Debating v. fussing
I was a college debate coach for many years. Because I didn't debate myself, I was a terrible coach but had some very good debaters on the team.
Competitive debate is an amazing learning tool. I learned to think thanks to all those debates. (I was in my twenties at the time.) However, that experience leads me to total frustration with the use of the term debates now.
Because I prefer not to watch adults act like children, I read the transcript of the debate last week by the Democratic Party candidates in Charleston, South Carolina, in the lead-up to the primary there, the first real one, in my opinion. South Carolina, for all its problems, looks more like the rest of the country than Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada (that is, it has black people, for one thing, and a varied economic infrastructure). Bernie lost handily, (thank goodness for the good sense of the South Carolinians, and of course, I'm being facetious because they elected Mark Sanford to the Senate.) Bernie may have some devoted followers, but what train wreck of a candidate. I can't for the life of me figure out his appeal
Back to the point, I read the transcript and got the sense that no one present in that auditorium, especially the moderators (Gayle King?) had a clue about what a debate or even a public forum is about. What a disaster.
Debate is a very structured, rule-bound process for the purpose of one side arguing better on one subject or thesis. The affirmative debater advances the thesis, each argument is then countered/disproven by the negative, the negative puts forth their own reasons for the thesis being wrong, and then the affirmative gets the last word (like a court room, somewhat). It's not about asking Amy Klobuchar about what she thinks of Bernie and then Pete Buddy-Judge-Judge about why he's not as big a jerk as Elizabeth Warren says he is.
I may vote in the Georgia primary for a democrat, if they will let me. And it will be Amy Klobuchar. She seems like the most level-headed of all of them, with the caveat that all of them are borderline or centrist narcissists if they think they can be president.
Competitive debate is an amazing learning tool. I learned to think thanks to all those debates. (I was in my twenties at the time.) However, that experience leads me to total frustration with the use of the term debates now.
Because I prefer not to watch adults act like children, I read the transcript of the debate last week by the Democratic Party candidates in Charleston, South Carolina, in the lead-up to the primary there, the first real one, in my opinion. South Carolina, for all its problems, looks more like the rest of the country than Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada (that is, it has black people, for one thing, and a varied economic infrastructure). Bernie lost handily, (thank goodness for the good sense of the South Carolinians, and of course, I'm being facetious because they elected Mark Sanford to the Senate.) Bernie may have some devoted followers, but what train wreck of a candidate. I can't for the life of me figure out his appeal
Back to the point, I read the transcript and got the sense that no one present in that auditorium, especially the moderators (Gayle King?) had a clue about what a debate or even a public forum is about. What a disaster.
Debate is a very structured, rule-bound process for the purpose of one side arguing better on one subject or thesis. The affirmative debater advances the thesis, each argument is then countered/disproven by the negative, the negative puts forth their own reasons for the thesis being wrong, and then the affirmative gets the last word (like a court room, somewhat). It's not about asking Amy Klobuchar about what she thinks of Bernie and then Pete Buddy-Judge-Judge about why he's not as big a jerk as Elizabeth Warren says he is.
I may vote in the Georgia primary for a democrat, if they will let me. And it will be Amy Klobuchar. She seems like the most level-headed of all of them, with the caveat that all of them are borderline or centrist narcissists if they think they can be president.
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