I’ve been following the posts here and here at EconLog, elaborations of this post by Will Wilkinson on how, in Wilkinson’s words, accepting a label “lowers your IQ by 15 points”. From the second linked post:
So, for example, if it was evil for Bush Jr. to lock people up without a trial, it’s just as evil for Obama to do so. If it’s evil for Obama to extend socialized medicine to higher-income people than had previously been the case, it’s just as evil for Bush Jr. to have extended socialized medicine to prescription drugs. In many of these cases, I might think that the word “evil” is over-used, but it’s still better to use it generally as one’s evaluation of a policy than to use it selectively depending on who is advocating or implementing the policy. I’m advocating simple consistency in making judgments, as I have long done. Our debates would be a lot better if everyone followed the standard I’m advocating.
I would go farther than that. I think that when ideology causes you to reject the human dignity of your ideological opponents it is quite literally evil.
