*sigh*, they did it again. This time it's 20 MAGA republicans vs 1 democrat. Im not gonna lie, this one was PAINFUL to watch. Like, the MAGA in this one were so stupid, dishonest, or both. I would not have the patience to do these debates. It's like playing chess with a pigeon. They just knock over the pieces and strut around acting like they're victorious.
I won't go into individual claims. Nothing was said that was substantive enough to discuss, outside of maybe the last claim which I have a rant about. But yeah, these people are just in their own little world, it's all feels over reals. They make claims that are patently false. When logical contradictions are brought up, they pivot, deflect, or act like it's different somehow. It's just a crapshow.
The last claim involved the idea that democrats "hate America" and then this guy just kept talking over this guy. He handled it very coolly, and was very professional, dismantling him and making him look bad, but I probably would've lost my crap and told him to F off. he was just doing this mccarthyist thing of making radical claim, when said claim defines "America" as conservative values. Hes ranting about communists and zohran mamdani and blah blah blah and its like...so people cant disagree with you now? Thats what i hate about the "hate america" crap. These guys define "America" in these very romanticized terms, and often appeal to stuff like "freedom" (which i support), "hard work" (BLEH!), the judeo Christian worldview, etc. And it's just...ugh. And then this guy just kept talking over him and not letting him get a word in edgewise while claiming HE was the one getting cut off any time this guy tried to respond. Again, you try this crap on me, I'm not particularly gonna be civil about it. It's obvious what this was trying to do.
Anyway, as far as my view on that, while I do hate conservative values and this romanticized idea of "America" that conservatives have (which is a "civil religion" parallel to literal religion), I approach the issue differently. I take the Al Franken approach. Conservatives love America like 4 year olds love their mommies. if you say anything bad about mommy you must HATE mommy and that makes you a bad person because mommy is good. Meanwhile, Al Franken points out liberals love America too, we just handle that love like adults do where we dont give people a pass on every crappy thing they do, and we want our loved one to, you know, grow, and do the right thing. And I'd say that's where I'm at.
I know some leftists, like DIE HARD leftists, tend to have an "anti America" mindset. Like, you cant bring up anything american without them bashing it. Like if you bring up FDR, they'll bring up internment camps. If you bring up Lincoln they'll bring up how he was actually somewhat racist. if you bring up a founder they'll go on about how they were slave owners. Nothing is ever good enough and when your perspective devolves into America/west bad, yeah you kinda do hate America. But liberals have always been a bit more nuanced, at least the smart ones.
I admit my country has faults. And I discuss them on here. heck, being steeped in the history of this country and the world as of late, really, some might get the opinion that I DO hate this country, this system, etc. But at the same time, I also acknowledge that no state is perfect. There's no state on this planet that is morally perfect. And blind nationalism is a mental disease as far as I'm concerned. We need to be honest about the faults of our state, our social and economic systems, etc., if we want to change them for the better and improve them. But that's the problem with the "love america" crowd. They think America is perfect and beyond reproach and that anyone criticizing it must hate it. it's a really immature mindset.
Of course, unlike on this blog, in a debate, you'd never be allowed to say that as the whole point of the argument is to hurl baseless accusations at people and never let them get a word in edgewise to defend themselves, which is precisely what happened here, this guy wasnt honestly interested in discussion. He was trying to pull this mccarthyist BS of just screaming at people and not letting them defend themselves. And to be fair, the democratic debater handled it well, whereas I probably would've just told him to go F himself and ended it there. Because I dont respond to that nonsense well.
Here's the thing, liberal ideas are complex and require explaining. Hell, there's a reason I dont do live debates and instead hide behind this blog and the book im trying to write. because I do better when I can actually argue for my ideas on my own terms, while republican/conservative ideas tend to be assumed by default, and defending them often requires a lot of rhetorical dishonesty like logical fallacies, gish galloping, and just never letting your opponent talk. If your opponent cant talk, they win. And that's the asymmetry that we on the left have to put up with. And it gets worse the further left you are, as you are often operating from an entirely different paradigm that requires tons and tons of theory just to explain. The conservative relies on disrupting peoples' abilities to argue their viewpoints properly. And this isn't just a republican vs democrat problem, but a liberal vs leftist one too. In the democratic primaries, keep in mind what my argument was about the field being rigged against the left. it relied on things like media control and dishonest hosts who wouldnt let their opponent talk properly and constantly guided the conversation on their terms.
Again, if the left can argue its ideas, it can probably make a good case. But most people are stupid, quite frankly, and as long as the media does a good enough job in not letting someone with progressive or leftist (keep in mind you dont need to even be a full blown leftist to have this happen to you, even a progressive liberal is gonna get this treatment) views talk and explain their point of view properly, they win. So they try to disrupt how you talk.
Conservatives do it to liberals, and liberals do it to progressives and leftists. And that's a huge reason why the right is so favored. It's the "thank you for smoking" ice cream scene in practice. It's not about convincing you, it's about convincing the masses. And keep in mind, the masses are stupid. They eat it all up, and that's why we don't win. Even if we're right. Because as the guy in the scene said, when your job is to never be wrong, you're never wrong, and you'll basically use any intellectually dishonest deflection in order to achieve the result that you want. Which is what happened here and what the "liberals hate America" crap is about. it's about knocking us off balance where we gotta defend ridiculous accusations, and then never letting us talk enough to defend ourselves. Again, that's how they win. it's dishonest, it's hacky, intellectuals know better, but most people aren't intellectuals so it sticks. Again, it's why i hate actual live in person debates and stick to text. You cant pull that crap on me if I can just type a monologue explaining my views.
Btw, this is one of the reasons I became an atheist. I remember when I was deconverting, I was watching debates between Madalyn Murray O Hair and some preacher dude and the preacher dude acted like this. Atheist proposes valid points, Christian just craps all over the place like a pigeon playing chess. Why bother playing with these people if they dont play fair?
And yeah, it's the same thing with Charlie Kirk too. Everyone is like "oh he tried to debate when he was alive, he was civil." He was a hack. Not saying he should have died, I'm very much against that sort of murder. But to actually criticize his debate skills and the concept of civil debate, he wasn't a real honest debater, he was a conservative hack who debated dumb college students who havent yet been able to fully develop their worldviews and then acts like they're so smart for "winning." It's like me bragging about getting 100 kills in casual breakthrough in Battlefield 6 when i just spent all match sitting in a corner farming bots with a meta gun of my choice. I know some people actually do take pride in doing that, but it's not an accomplishment. Same thing here. Kirk rarely debated actual intellectual equals on equal ground. He was known for being a debate bro who smacked down college students.
And yeah. See the conservative MO yet? I didn't plan on going into conservatives being intellectually dishonest debaters but that's kind of where this ended up. You see a pattern enough you end up eventually calling it out, i guess. And yeah. it's hacky and dishonest, sorry, not sorry.
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