Without emotional responses, what do liberals have left? They certainly don't have "reasoned" ones.
 

I'm going to have to disagree with you here, because I tend to be a strong supporter of emotional responses. Reasoned responses are based on logic, and logic can be a dangerous tool to use in policy-making.

For example, the Constitution and its amendments are not, in my opinion, logical documents. I see them as emotional documents which state the "feelings" that the country is founded upon. Examined logically, much of these documents are meaningless ("Cruel and unusual punishment"? "Public use"?). I think the greatest strength of our government is that people blindly, irrationally believe in the emotions behind them.
 

You make a really good point about the Constitution, but consider these more contemporary issues:

Liberals support Affirmative-Action based on emotions, because studies (logic) conclusively show that Affirmative-Action slows the growth of the black middle class.

Liberal support gun control although studies (logic) show that increased gun control legislation leads to higher crime rates.

John Edwards said that “When John Kerry’s President, Christopher Reeve is gone walk. He is gonna get up out of that chair and walk again.” This was of course trying to make the case that John Kerry would push for more government sanctioned embryonic stem cell research which according to Silky (Edwards) would have guaranteed Superman’s rehabilitation.

None of these traditionally liberal issues check out logically.

So, I guess it goes both ways.
 

Well, to be fair, Edwards may have been making a "Pigs fly" type comment.

But more importantly, at least for the first two issues, I feel that the discussions of "studies show this is bad or this is good" are a dangerous approach to use. Our right to bear arms is not contingent on the safety we gain by having them. Equal protection is not only applicable when doing so helps the government. Making these arguments at all gives fascists the opportunity to take away our basic freedoms if they can only convince people that their interpretation of studies is better. And these are studies, they mean nothing, because they can say whatever you want them to say.

I think libertarians make a serious mistake by arguing that the free market works better, because it invites people to find examples where this is not the case and say "Okay, we won't use the free market here." On the other hand, if they argue from the perspective of rights, opponents have no choice but to admit they oppose freedom.
 

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Certainly Edwards was making a “Pigs fly” type of comment, and that is exactly my point. He was doing so to muster up emotional appeal for his cause, in this case, government sponsorship of embryonic stem-cell research. What if Edwards gave us the honest truth and said: “although there are over 20 different types of stem cells to research, and although George W. Bush is the first President in history to allocate government funds for stem cell research, and although the media has alluded to a fictional “ban” on stem cell research despite the fact that stem research is legal and embryonic stem cell research is legal if it can be funded privately, John Kerry will allocate government funds for embryonic stem cell research, which has a small chance to help the rehabilitation of quadriplegics, like Christopher Reeve”? People would have realized Edwards has no case. His only hope is to appeal to people’s emotions by painting Kerry as a humanitarian who is fighting for the less fortunate.

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Of course I am not going to post the entirety of these particular “studies” in the comment section of your blog, and I would be the first to admit you have to be very careful of what data you choose to site, but I would definitely not go far enough to say “studies are meaningless.” Some data has more relevance than others.

The reason why libertarian politics has so much appeal to me is because it seems like giving people maximum freedom leads to statistical advantages as well. Often, both the statistics and the fact that it is a right lead to the same conclusion. I believe in minimal gun control because I am under the impression that gun control leads to higher crime rates and I see it as a right. Other times, the statistics and the right factor disagree; in these instances, the right prevails over the stats. Libertarians tend to site statistics frequently, but when a right is in question we site the Constitution just as often.

Constitutional law has the luxury of being set in stone, but we can’t look at everything on an “is it or isn’t it a right” basis. When it is not a right that is in question, it is important to look at the motivations behind the legislation and then decide whether the emotional appeal has more relevance or the statistical appeal has more relevance.

What a can of worms I opened up…