Category: Denialists’ Deck of Cards

Okay industry lobbyists in training, you’ve started just making up arguments to confuse everyone. That’s a method of confusing issues. Now you should start confusing individuals’ roles in the policy process. It’s time to start playing government officials off each other.

If you don’t like what the federal government is doing, say that it is a state issue. Of course, if the states are active on the issue, you should argue that it is a federal issue, and that state action will create a “patchwork” of conflicting requirements. The “patchwork” argument is also an effective tool to broaden opposition to a measure.

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Now, the debate starts to get fun. This group of Denialists’ cards are all about spreading confusion. The more that one muddies the waters, the harder it is for anyone to do anything.

And so, the place to start is with the Red Herring.

The “red herring” argument is a frequently-employed and efficacious tool to confuse everyone. A red herring is a specious argument–one that sounds cogent, but isn’t really responsive to the issue at hand. Just make something up that sounds good. My favorite example of this is in the financial privacy sector. A few years ago, when California was trying to establish opt-in (affirmative consent) requirements before a bank could share personal information, banking industry officials claimed that it would cause the ATM network to break. Why? Because the complex process of dispensing cash would be interrupted by having to ask the consumer for her consent! This was a bogus argument because the legislation in question clearly allowed information to be shared in any circumstance where a consumer requested a specific service.

This pair should sound familiar. Industry lobbyists love the idea of individual responsibility. And so they will argue that individuals should be responsible for addressing a problem (paired with the 4 of Clubs or the 6 of Clubs). But in other contexts, accountability goes out the window. They need total immunity from lawsuits.

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The trick to using the “Jobs” card is to totally over inflate the size of your industry and the number of employees it has. It’s quite a compelling argument, and sometimes it’s true. But I’ve seen many cases where a regulation creates new jobs and economic development.

A great recent example of the 7 of Hearts was occurred in the debate surrounding adoption of the federal Do-Not-Call Telemarketing Registry. The telemarketing industry claimed that they employed 6 million Americans, and had $668 billion in sales. But the economic census showed that telemarketing only accounted for 500,000 jobs and $8 billion in sales. A closer look at the numbers showed that the telemarketing industry’s figures were grossly inflated–they included both in-bound telemarketing (like when you call Delta to buy a $2k ticket), and telemarketing sales among huge businesses (like when Delta calls Boeing to order a plane) in the $668 billion figure. Neither of these types of sales are affected by Do-Not-Call legislation.

Many cards in the Denialists’ Deck allow one to make a bogus argument no matter the situation.

So, with the Six of Spades and the Seven of Clubs, you use one card if your industry is highly regulated, and the other if it isn’t.

Competition is magic. But this argument must be amplified! How? Easy, appeal to “innovation.”

The denalist will argue that the intervention will stifle innovation. Typical 6 of Hearts arguments include “this is just a tool,” and “you’re banning technology.” Next is the 6 of Diamonds, a somewhat contradictory but still widely-used argument–that technology “can’t be regulated.” Of course, any technology can (just look at standard setting organizations), but this exercise isn’t about being cogent, it’s about stopping whatever intervention the denialist opposes.

Allow me to jump ahead in the Denialists’ Deck of Cards, in light of Verizon’s claim that giving customer records to the National Security Agency is protected by the First Amendment:

“Communicating facts to the government is protected petitioning activity,” says the response, even when the communication of those facts would normally be illegal or would violate a company’s owner promises to its customers. Verizon argues that, if the EFF and other groups have concerns about customer call records, the only proper remedy “is to impose restrictions on the government, not on the speaker’s right to communicate.”

This is a great example of “Our Rights!”

The denalist can almost always argue that any restriction on business activity is unconstitutional. After all, businesses were afforded many civil rights before women achieved suffrage.

Delay always benefits the denalist. At this point, any number of delay tactics can be employed to wait and see whether consumer education will solve the problem that doesn’t exist.

The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach and beyond dispute. All it says is: “Everything that appears is good; whatever is good will appear.” – Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

You’ve argued that consumer education can set individuals free. Now argue that because something exists, people must want it. After all, the market is perfect, and even if it produces a seemly odious product, it’s not really a problem. On the other hand, if consumers start making choices that the denialist doesn’t like, the denialist will say that individuals don’t really know what they want.

So, whether you go with consumers want it or consumers do not know what they want, you conclude with the “no problem” chorus.

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