THE ISSUE: Following last month's Moral March demonstration in Raleigh, the North Carolina NAACP and Forward Together Moral Movement released a list of six key demands to federal lawmakers. These viewpoints examine how effective the demands would be in making a societal difference. You can read the other side here.
Reading the News & Observer article entitled “NAACP, Moral March groups will deliver key legislative demands,” I found the headlined groups made demands out of a wide swathe of objectives — from having lawmakers make specific statements about voter fraud to having them oppose repealing the Affordable Care Act. These demands, and others, are a disturbing sight for those who value discussion.
That’s because, as I see it, people make demands in place of arguments. Which made me think: Why cast argument aside for a demand in the quest to achieve a cooperative goal?
Since the North Carolina NAACP and like-minded groups don’t seem particularly influential with the current legislative majorities in Raleigh or Washington, I can’t imagine they are making demands out of confidence that they will be quickly heard and obeyed.
Another potential motivation, a belief in the widely evident righteousness of their cause, seems more plausible at first. But to believe that unflinching support for the ACA is moral dogma for most Americans, for example, would be just as evidently deluded.
So that brings me to a last, unlikely, explanation: The NAACP and other progressive leaders — indeed, all leaders who make demands in lieu of discussion — do so because of an infantile incapability to use rational arguments as their main tool of persuasion.
Oh hell, it’s probably just that prolific, politicized demands enliven a hardened voter base — effects on polarization be damned.
We trust our leaders to argue for good: it’s time they started doing so.
