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Truth and Balance

A Note on Basic Debate

By Arlon Staywell RICHMOND — There has been and there will always likely be in some sector or other a challenge to the relationship between truth and balance. The endeavor here is to explain this mysterious relationship.
Any debate whether a purchase is involved or not can be compared to a purchase.
For the purpose of this discussion let us assume that all the people involved in a debate are the purchasers of the product in question and not the producers. Producers are not ordinarily excluded from debates, but people with different interests sometimes are. For example one country does not debate the interests of another country. Voting is ordinarily restricted to the citizens.
Now assume the product is an ordinary new tractor that works fine and there are three cases. In case one the tractor sells for ten dollars. In case two the tractor sells for a ten million dollars. Consider case three later. For now look at the first two cases.
In case one all the people in the room, all the people involved in the debate, will believe the tractor should be purchased. In other words there is no debate.
In case two all the people in the room, all the people involved in the debate, will believe the tractor should not be purchased. It is a different position but there is still no debate.
Case three involves a price somewhere between the other two cases; higher than ten dollars, lower than ten million dollars, indeed at some point where half the people in the room want the purchase and half do not, let us say $4100.00 is that point. There is no automatic decision. To reach a decision there must be a debate. Debate always involves a more or less near balance if not a perfect balance. It should be noted that this is not necessarily the "equilibrium price" of economics where the number willing to sell at a given price is equal to the number willing to buy at that price. That "equilibrium price" is not arrived at by debate and assumes all the debating has been accomplished in the setting of the supply and demand curves.
Real life farmers are likely to be involved somehow in the production of tractors and that complicates the issue, but it does not change the underlying principle that a meaningful debate always involves a sort of balance. Even when no purchase is involved there will be no debate unless some balance is achieved. But almost all debates involve some new commitment of resources that makes the question much like a purchase.
Of course the truth is the truth whether any debate occurs or not, but the point here is that the truth does not go anywhere without debate.
If it is decided that "Plan B" will be enacted shouldn't that mean that all the proponents of "Plan A" have already been given some consideration?
This close relationship between truth and balance can be problematic though. Sometimes the "tractor" is on sale for "ten million dollars" and half the room still wants to debate. They came to believe that there should always be another side and that other side should be represented no matter how ridiculous it is. It is the force of habit, not good sense. The result is that things are raised in importance without qualification. Our first amendment right of free speech could not likely have intended that all ideas have equal merit, that is impossible. It could only mean that all ideas should have at least some small chance at consideration before being, if necessary, largely ignored. People who do not understand things get involved and expect all ideas to have equal merits. Journalism's guard against bias can get twisted into an inability to learn anything ever.
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Notice from the above that It did not say whether you believe in God doesn't matter because that is a one of those perfectly balanced questions. It should be obvious from all on this site that it is very important that you believe in God. Also belief in God does not involve resource allocation of the sort that was the topic of this article. What can be said, yes even today, June 3, 2008 is that it does not matter whether you believe in "god" as the term "god" is generally understood. And if you quote us please don't leave out the as-the-term-is-generally-understood essential point.
There are rampant misunderstandings of the term "god" in America today. Many believe that god wants us to use violence to promote that god. Many believe god wants us to have our every fleeting desire fulfilled. Some believe god will relax the laws of the universe anytime we ask.
In that light it is not critical to believe in those gods.
But most debates involve a reallocation of resources that is or resembles a purchase and there can be found a balance point.

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