Example of Rhetoric Versus Evidence

In my heart I really don't think that people get the difference between rhetoric and evidence. Let me show an example.

I am having a conversation today with a Democrat that is personally involved in politics (and has been for a long time.) He is throwing around a lot of conclusions and when I ask him for some evidence so we can consider that evidence with him he replies...

"The reason we cannot vote for McCain is because it was their de-regulation in Congress that is making main street poorer and making Bush Republicans richer and we MUST NOT ALLOW THAT ANYMORE!"

He looks around the room with a smile, eyes chasing for support of this statement. I replied, "Well, that is a conclusion, but isn't evidence. It makes an assumption of evidence but it doesn't contain anything but a conclusion and an assumption. For example, evidence does tell us that the deregulation of wall street with regard to the mortgage crisis started with President Carter in a federal mandate to the banking industry to make mortgages more affordable. It was under the administration of Clinton that wall street was de-regulated so that banks could sell the interest from mortgage loans as if they were stocks, and it was a lack of voting for the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act co-authored by McCain that kept us in harms way since 2003. Those are published facts. Maybe there are more facts to be considered, but those are facts. From those facts we should be able to conclude that it isn't the fault of "Bush Republicans." Here are some additional facts. Under Clinton, guys like Rubin, Summers (co-authors of the deregulation) and Fannie Mae executive Reines have profited from that same deregulation. So clearly "Bush Republicans" weren't the only people getting richer. In fact Fannie Mae's second largest recipient of campaign contributions is Barack Obama, and Obama has in one way or the other asked for help or retained the help of these Democrats who de-regulated wall street, which means that Obama is interested in seeking the council of the architects of the deregulation and profiteering of wall street and the mortgage situation on main street. How does this support your view?"

All of this said, people are not willing to review or even tollerate the facts. They seem to rather want to fill their pockets with the rhetoric of generalized stereotypical blame that says that Republicans are bad for various reasons. It is evident to me that if Obama were to become president that this level of introspection (or lack thereof) would likely continue and blameshifting through stereotypes would continue. I would give anything for someone to review the facts as a Democrat and explain how their paradigm fits in with this history (either minimize it in a reasonable manner or produce facts that bring a more whole perspective.) Instead I am left hopeless, imagining that they would rather simply not really care about this stuff and ride their horse to the whitehouse in November.

To me, this sticking your head in the stand to a degree is starting to feel pretty un-American. Other folks I have worked with have brought up stuff they have heard about McCain or Palin and we are able to talk about their strengths and weaknesses (we did do that for a very long time where I work.) I am starting to feel like Obama folks would rather just vote him into office rather than look at the details. I would rather be brought evidence from Democrats and then we would all be forced to consider a more complete perspective rather than just reduce this whole thing to something less than reasonable.