The Closure Rule in Critical Discussion

The US is going to pay off down $35 billion of debt in the third quarter.

You heard that right. Despite our decision early in the recession to go with stimulus instead of austerity, the US is going to reduce its debt this year.

This flies in the face of the predictions conservatives made during the 2012 election.

I was told by the conservatives around dinning room tables, on internet forums, and over the airwaves that Obama's re-election was going to lead to increased debt and deficit.

There was no doubt. Obama's policies, in the eyes of conservatives, would lead to nothing but more debt.

I was told he wasn't cutting spending - he was increasing spending. Any claim the President made about cutting spending was trickery according to those with whom I argued.

When I told these conservative I thought they had it wrong, they told me I didn't understand the math. I suggested those conservatives were bending the truth, and they told me the President and the media were bending the truth.

Now we are paying off a portion of the debt.

This is happening around the same time the economic argument for austerity has been exposed as shoddy, and around the same time research has demonstrated the very rich have done just fine despite accusations of Obama's policy being class warfare.

According to the Closure Rule from Pragma-Dialectics rules of critical discussion, "A failed defense of a standpoint must result in the party that put forward the standpoint retracting it".

I'm waiting... but I'm not holding my breath.