Conservative v. Liberal at UT

I went to a political debate last night at UT.  My experience with political talks at UT has been generally marked by unpleasantness, so I was mildly surprised to see that the crowd was very respectful across the board.  Featured debaters were Jamie Galbraith, well-known economist, and Daniel Bonevac, not-well-known Philosophy professor.  The event was introduced by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Paul Woodruff and moderated by the director of the LBJ Library, Betty Sue Flowers.

First, I want to commend UT and the school for Undergraduate Studies for doing this.  The event was truly one of "political argumentation" where two differing points of view were offered on questions that the students asked.  All of the Freshman Interest Groups were asked to submit questions, and a committee selected the best ones to ask the participants.  They were good general questions and frankly, made some of the national "debates" that ran on the same format look stupid.

That being said, I wondered if there wasn't a little conservative geist at work.  Judging from the applause, the audience was very balanced.  Dan Bonevac is an accomplished singer, among other things, and has a great speaking voice.  Jamie Galbraith has a voice that was made for closed captioning.  For Bonevac, the questions needed serious answers.  For Galbraith, the first question may as well have been, "Why should we, the audience, feel deeply grateful and honored to have such an eminence address us?"  In his recitation about how he is a very busy man, much in demand in these tough economic times, he even said, "Bill Moyers asked me to come to New York for an interview, and I said no, this debate is too important!" in an obvious reference to McCain's putting off of the debate tonight (which he's going to after all, apparently.)  I was gratified to note that the name "Bill Moyers" didn't cut any ice with the under-fifty crowd, much less the under-20 crowd.  In fact, that was a big problem for Mr. Galbraith.  He referred several times to McCain's involvement in the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal ("The biggest financial scandal in the United States up to this week!!!")  and you could tell that none of the kids had any idea what he was talking about, so they couldn't even tell that he was pulling that one out of his dark place.  That association doesn't have any legs, anyway, so his outrage wasn't echoed at all.

We voted, my friends and I, and decided that the strangest assertion of the evening was that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were responsible for the creation of the middle class in America.  Hint: Bonevac didn't say that.  The second strangest was that you had to be an economist to understand that there was NOTHING WRONG with Social Security.  Nothing, it's fine, don't worry your pretty heads about this.  Professor Bonevac is a philosopher, so he can't understand Social Security.  

Professor Bonevac to an opportunity during rebuttal to announce that he disagreed with "his preferred candidate" on the issue of global warming, and gave an excellent synopsis (two minutes) of the reasons there were to doubt the veracity of the whole Global Warmist view.  I thought that was really excellent, as was his very thoughtful response to a question "Should a candidate's religion matter?"  Interestingly, Galbraith's answer wasn't very objectionable, but was at arm's length, the way someone who isn't religious or is uncomfortable with religion, would sound magnanimous.  Bonevac's answer was more thoughtful and he admitted that, as a religious person, he was attuned to the ways in which religious faith can inform a worldview, and indeed should inform a person's ethical decision-making.  Understanding a person's faith, or lack of it, gives you insight into their guiding principles, and that is a very important consideration.

Really, an excellent evening.