We’ll Just Have to Agree to Disagree

Am I the only one who thinks this is an absolutely absurd expression? I’m never going to agree to disagree with anybody. Either we agree on a matter or we don’t. Either it’s factually correct or it isn’t. There’s no middle ground. Isn’t it like saying “Yes, you scored the only goal, but let’s agree that it’s a draw because that suits me better than agreeing with you that you won”.

I was in a group at a function last week chatting about the world. Turns out that the last man standing in the presidential stakes for the Democrats in the US, superbrain Joe Biden, had announced just that day that, if he is elected, not another foot of border wall will be built under his presidency. Personally, I was surprised he managed to say that many words without cocking them up, so that was a plus, but of course anything Trump suggests is bad, so no surprises there. Biden has forgotten that the wall was their policy too – until it wasn’t. But never mind. Biden can’t remember where he is or what day it is a lot of the time. And he’s the best they can offer out of 360 plus million people. Sad.

Anyway, a couple of lefties in the group suddenly lit up without having a clue what political leanings others in the group might have and started bad-mouthing Trump. He was elected illegally, has been acting illegally, nobody in the US approves of his wall or of him and he’s the worst president in the history of the country and should be impeached.

When I politely pointed out that actually they had already tried that and failed, they became quite agitated and started with the usual attacks against Trump and his supporters (meaning me of course because I’d dared to question them), and insisted the whole thing was a set up by the Republicans and that Trump deserved to be impeached regardless.

It’s hard to argue logic to the illogical and arguably clinically insane (they are lefties after all), but I was in a happy frame of mind so I thought I’d be polite and try to engage logically with them and ignore their name calling.

Both of them own their own homes in upper socioeconomic suburbs of Auckland, their own little quarter acres of which they are both very proud. They’re happy to have their private property fenced off and weren’t going to have a bar of taking down the fences so they could share their back yards with the next door neighbours or even allow a neighbour to borrow a couple of extra metres for a garden.

A lot of judginess took place when I suggested they were being hypocrites, and they certainly said a few naughty words when I suggested a couple of busloads from one of the poorer suburbs should be allowed to move in and build on their lawns and raise their families there; after all, they had much more than they really needed.

Yes, I was winding them up, but how is their private property border any different, other than in scale, than a country protecting its border from illegal immigrants?

It’s most odd how they just couldn’t move a portion of a millimeter in their thinking. I know that we have private property rights (at least we did until 3 years ago when a bunch of idiots were appointed to government), and I wasn’t asking them to part with their property. I was merely drawing a comparison to make a point. Several others in the group agreed fully with my example but not these two lefties. They called us more and more names, used fouler and fouler language, accused us of being racists and became very abusive until eventually, realising that they might have crossed a few boundaries of decency, they opted for “We’ll just have to agree to disagree”.

The ultimate cop-out for ignorant fools who are out of their depth. When they can’t convince you with a logical, structured, sound lineup of facts, the only thing left is to call it a draw: “We’ll just have to agree to disagree”.

Well actually, no thank you very much. If that’s the best you can do, you should have just shut up. You shouldn’t have raised the subject. You shouldn’t be debating the subject. Either have something factual to say to support your position and persuade us or just accept you don’t have a valid argument.

But please do everybody including yourself a favour: By all means disagree. BUT NEVER say, “We’ll just have to agree to disagree.” You don’t get to call it a draw just because you can’t make your point.

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