debate w/ liberals

I'm having a facebook debate with liberals on several topics (now we're on the min. wage) and i could use one or two of your guys' help (any of you that have a facebook. Anyone in?

maybe.. linky?

 As for minimum wage, its a simple supply and demand issue.  Min wage is a price floor above market-clearing price, and so demand (for labor) will necessarily decrease.

I am personally on facebook. What group is this for?  I have been debating minimum wage for a while now as well.  I was part of that long and getting way off topic post here on the mises forum(which recently got shut down).  But as someone said already, please link 

Ask them why not make it 10%/hr, or 20$/hr, or 100$/hr

Ask them if its ok for the government to insist that all bread must cost at least 10$ per loaf.

Ask them what happens to jobs that output less than the min. wage rate.  For example of a job only produces 5$/hr for a owner, and the min wage is 8$/hr, is this owner going to hire someone to make him lose 3$/hr.

Cite the well difined corellation between the teenage unemployment rate and then min. wage. 

It's just a series of notes i've been writing for my liberal friends:

my name is Christopher Kim and I'm in the Nashville TN network.  My profile pic is a downward pointing dollar.  Friend me and I'll tag you in the notes (there are like 240 comments after the minimum wage obe), just make sure to point out that you're from mises in the friend request

Glad to see I'm not the only one engaging in debate with liberals. Not to hijack the thread, but there were some funny things from my debates with my classmates on a variety of issues. An anti-war Obama suporter was literally denying the Boston Globe's legitimacy when I showed him an article from that paper that says "Obama defends votes in favor of Iraq funding". Also, when debating someone about Abraham Lincoln's legitimacy, who claimed Bush is the worst president in history, I asked him 'What do you hate about Bush?'. When he replied 'He started a meaningless war,' I said, 'So did Lincoln'. He was literally speechless.

But, getting back to the topic, if you're debating the minimum wage, simply ask them if a poor person whose work if only worth $1.50/hour should be forced to starve because a third-party thinks he is not being paid enough.

 Tell them that the minimum wage was passed to benefit big evil mean corporations and that it helps drive good wholesome organic mom and pop corner stores out of existence.  Reminding liberals that most regulations were not really passed to benefit the little guy goes a long way.  It might be an appeal to emotion, but it's a good tactic to use.    

If I may give a general advice: don't even try. See, the Leftie-Liberal is typically that kind of person who doesn't actually want to fix anything, he just wants to feel good about himself. Those people who have often similar ideas to Leftie-Liberals but actually care about fixing stuff, even though they are usually wrong, are called Neocons. 

shazam:

Glad to see I'm not the only one engaging in debate with liberals. Not to hijack the thread, but there were some funny things from my debates with my classmates on a variety of issues. An anti-war Obama suporter was literally denying the Boston Globe's legitimacy when I showed him an article from that paper that says "Obama defends votes in favor of Iraq funding". Also, when debating someone about Abraham Lincoln's legitimacy, who claimed Bush is the worst president in history, I asked him 'What do you hate about Bush?'. When he replied 'He started a meaningless war,' I said, 'So did Lincoln'. He was literally speechless.

But, getting back to the topic, if you're debating the minimum wage, simply ask them if a poor person whose work if only worth $1.50/hour should be forced to starve because a third-party thinks he is not being paid enough.

Aaah... I love dropping the Lincoln-Bomb on unsuspecting debators.  

Miklos Hollender:

...If I may give a general advice: don't even try. See, the Leftie-Liberal is typically that kind of person who doesn't actually want to fix anything, he just wants to feel good about himself. Those people who have often similar ideas to Leftie-Liberals but actually care about fixing stuff, even though they are usually wrong, are called Neocons.... 

... That's the one version, the "feel-good-liberals". The emotional types that is always so "sorry", if they hear someone is "suffering". Ok, they are sorry most of the time. They are not that sorry i.e. when White people are suffering by something non-Whites do. Perhaps they are even a little bit more sorry for Blacks that suffer from the government of Mugabe, but they prefer not to stress the that, since it has the potential of letting Black people look bad. The other type of "liberals" doesn't care about feeling good, they want to feel angry at White males. So they always are looking out for something that can let White males look bad. Then they have reason to be express moral outrage about the wicked things they are blaming White people for.

I agree these people don't care about sound rules for rational and logical debate. They also don't care about facts. They are on a pseudomoral mission and hence they fall into all kinds of fallacies, when they are arguing. Even if they are actually not convincing for many observers, they are still a bit persuasive. It's the power of emotion and the swift replies they can make, since they don't care about logic and accuracy.

The only way to follow is to try get some text and arguments by them. Then deal with those arguments thoroughly. Direct debate doesn't work, unless you yourself deviate (i.e.humor) from the rules of sound debate. 

 

Ask them why they want to make less productive workers - the unskilled, those just starting a career, etc. - unemployed? Do they hate students, young workers and immigrants?

Better, still, they are liberals: Ask them if they support taxing leaded petrol to increase the price and so the demand for leaded petrol. If they do, then they are tacitly admitting that artificially increasing the price of something leads to a fall in demand.

Ask them why a worker that wants to work for less than the minimum wage shouldn't be allowed to. 

 

When dealing with liberals (in the modern U.S. sense of the word) it is important to tap into their emotions. Show them how whatever it is they are advocating has unintended consequences that hurt some group of people they care about. Whatever you do, if you want to win the debate, NEVER question their motivations. That, I think is a mistake Ayn Rand made a lot. She questioned the motivations of her opponents. Sometimes their motivations ARE nefarious but not always. Either way, their economic solutions do far more harm than good. The Advocates for Self Government has some very good tapes and cds on this topic. If you are interested you may want to check out their store. One of their products that I found very helpful is the Essence of Political Persuasion.

 

http://www.theadvocates.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LS&Product_Code=EPP&Category_Code=AUD