Billy Beck throws up an interesting entry about the logic that underlies the conclusions many people come to:

The thing I was pointing to is a difference in why certain people conclude the things that they do. It’s really an epistemic issue, rather than the sort of political implication that I think you just asked about. The Marxists don’t, for instance, hold facts to be of serious value. To them, the first thing to know about how (not "what", but how) a person thinks is his class background. This is going to dictate his logic: the very rules of his thought. They really believe that the rules of thought are different for us, depending on our class background. This is what "polylogism" ("many logics") is all about.

Let me present another, which is a derivative, really, of what Billy has identified above. The religious left sees everyone as God’s creations, each different and unique. Some are endowed with great abilities, while some get the shaft. Those without are helpless to do anything about it themselves. Consequently, it’s the duty of those with abilities to uplift those without abilities. That’s the way to gain favor in the eyes of God.

As such, facts don’t matter much, because this logic undercuts any facts you might present, no matter how overwhelming. You say that you earned your values and are therefore the sole authority in determining their disposition? Irrelevant. You’re being selfish. Your bounty is a gift from God, and the only way to achieve godly virtue is to give your values away to those without such gifts.

My greatest frustration in dealing with the left is their propensity to dismiss facts outright. They’ll just run right by them, no matter how many, and tell me that they have a different perspective. What that means is that they believe they have different rules of thought than I do because of their different background and beliefs.

By way of example, I have recently been told that in spite of my eight years as a Naval officer, and all that entails regarding military tactics and history; in spite of my reasonable grasp of history; in spite of the fact that we have an all-volunteer military; and in spite of quite a lot of other facts, it’s all meaningless. I can’t possibly speak with any authority as to the war. Why? Why, because I don’t have a child with some potential of getting caught up in the conflict. I don’t have the right perspective, so I can’t think how they think.

For essentially the same reason, no matter how many facts I have at my disposal, I can never be a master of public policy as concerns racial minorities. Why? Why, because such facts don’t matter. What matters is that I do not possess the perspective of being a racial minority. I can’t think how they think, and that’s far more important than facts and the argument those facts necessarily imply.

Arguing against facts is a fine thing. But there’s only one way to do it, and that’s to bring more relevant facts to the table.