Letter: On locals, patriots, environmentalists and Scotsmen

Since moving to South Lake Tahoe more than 2 years ago, I’ve spent a lot of time participating in community forums and City Council meetings. Within moments, labels like "local," "patriot" and "environmentalist” come forth and are used to dismiss and exclude others from the community discourse. These terms are clear examples of the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy that painfully and unnecessarily divides us.

The "no true Scotsman" fallacy works like this: A person makes a generalization about a group (e.g. "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."). When you provide a counterexample that refutes the claim (e.g. "But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge."), instead of acknowledging the evidence, they simply move the goalposts by adding an ad hoc qualifier ("But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.").

Most frequently, we see this faulty logic employed with the "local" label all the time. Those who were born and raised here often gatekeep the term, dismissing anyone who relocated from elsewhere as an illegitimate resident and stakeholder in Tahoe's future. To wit, the City Council recently unanimously voted to spend $50,000 on a consultant to pave a legal pathway for having a “locals preference” for affordable housing projects (after spending City staff time and effort researching the proposal), in effect spending tax dollars attempting to defend the non-existent gates of the City from largely non-existent invaders.

The same thing happens across the political spectrum. On the right, the term "patriot" is often thrown around, and anyone insufficiently reverent about moral panics, religion, the military, “welfare housing”, or conspiracy theories about George Soros and communists get the dreaded "not a real patriot" label and get shut out of the conversation.

The left is not immune either - we see "environmentalists" employing this tactic to silence dissenting views on how best to protect Tahoe's natural splendor. Any criticism of current policies or priorities around development, tourism, and conservation gets branded as "anti-environment." Those raising concerns get swiftly dismissed as "not real environmentalists.” This fallacy allows one ideological camp to monopolize the "environmentalist" identity while diminishing all others as illegitimate, regardless of the evidence. One needs not look any further than the debates over the purchase/demolition of the Motel 6, BurnBot, and 25 trees per acre to see this behavior.

At the end of the day, no one has a monopoly over what makes someone a "local," "patriot," or "environmentalist." These are multi-faceted identities that encompass a wide range of perspectives, priorities and lived experiences. By employing the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, we create tribal insiders and outsiders that only succeed in dividing us.

True community discourse requires respecting different viewpoints, not dismissing them through flawed logic. We should celebrate our diversity rather than cast out others as inadequate “locals”, “patriots” or “environmentalists” for being newcomers, holding different political positions, or advocating for the development of housing, the tourism economy, and fire resiliency. Productive solutions only arise from engaging arguments openly, not circular attempts to invalidate others' legitimacy. We all have a voice in Tahoe's future, together.

- Seth Dallob