Me: “So in the…
Me: “So in the meantime, you suggest dissembling my views in the name of political expediency?”
Nick: “No, I’m suggesting that you realize turning roads into toll roads and legalizing heroin are not accomplishable political goals at this moment in time. I support some pretty radical ideas too, including one of the two you mentioned, but you won’t hear me start to talk about them until we actually have the average voter’s attention and trust. Let’s first show them that legalizing marijuana won’t cause the social structure of America to collapse.”
But Nick, how is what you’re suggesting here different from the way I characterized it? You’re recommending that libertarian candidates conceal their real views from voters in order to curry political favor. Isn’t that dissembling?
Nick,
Here’s a hypothetical. Suppose I believe that all drug laws should be completely repealed (so I believe in legalizing heroin), but I want to run a Sensible Moderate campaign so I’ve focused on legalizing marijuana and I haven’t said one mumbling word about repealing all drug laws or legalizing “hard drugs” in particular.
It’s not crazy to think that my opponent, or perhaps some other concerned citizen, won’t be too dense to put two and two together. One thing that often happens in controversial campaigns is that the advocate gets asked to clarify just how far she’d go. So suppose that at the debate my opponent asks me point-blank whether I’m for legalize heroin, too.
Now I see only three options for my answer. I could:
- Admit that I do support legalizing heroin, thus committing “political suicide” and abandoning my Sensible Moderate approach;
- Lie about my views to avoid 1; or
- Evade the question or obfuscate the issue to avoid both 1 and 2.
What do you suggest I do?
Anticopyright.