I’ve had more than a few arguments over the last five years that ended with my opponent claiming (usually in a loud, disdainful voice), “You have your opinion, I have my opinion, and I’m entitled to my opinion!” I’ve had so many of these conversations in fact that it got me thinking, are all opinions equal? Is a person entitled to espouse an opinion just because the thought popped into his head? Surely there must be some mechanism by which we can say one opinion has merit while another is worthless. Oh wait. There is such a mechanism. There are 5,000 years of human research, erudition, and intellectual achievement that can help us sort out worthy thoughts from worthless ones.
The short answer, therefore, is no. You’re not automatically entitled to an opinion if it’s based on premises that can be disproven. Now, don’t get me wrong. We are a nation of laws and it’s not against the law to hold an opinion that is based on misconceptions, hallucinations, or lies told by a profiteering, gaslighting news channel. You won’t be incarcerated for being incorrect. You have a right to free speech.
Nor am I saying that everyone looking at the same set of facts must come to the same conclusion. Republicans have traditionally believed in low taxes and small government. Democrats have traditionally believed in high taxes and big government. Both opinions are based on factual evidence and are often presented in cogent, well-supported arguments. This paper is not about those differences of opinion.
This essay is about something far more mundane. This paper is about you and I sitting in a room discussing U.S. history and when I say that George Washington was the first U.S. President, you stop me and say, “Washington wasn’t the first President. Jefferson was the first President.” Then when I insist that it was Washington, you respond with, “How do you know it was Washington? Were you there? That’s just your opinion. In my opinion it was Jefferson and I’m entitled to my opinion.”
That’s not an opinion. That’s idiocy.
For the first nearly 250 years of U.S. political history there have been many differences of valid political opinions. Most of those arguments were between educated, intelligent people who reached different rational conclusions about the same set of agreed upon facts.
Today, for some reason, we’ve decided that all opinions are equal, no matter how ill-informed, irrational, or demonstrably false the basis for that opinion may be. The new law of rational discourse is that if a person does not have personal knowledge of a fact being a fact (or worse, decides that a fact is inconvenient to what he chooses to believe), then he has every right to deny the proven fact, or, as Kellyanne Conway so artfully put it, to defend a position with “alternative facts.” When we accept that all opinions have equal validity, we’ve opened the door to all manner of carpet baggers and demagogues who can capitalize on our simplicities for their personal benefit.
Logic 101
There is a difference between knowledge and belief. Knowledge is equal to facts – things that have been proven. Some proven things may be complex scientific proofs that few of us really understand but accept because the community of scientists agree on the proof. Other knowledge might be just knowing that today is bright and sunny because I am personally experiencing the sun through my senses. Facts are a community of things that we know to be true.
Then there are beliefs. I know today is sunny; I believe that tomorrow will be sunny. I might believe in God. But no one, and I do mean no one, knows that God exists. There are many theories in science which have yet to be proven. One day, the theory might be proven true, or it might be proven false.
In our imperfect world, we have to accept that there may be things in between knowledge and belief that we agree to accept as factual. For example, the Theory of Evolution, proposed by Charles Darwin in the 19th century, has never been proven. But the community of scientists accept it as factual due to the millions of observations made across all scientific fields that are consistent with the theory; conversely, there has never been an observation that contradicts the Theory. The sheer weight of this empirical evidence, albeit ad hoc, has been accepted as proof.
There was a time in the United States when we disagreed on a lot of things, but at least we agreed on the rules of what made something factual versus what constituted a belief, or opinion. Sadly, that day appears to be lost, due largely to the efforts of one man, Donald Trump, who learned early in his life that the facts of his existence would not help him satisfy his desires. He was an incurious man who desired greatness well beyond what his simplicity would allow. Trump became the 21st century’s great alchemist, spinning his pathologies and dishonesties into the oval office. The man had one – and only one – great insight in his life: that gold isn’t gold; gold is what people perceive to be golden.
An Opinion About a Fact
This brings us to today’s main topic which is a discussion on why tens of millions of Americans hold fast to their opinion that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election over Joe Biden. They hold this opinion despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (and the word overwhelming is indeed an understatement). This opinion is false, baseless, and completely without merit. If it were just my next-door neighbor holding this opinion I wouldn’t worry. If it were just a couple hundred people following Reverend Jim Jones (Jim Jones was a Christian preacher turned cult leader who exhorted 909 of his cult followers to commit mass suicide at their camp in Guyana in 1978 by drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide, giving birth to the colloquialism “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.”) into a jungle to willingly commit suicide, I wouldn’t worry. But twenty months after the election, somewhere between 50 and 100 million people in the United States (depending on which poll you look at), believe in something which can, and has been, proven completely wrong. This concerns me. And it should concern you.
Depending on the polls, which vary over time, about 33.0% of the country believes the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Here’s the breakdown:
Republicans – 18.5%
Democrats – 0.3%
Independents – 14.3%
An election is a perfect example of a provable thing. Elections are math problems. Simple math problems. Add up votes. The person who gets the most votes wins. Granted, there may be errors or other factors which corrupt the data in the math problem. There may be false ballots. There may be broken voting machines. Inaccuracies and corruption can and do occur.
But the factors that could have corrupted the 2020 mathematical election problem could all be investigated and resolved in one way or another. In 2020 and early 2021, every allegation and observation of fraud, inaccuracy, and impropriety were investigated by impartial agents. The more serious allegations were reviewed (or recounted) two, three, four, and five times over.
The scrutiny of the election (not to mention the lunacy of most of the allegations and observations), was unprecedented. The resolution made the question of the election a matter of knowledge, not a matter of opinion. Fact: Joe Biden won the U.S. Presidency in November, 2020.
In fact, the election was not only accurate, but probably the most accurate in modern times. Consider the following:
· The States that were in dispute (Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin) had Republican overseers who witnessed the voting and numerous recounts, both by computer and by hand; to a man and woman, these overseers insist the count was accurate.
· Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is only disputing the presidential votes, not the down-ballot tallies on the same ballots, many of which were cast in favor of GOP candidates. Did someone go to the trouble of creating false ballots that put a Democrat in the White House but Republicans in most other seats?
· No one in the Republican Party sought to investigate election results in the other 44 states. If the named 6 states had so many flaws, why wouldn’t they want to investigate other states?
· More than sixty lawsuits were brought by Trump lawyers before state and federal courts, many in front of Trump-appointed judges; all but one were lost on the merits or dismissed. The case that won in court did not concern actual fraud, but rather a procedural matter.
· The Trump Administration’s own head of cybersecurity insisted that the election had no foreign interference and was the safest election in modern times.
· William Barr, Trump’s Attorney General who investigated each of the fraud allegations made by Trump and his cohorts, told Trump that his contentions about the election were “bullshit.”
· Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, who loyally served his Administration with an office in the White House, agrees with Barr’s assessment, that the election steal stories are false.
· Rusty Bowers, Speaker of Arizona’s State legislature, testified to Congress that during Rudy Giuliani’s repeated attempts to get Bowers to overturn Arizona’s election results, Giuliani stated, “We have many theories about how the election was stolen, but no evidence.” It is important to note that Mr. Bowers is a deep red, conservative Republican who voted for Mr. Trump but refused to break the law on his behalf.
· The January 6th Congressional Investigative Commission discovered hundreds of communications among Trump’s staff, advisors, and allies in Congress in which they stated the election-steal was a scam as was his attempt to overturn the election.
· Emails and texts have been published from Trump’s most ardent supporters, begging Trump and/or his closest advisors to stop spreading the false stories about a stolen election.
· To this date there exists no evidence for election fraud during 2020 in any state. Not a single fact is in evidence to support the claim that the election was stolen.
And yet, tens of millions of Americans hold fast to the idea that the election was stolen from Trump.
Let’s call the election and science deniers “the one-third.” When I have discussions with members of the one-third, I lay out the points above along with additional arguments. I ask them to support their opinion that Trump won the election with facts, evidence, anything. Sometimes I get arguments that are actually talking points downloaded from FOX News and other conservative news sites. One is, “How could Trump be winning early and then lose late by 7 million votes?” Well, it’s called mail-in ballots which are legal and in many states are counted after in-person ballots are counted. A majority of mail-in ballots, at least in this election, were sent by democratic voters. In fact, virtually all election specialists predicted that Trump would be ahead early and then fall later for just this reason. Here’s another: “How could Trump get 74 million votes (more than any presidential candidate in U.S. history before 2020) and still lose the election?” Well, because there was a record turnout on both sides of the ballot, except the other guy had the bigger turnout.
Here is another argument which came from an acquaintance who is highly educated engineer- a man whom I know has taken about a half dozen university courses in statistics and calculus. He argued, “How could Trump win 53 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties but still lose the state without some kind of fraud?” I answered with a very obvious fact – Biden won the 14 counties where the citizens of Pennsylvania live (Philadelphia and its suburban counties, Pittsburgh, and northeastern PA counties) while Trump won the counties where cows live. How could this well-educated person not understand that the State’s electoral votes goes to the person who wins the most votes, not the most counties?
To date, I have not heard a single argument from an election denier that was not entirely infantile. Inevitably, these conversations come down to my opponent taking one of two strategies:
1) “How do you know Biden won Pennsylvania? Did you count the votes? Were you actually in the room?”; or
2) “Well, I don’t care what facts you cook up, this is my opinion and I’m entitled to my opinion.”
In the first case, the argument is that no one can know anything unless they experience it personally through their five senses. It’s the only way to defeat all evidentiary presentations that contradict a given point of view. No evidence can be valid unless it was personally accumulated, verified, and witnessed by the person making the argument. To the untrained mind, that puts me on the same level as their opinion, which they realize is not supported by any evidence, personally witnessed or not. Someone who makes this argument does not think far enough to realize that to be consistent, he would have to admit that no one can know anything beyond their own five senses. Does Washington, D.C. exist? Have you ever been there? If not, how can you be sure? Is Joe Biden actually Hillary Clinton in man’s clothing? No? How can you be sure? Do you watch him getting dressed in the morning? And so on.
The second argument (“I’m entitled to my opinion!”) is another attempt at levelling the playing field. In other words, my opinion, which is supported by documents, evidence, testaments, etc. is no more valid than your opinion which is supported by nothing. The logic behind this is that all men are created equal (pretty sure it says that somewhere) and if that’s true, then how can my opinion be worth more than their opinion? What makes opinions valid is the validity of the person who holds the opinion, not the facts that support the opinion. Since we are all created equal, then all opinions are equally valid.
Put Down the Video Game; Pick up a Book
The only way to eliminate this pretzel logic is through education. Humans are born with the ability to think insofar as they need to tie their shoes, feed themselves, and communicate through language. The ability to be a serious thinker though, to deal with ambiguities and complex problems, to defend a position with logic and reason, can only come with training. I’m not saying one needs to go to college or graduate school. But if you’ve never read a book, never availed yourself of the long history of human thought and insight, never had to defend your position against trained people who are able to defend their positions, then, well, you’ll probably find yourself at some point screaming, “I’m entitled to my opinion!”
Beginning in high school, students are asked to partake in the scientific process. We are asked to conduct research, form an opinion or deduction from that research, write a paper that presents the opinion, and submit that paper for review. The paper is critiqued by teachers and professors who are qualified to make corrections and observations regarding the validity of the opinion and its evidence. This process occurs over and over again in multiple subject areas throughout high school and college.
The ability to learn requires not just research skills and the ability to observe connections between things. It requires, perhaps most importantly, humility. The student submits a paper that he believes to be the height of erudition. The professor returns the paper with a letter “D” along with a list of critiques that are longer than the paper itself. Education requires the student to say, “I was wrong” and resolve to exert a better effort the next time by avoiding the same mistakes. It also requires the student to understand that the teacher is a teacher because he or she has been doing this decades longer than the student has and been judged by his teachers to be worthy. There has never been room in the educational process for a student to respond to a teacher’s better defended position by saying, “you may be right, but I’m entitled to be as right as you because we’re all born equal.”
The idea that as adults we’re all not intellectually equal sounds elitist and haughty. However, we always have accepted inequality in other areas of our lives. I like to paint, but I know my works never will be hung next to Kandinsky in the art museum. I might be capable of a crisp spiral on the beach, but I’ll never compete in the NFL. People tell me I present well, but I will never inspire like MLK. We accept our limitations. Or at least we used to.
Left alone and never stimulated, the brain will still serve us well. We’ll be able to drive a car, tie our shoes, or grill a hamburger. But the untrained brain will probably never develop the ability to do two things: 1) form a cogent, logical, opinion on a complex problem that withstands withering criticism; and 2) recognize those times when our logical opinion is contradicted by another’s more coherent position. We are not born with the capability of complex thought. It has to be earned over time.
The latter skill is more important to society. It’s the ability to know when to be quiet and let Albert Einstein, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King talk because they’ve demonstrated that their opinions will move mankind further down the road than my opinion. It’s the ability to know I don’t deserve equal time all the time. It’s this skill that we’ve lost.
If all our opinions are equal then society becomes a quagmire, a cacophony of noise that precludes progress. If none of us have the humility to sit down and shut up, then it will become a reality that our finger paintings will actually hang next to Kandinsky in the art museum someday (it’s the just thing!) and we all will actually be an NFL quarterback (we deserved our turn!). This is the point at which human achievement will flatline. And at that point it will become a reality that a candidate who demonstrably loses a presidential election will become the President of the United States.
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