Capitalism/Democracy

I really enjoy political discussions. Not because I am very good at them or even because I hold very strong opinions and must share them with people. On the contrary, I really enjoy asking the question, "How do we go about creating the perfect world/improving the one that we've got?"

I especially like discussing these things with people who do have some very strongly held opinions (my brother, K, and his friend, V, come to mind), because I really enjoy forcing myself to see both sides of an argument and trying to reconcile them. I like the mental exercise.

Which is why I enjoyed receiving an email from K last night about an article by Charles Koch, linked here, complete with an argument by V about why Koch was wrong. K and V generally have some fiery arguments, and so I spent a long while thinking about why they couldn't see eye to eye on this particular article, realizing that whatever my thoughts were, they probably weren't going to change anyone's perspective. (Like I said, mental exercise.)

I realized that they were trying to argue two separate things, which is potentially where the disconnect between conservatives and liberals in the US lies. V was trying to discuss the political system, and K was trying to focus on the economic system; and while the two are related, they are not inextricable. In fact, capitalism has been shown to exist in several countries without democracy, but I'm not sure that you could say the same about democracy existing without capitalism.

As much as K and V (and anybody else for that matter) try to debate the values of capitalism and democracy, until they can separate the two, they are simply comparing apples to oranges and the argument will go nowhere. So yeah...in your political discussions, as in all areas of life, please be sure that you are talking TO your opponent and not AT them, because otherwise it can be very ugly.