John James, you are right. Although in my defense I wasn’t comparing Friedman and Paul on “overall personal conduct”. I explained exactly why I thought Friedman was great in that Donohue clip, and is generally an excellent communicator, and I wanted something to contrast it to. The example of Paul on Downey came to mind, because ever since I first saw that, I’ve considered it an example of how NOT to communicate libertarian ideas effectively. I used to behave a bit like Paul on Downey in my own conversations, out of frustration mostly, and it’s now something I’ve learned never to do, because it doesn’t do any good. I now try to be like Paul of today, or Friedman, or Kokesh, or that guy who spoke at the Occupy protests (can’t find the link… I expect you know the one I mean).
That Downey show stands out for me precisely because Paul is usually not like that at all. Of course the host, the audience and the format of the show were stacked against him, and no I don’t “blame” him for losing his cool, but he DID lose his cool, and he was dismissive, insulting, rude, raised his voice, got flustered, etc. Far less than everyone else in that studio, granted, but the art of communicating ideas requires staying cool no matter what the situation, if you can. Stay above it, if you can.
You say that Paul didn’t go on the Downey show to win minds, but isn’t that always what Paul is trying to do, one way or another? When you say it was just “a springboard for publicity” are you basing that on the “any publicity is good publicity” principle? Do you think his going on the show was a net-benefit or a net-loss in terms of the overall goal of winning minds?
A personal anecdote. About six months ago I was having lunch with about a dozen colleagues of mine and, as often happens, I got into a political discussion with one of them (John), who I regularly debate with. We were going at it for at least half an hour. I can’t remember what we were talking about. Those around us were zoned out of our conversation, not interested, as per usual. But anyway, when we were walking back to work, one of them said to John and me “I take it Graham won that debate…?”. John asked him why. He said something to the effect of: “Because you were raising your voice and getting frustrated, while Graham was calm the whole time”.
That comment has stuck with me, because I think it’s very common for people who don’t have a strong opinion themselves (and don’t consider themselves educated enough to argue or even have an opinion) to make up their mind based not on the arguments presented, but on the conduct of the person presenting them.