to be some biological component at work that separates them out.
Thanks for commenting. I have been educated about the relevance of volts versus amps.
;-)
For me, it was really never about the actual event. It was about the logical fallacies involved in their justifications. There simply is no reasonable defense for this pointlessness -- pointlessness of an act is usually indefensible. If it is merely a form of "hazing", then admit that is what it is. Honestly, teammate #1 did, at one point, interject the phrase "it's a rite of passage" but neither of us followed up on that. I may yet aske him about that.
Actually, when I initiated the first encounter with the first teammate I really did not think there would be disagreement. I just made a comment in passing about the policy being pointless. Then my teammate surprised me by defending it, and the argument was on. You have to realize, though, that this particular teammate is one with whom I've have other debates and that he and I actually enjoy arguing with each other -- it's a form of on-the-job entertainment for us. The second teammate, however, was an intentional experiment on my part. I figured that if teammate #1 defended the policy as he did, that this second teammate would too, primarily because he just seeems the type. I just wanted to see where it would lead.
I have no problem with people sticking to their convictions, it's an admirable trait, even if they are conservative. It is when they disregard logic and fact just so they can stick to their convictions that drives me up the wall. In the debates you were having, you were clear and concise, your logic, all but irrefutable, yet they hardly budged. That has always been such a mystery to me. It's like they have a stubborn gene that engages at that point and no further progress is allowed. Is it really that hard for them to admit they might be wrong about something? Baffling.
That stubborn gene is highly prevalent in so many of the people I deal with on a daily basis. I actually spend much of my interactions with them sitting back and observing how they react to each other, but also how they react to certain concepts I feed them from time to time. It is interesting in a frustrating sort of way.
I worry for us ...
All generalizations, including this one, are incorrect.
You seem to have encountered some illogical, and perhaps stupid, colleagues. You may know them as conservatives from other interactions.
However, to generalize their thinking to that “typical” of all conservatives is incorrect. Any conclusion that conservatives generally think, or believe, as your workmates do is a generalization and a conclusion predicated upon a sample size that is too small.
Further, I know many ill-informed, illogical, obtuse liberals. Conservatives have not cornered the market on these traits by any means.
Nonetheless, I never want to miss an opportunity to express my appreciation for your thoughtful pieces. This one is no exception; although, caution should always be exercised in extrapolating too much in classifying people according to one’s perception of how they think, what their general philosophies are, or how they have chosen their political party affiliation.
In the end, I continue to believe that we will vote our way out the mess in which we find ourselves. It will matter little who, or what, is to blame for getting us here. It will matter little what the philosophies or political parties of those who vote are, or will be. The solutions will be obvious enough and urgent enough that even your coworkers, and those who are even less intelligent, will know what to do.
Keep up the good work.
Chris
Heh, thanks for reading and for your comment. I think you’ve generalized generalizations here. What does that do to the validity of your statement?
First, I want to address what I think is a misrepresentation: you cite me as saying “typical of all conservatives”. This is not exactly what I said, but let me clarify. The use of the word “typical” in a context such as this “typically” refers to a non-exclusive generalization; in other words, it expresses reference to a category that is not all-inclusive. One might say, “The typical American believes in God,” but implicit in that statement is the understanding that there are Americans who do not. But this is just semantics and not really all that important in this instance.
I think dismissing all generalizations as completely “incorrect” simply because they are generalizations is erroneous. The old saying about “exceptions to the rule” comes into play. Understanding that a generalization represents a “rule” to which there are naturally exceptions allows the generalization to have true value. In this particular case, John Stuart Mill has perhaps my personal favorite quote:
“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives.”
As a general rule, I find this is quite true. In the particular case I mentioned above I have followed-up on my conversation with teammate #2 since writing it and found that he absolutely refused, even after nearly 40 minutes of discussion, to grasp the concept that the actual exercise of those who use Tasers being shocked by a Taser holds no real value, both in terms of training us to use it, and in terms of criminal courtroom testimonial value regarding facts of evidence, which I assume is what a criminal court proceeding would deal with exclusively.
I wish I had the entire 40-plus minutes of conversation recorded; I was actually amazed at how many different ways I found to explain or describe the logical problems in his argument. And I say, perhaps ill advisedly, that I think he understood my point, but simply refused to acknowledge it.
I heard another quote recently that struck me in reference to this conversation:
“Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.” Ayn Rand
That, of course, is another generalization, I know, but I think that it is a valuable axiom even with the knowledge that there is a likely possibility that even someone who denies reason may, at some point, be suddenly awakened to it. I’m not a fan of Rand, but this statement rings “generally” or “typically” true.
In listening to some of these conservative radio talk-shows, I’ve picked up on a trend; when a caller calls in and attempts to reason against the host’s point of view, then the host starts yelling at the caller, cuts the caller off the air, and refuses to even consider discussing the point reasonably. Generally, the host’s yelling involves ad hominem, which interestingly enough, was the same reaction I got from teammate #2 during my follow-up discussion with him that lasted nearly 40 minutes. He simply could not refrain from making attacks on me, personally, while I simply remained focused solely on the (il)logical principle I was addressing. Honestly, I frequently had to consciously battle my inclination to laugh, losing most of those battles, which further inflamed my teammate.
I think your point that we should use caution with generalizations is a good one. I also think we should use caution in dismissing them out of hand.