Here’s an exchange between liberal netroots guru Matt Stoller and Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff that will make reasonable people fear for the future of democracy.

In a post on the MyDD blog, Stoller asserts that “if you hate democracy, as the right-wing does, then taxes are the price for paying for something you really don’t want”:

I just paid my taxes, and I have to say, I always take pride when I do so. I don’t like having less money to spend, of course, and the complexity of the process is really upsetting. But I am proud to pay for democracy, and I feel when I do send money to the DC Treasurer and the US Treasury that that is what I am doing. The right-wing likes to pretend as if taxes are a burden instead of the price of democracy. And I suppose, if you hate democracy, as the right-wing does, then taxes are the price for paying for something you really don’t want.

I don’t spend a lot of time reading the so-called liberal netroots blogs, but if this is the level of discourse on them, things are worse than I thought. Do netroots liberals just take it for granted now that all conservatives hate democracy? Talk about argument by assertion.

Mirengoff — an attorney who graduated from Stanford Law School (!) — then offered a response that would get him thrown out of Logic 101:

According to Stoller, “the right-wing likes to pretend as if taxes are a burden instead of the price of democracy.” But while some taxation is the price of democracy (or virtually any other form of government) excessive taxation is, by definition, an undue burden. Excessive taxation is also harmful to our society, unless one believes that there’s no level of taxation that would throw our economy into a downward spiral and/or take too much control of spending decisions out of the hands of citizens.

Rather than bothering to make an argument that Americans pay too much in taxes, Mirengoff makes the tautological statement that “excessive taxation is, by definition, an undue burden.” Yes, that is what the word “excessive” means. However, asserting an adjective and then defining it is not an argument.

To sum this exchange up in terms Stoller and Mirengoff might understand:
(1) Many partisan bloggers appear incapable of constructive debate;
(2) A bad argument is, by definition, bad.