On Civil Debate

In participating in online debates over the past decade, I have learned that there are a few lines that are not crossed if your purpose is to engage in ideological dialogue as opposed to simply needing to be the resident authoritarian. I’m supposing these tactics especially bother me or grab my attention more than others because I’m a mom and it goes against everything I try to teach my children. One is, of course, name-calling:

“You’re an idiot”

“You are talking out of your arse”

“You people are just a bunch of sheep”

At this point, the participant is lost. The issue becomes the name-calling, not the value of the dialogue itself. When this occurs, all that comes to my mind are listening to my children bickering and calling each other names and me yelling “just stop, just stop, JUST STOPPPPP!!! You’re brothers; you don’t treat each other this way!” Have you been there?

Perhaps the crossed line that prompts my eyes to roll the most is the coy degradation of other's intellect, which seems to have become the rule rather than the exception:

To understand issues the correct way (aka MY way) “requires an education and logic”

In other words, you can’t possibly lend any value to society if your travel count on the atlas is less than 5, you don’t hold certain graduate degrees, or if you were educated outside of the public school system. (If you’re a Washington politician sending your children to private school, you’re ok.) Unless all of the above is true, your opinion does not matter; you are but a serf who requires my protection.

To understand issues the correct way (aka MY way) “requires an open mind”

In other words, only YOU must open your mind, but not me. You close your mind to your way of thinking and join me and my closed-mindedness over here. Then we can all have the same mind together and live in harmony. And here I've always thought it a good thing that we didn't all think the same way.

To understand issues the correct way (aka MY way) “requires one to be non-obstructionist”

In other words, only when MY politicians are in power should you not attempt to obstruct. When YOUR guys are in power, obstruct away, and please, don’t hold back.

And I love- JUST LOVE- this one.

“You just don’t like him because he’s a black man.”

Republicans are defiant against Obama’s policies, but not because he’s black. Democrats were vehemently defiant against Bush’s policies, but not because he’s white. Maybe because he’s a Christian, but not because he’s white.     See my point?

In my opinion, all of the above is arrogance and self-importance at its finest, and until someone is able to compel me to believe this is proper civil discourse when discussing very real, very serious policy implications, I’ll have none of it thankyouverymuch.

Appeal to me, make reasonable arguments, critique the policies rather than the person, demonstrate to me your ideas in practice, show me you value my input as your equal, and if all else fails, agree to disagree in a responsible way.

To be sure, what will not work is calling me an uneducated, redneck, idiot follower who talks out of my arse, refuses to open my mind, and opposes any agenda of our President simply because he’s a black man. I can only believe that these arguments are made simply because the speaker just needs to “win”. If we can’t get ‘em on principles by Gawd, we'll just get 'em on their character; their self-worth.  Bully the shit out of 'em.

I read this comment from a discussion board and chuckled:

"Do you ever wonder if they think we're as batshit crazy as we think THEY are?"

Yes! Yes, I know ‘they’ do! No one party owns the monopoly here. I’m glad someone else sees it and is at least honest in calling it out.