Starting a civil political discourse club
I’m not sure I like the name, but this seems like an interesting idea:
Start a Club
It’s hardly possible to overstate the value of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves”¦Such communication has always been one of the primary sources of progress.
”” John Stuart Mill, 1848Do you have a friend, relative, co-worker, or fellow citizen whose politics is different from yours, yet with whom you find that discussions are mutually beneficial? Would you be willing to go public, putting on something as small as a dinner party, or as large as a public or televised discussion? If so, then consider declaring yourselves an Asteroids Club and sharing your example with others here on this site.
I know plenty of people with positions very different from mine. In fact, that’s the vast majority of the people I know. I don’t quite live in a complete bubble, but it’s mighty close; probably 90%, anyway. The problem is that for every person in that 90% with whom I’ve found discussions to be “mutually beneficial,” I’ve found ten with whom they’re not only not mutually beneficial but highly acrimonious. And that’s true no matter how polite and respectful I try to be.
So I’d have trouble scaring up a group like this, although in principle I think it’s a fabulous idea.
Here’s how they suggest starting:
Your Asteroids Club must begin with an enduring, established relationship between two people who don’t see politics the same way. If you don’t start with this core of trust, expect choppy waters. Identifying a central friendship is a step that is key to future success. Resist the temptation to begin the club between two friends on the same side of the aisle. If you want to start it with a likeminded friend, find two more acquaintances who are your political foils to join your effort. Have a get-together with your friend/s to both cement the concept and discuss your goals…
After having started with solid personal relationships, your next task is to enlarge your group. People who join should be willing to at least entertain agreement with the founding notion: an acknowledgement that the other “side” may see some real threats more clearly than does one’s own side. Keep the group roughly balanced politically. Avoid bringing in flame-throwers or participants who you intuitively find worrisome. This group of people is most critical as they will create the culture of what is to follow, especially if you plan to hold large or public events. Once the Asteroids Club culture is established, challenging personalities and stronger partisans can join without undue disruption.
I’m curious what you think.
It’ll be harder than ever now, because at least in the past, there was a common core of news on which we all could agree. (We now “know” that a lot of it was fake news, or very slanted news — but the common core from which to debate did exist.) It can be awfully hard to debate intelligently when the participants can’t even agree on basic facts.
“Your Asteroids Club must begin with an enduring, established relationship between two people who don’t see politics the same way.” This has spelled the end of more than one relationship for me. “If you don’t start with this core of trust, expect choppy waters.” No kiddin’.
I think it takes a willingness to discuss without the need or desire to one-up the opponent. That in itself can be pretty tough if you’re anything like me, battle-hardened by years of fighting the good fight and no longer willing to suffer fools gladly (or even grudgingly). And I think it takes a willingness to acknowledge the weak points in “my” arguments, even including raising them before the other guy does, as well as highlighting without rancor the weak points in the opponent’s arguments.
M J R says welll, it can be done in theory, but as Yogi Berra once sagely pointed out, “in theory there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.”
So, no matter how polite and respectful your disagreement, the reaction by 9 out of 10 friends and acquaintances (90% closed bubble) is a highly acrimonious one?
That percentage gave me pause, so I did some searching looking for an insightful quote on reason vs emotion.
No quotes but I did run into this eye opener; “Decisions Are Emotional, Not Logical: The Neuroscience Behind Decision Making”
http://bigthink.com/experts-corner/decisions-are-emotional-not-logical-the-neuroscience-behind-decision-making
I find neuroscientist Antonio Damasio’s discovery that brain damage to the area where emotions are generated leaves the victims nearly unable to make decisions… to be a compelling one that challenges my prior assumptions.
Great idea. There should be at least this one iron-clad rule though. No personal insults. All criticisms must be limited to ideas, not persons. Do not allow participants to think they can get by this rule either by saying something like, “That’s an idiotic idea.” instead of, “You’re an idiot”. That doesn’t fly either. It’s still insulting.
To quote an old and kinda new TV show ‘I Want To Believe’ that something like this would work but reality tells me otherwise.
I have a very close relative that I am very close with who during the GW Bush presidency was absolutely rabid in hatred at him. All the while complaining about high taxes, government waste and environmentalists destroying the local economy. When I politely pointed out that it was her side of the aisle that supported these things it would just lead to a rant about Bushitler blah, blah, blah.
After eight years of Obama where I rarely commented on my issues with his policies (not him personally by the way) well along came 2016 and suddenly the rage is back and badder than ever at Trump. All the while complaining about the stupid transgenders and the NFL players kneeling. But Trump. It is pure tribalism where for her ‘D’ is good and ‘R’ is bad. End of discussion.
Honestly I can’t see anyway to bridge the divide when it is so emotion based for one side. And I will continue to say that social media and Facebook are a major divider in this country. Hate, hate, hate it.
I’ve said this before; but, that is sort of what I (quite naively it seems) thought graduate school would be – intelligent conversation with different points of view.
Nope, it was all about using a “litmus” test to see if you were someone they could “respect.” If you didn’t test right they wouldn’t even want to work with you on a class project. One even to the point of complaining to the professor – who sided with her!
So, no, I don’t see any such club working in today’s political atmosphere.
Geoffrey Britain:
I said I’d encountered that ratio. That doesn’t mean that’s the actual ratio, for the simple reason that I don’t tend to bring up politics with people. I usually only talk about politics with people who bring it up with me. And I think those who bring it up are likely to be self- selected for being more vocal and extreme about politics in the first place and therefore more likely to fight.
There is no way to bridge the gap. The hard left call the shot for all Ds these days. So while it might be possible (rarely) on an individual basis, in general it is truly mission impossible. It is a sad state of affairs, but that is just the way it is. I for one do not intend to attempt to bridge the gap, nor do I intend to pretend to understand those figuratively carrying pictures of chairman mao. They are figuratively dead to me.
I suppose when it comes to family and close friends, one is wishing and hopings to bridge the gap, thankfully I do not face that dilemma.
Strikes me as an interesting and worthwhile idea except that I think it impossible.
Any club name that ends in “roid” is doomed to failure.
There is a reason why religion and politics are verboten subjects in the Navy’s Officers’ Wardrooms. Even among officers trained and educated similarly who share a common mission, those topics can destroy cohesion and morale. The situation is worse by far when you encounter the wide diversity of a civilian population.
One would hope that there would be some semblance of manners and honest inquiry when people discuss different philosophies. Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals was the blueprint for using ad hominem, shaming, and assumption of moral superiority as extremely effective tools in winning/shutting down debate against one’s opponents. That cat is out of the bag. Very hard to put it back in.
Hope springs eternal. I do manage to have a somewhat respectful debate with my favorite cousin. We’re old enough and respect one another enough, that we don’t want philosophical differences to destroy our friendship. Unfortunately, the same isn’t true of my brother and his wife. 🙁
The dilemma, as I see it, is that it’s hard to maintain a friendly, club-like atmosphere while suggesting that your liberal friends suffer from a mental disorder. But hey, you have to keep it real or else it’s pointless.
Two points;
1. Once upon a time, perhaps back in the 1900s, people could have civil discussions about politics, because for the majority, political issues had little impact on their lives. In the 1950s and early 1960s, politics had little influence in our lives; the Federal Government didn’t do much. Delivered the mail, provided for the common defense, not much else. No Social Security (not really), medicare, medicade, EPA, DOE, Schools were local entities, and politics were local, Interstate wasn’t built yet. We could afford to be civil….. because we could afford government.
Currently, the Federal Government is in every aspect of our lives; what light bulbs to buy, how toilets work, how to dispose of a old TV, what your school teaches, who pays for inflated college prices, what bath-rooms to use, getting on an airplane, the list is endless. Moreover, Government is EXPENSIVE, and we’re paying for it in debased dollars, building a huge debt, etc.
2. The older I get, the more convinced I become, that people believe what they want to believe. Truth is what you want it to be, which is why facts don’t really matter anymore. We believe what we want to believe because it’s comfortable, and rewarding. It satisfies our wants, our friends think the same way, we read the editorials and news sources that support what we want to believe. Group-think is pervasive, oppressive, and self-reinforcing.
Reality some times changes perspectives; 9/11 for example. Or trama such as a nuclear strike on San Francisco (missile defense would get looked at more favorably in all probability), but in the absence of great trama, we continue to think what pleases us.
So to end……… I doubt that one could gather 10 or 12 people together to have a civil discussion. The stakes are now too important, and the group-think too entrenched to make it possible. Perhaps 2 or 3 people…. ya maybe, but not a dozen.
Sounds like Firing Line to me.
Maybe a new Firing Line with Jordan Peterson would serve as a “community” Asteroid club? He gets passionate and vehement, but I believe he can also debate civilly with equally civil opponents.
“Although the program’s format varied over the years, it typically featured Buckley interviewing a guest and exchanging views, with the two seated together in front of a small studio audience. Standing or sitting further away in the studio, an “examiner”, typically a political liberal, would ask questions, generally toward the end of the show. Guests were people notable in the fields of politics to religion, literature and academia, and their views could sharply contrast or be in strong agreement with Buckley’s. Most guests were intellectuals or those in positions of power, and they were interviewed about ideas and issues of the day.
Reflecting Buckley’s talents and preferences, the exchange of views was almost always polite, and the guests were given time to answer questions at length, slowing the pace of the program. “The show was devoted to a leisurely examination of issues and ideas at an extremely high level”, according to Jeff Greenfield, who frequently appeared as an examiner.[3] John Kenneth Galbraith said of the program, “Firing Line is one of the rare occasions when you have a chance to correct the errors of the man who’s interrogating you.”[3]” – Wikipedia.
J S Mill was thinking in terms of Abolition.
Which was virtually the ONLY toxic subject of the day.
Getting acquainted with the psychological condition known as “ambiguity intolerance” helped me to understand that many people are literally unable to open their minds to consider points of view inconsistent with their entrenched beliefs.
For such people the intense anxiety provoked by contradictory arguments or facts is so distressful that it triggers an aggressive fight-or-flight response seeking to eliminate the threat.
Rational, dispassionate discussion of issues is virtually impossible for such people. Confrontation only reinforces their perception of differences as a threat.
We cannot have a meeting of minds with people incapable of making the effort. Compassion and forgiveness may be all we can offer them.
And let us bear in mind that effective compassion and forgiveness take place in our hearts, not in overt, virtue-signaling displays that will correctly be interpreted as aggressiveness that reinforces the perception of “other” as threat.
I work in the belly of the beast (a prominent university). I have exactly one colleague with whom I can talk about politics, and oddly he’s an old New Left hippy. Strange that a conservative and a New Lefty agree on many things, or at least agree on the terms of the discussion, but neither of us agree with the current Identity Politics Left.
I doubt if I would ever join such a group. I have enough trouble with family groups which share a love for the members, if not their political or cultural views. So, I sit mostly mute while the others repeat their self-congratulatory utterances straight from prog talking points. They assume that their entire circle feels the same, never even noticing my non-involvement. I guess I’m written off as the black sheep from flyover country. How insulting. I hate the resentment that I feel.
I firmly believe that, as the saying goes, the proper response to bad speech is more speech.
I do not believe, however, as some seem to believe, that the proper response to too much politics is more politics.
I understand that some people love politics, and want it to permeate their lives completely. (I suspect this plays some role in the invasion of politics into the NFL, comic books, and other realms that once served as an escape from such things.)
Be that as it may… some of us seek occasional refuge from politics, not new opportunities to engage in it.
Reminds me of the ancient and now new thing, called a House Church. This is where there is no pastor or overlord Nicodemian lording over the people, as when professionally paid pastors talk for 1-2 hours and everybody just nods their head or they can get escorted out of the building by building security.
A House Church was where disciples of a great master guru, gathered together to teach other and learn from each other, the truth and wisdom of higher things. Then they expound on mutually agreed upon doctrine and codes of conduct. When the House Church, such as in Jerusalem, got too big, a representative would be chosen to be sent to another city. Similar to how Paul kept going around the various cities starting churches amongst Greeks, Romans, and other gentiles (nations divorced from YHVH/JHVH at the Tower of Babel language split).
You can denote this tendency by how christians refer to Jehovah as Yehoshua, replacing the J for the Y in Hebrew pronunciation and lexicon. JHVH becomes YHVH. Jesus becomes Yeshua. As opposed to Jesus in Mexican becoming Hesus. Hebrew Roots or christians wanting a more primitive, ancient, purer christianity, uncorrupted by the Ecumenical Councils after 2nd century AD, tend to start adopting Hebrew customs, including the feast days. Doesn’t make them Jews though. This is the co mingling of what is known as Judeo Christian theology with culture.
There are Jews in Jerusalem ostracized for believing Yeshua *Jesus* was the Messiah. Things getting complicated. The Protestants are cleaving to the rabbis and their teachings. The Jews are doing a reverse and going back to 1st century AD Yeshua.
It starts from the grassroots. Not when you elect a President that does the job for you. Not when you get a CEO to manage things for you. Not when you rely on DC or Hollywood to teach your next generation. Starts from the grassroots, each individual is called to serve and to function as a leader and representative. A nation that once thought every individual could become a king, the land of the free and brave, remember that nation before the Obamanation of desolation?
Maybe a new Firing Line with Jordan Peterson would serve as a “community” Asteroid club? He gets passionate and vehement, but I believe he can also debate civilly with equally civil opponents.
That’s vehement? Interesting Aesop, since I took Peterson as a mostly mild college professorial lecturer. A little bit more passionate, but much more subdued than I was in 2007. Maybe that’s because of all the things I want to say but don’t. What people take as vehement objection to the Leftist alliance, seems more like logical sense to me. Vehement would be calling for death squads and other things, like I used to mention.
P.S. the Reason why many Leftists came here and else where to conservative blogs lecturing us about our bubble chambers is because “our bubble chambers” were the initial genesis of bunker hardened sanctuaries for a miniature consensus. And that cannot be allowed by the Leftist “consensus” and totalitarian system. They don’t want communities made of mutual interest and freedom. As much as people argue here over politics, it is nowhere close to Leftist or Breitbart hijacked threads. That is because most of you come here because you understand that there is no coercive force here, and even Neo doesn’t use the host’s powers as much as others do. That’s why people can argue, while when they talk about President Trum or talk to a US President, they become respectful. That’s not respect most of the time but fear, fear that if you don’t obey the TOp of your society, your resources will be stripped and other penalties will land on you as “anti American”.
That’s why people come with pseudo names online, so they can argue free of what ties them down most of the time. The social obligations, family relationships, and other loyalties that commands the Obedience of Mortals. They create a new community, a new family, a new relationship based on true equality, or at least lack of oppression and slavery.
That is why when people talk about politics, it becomes dangerous. Then it becomes a live or die struggle. If you lose political power, your very life for the next 4-8 years will be negatively affected. So the masses thirst for that power more and more, and they do more and more extreme things to hold their Flag in Capture the Flag or Red vs Blue or Ctrl Left vs Alt Right. It becomes the total manifestation of their meaning in life, much like some fans treat soccer or football wins/losses.
The meaning of their existence. Are they slaves or are they free?
Do you wish to change the world or do you wish to change yourself.
I’m not sure that closed minds are the real problem; although in classical terms wherein the question is framed as being open to new information, it would appear to be so.
But if you dig down further, much of the dispute is not about trivial matters, say, some bigotry against Thai food, or an ignorant insistence that people with brown eyes can never be trusted to keep their word, but rather matters of almost biologically rooted, or at least temperament rooted, values translating to life-ways.
Questions as to how much space one needs around one to feel comfortable; one’s feelings about being other-directed rather than self-directed; one’s need for social affirmation and inclusion, versus autonomy.
I for example think that Georgian Townhouses look really cool, and I would like to have one: as a kind of third or fourth spare. And though I like the looks of a college campus in the fall, the idea of bellowing in the stands like some monkey in a Planet of the Apes movie, leaves me stone cold.
So many people, so many tastes. No problem, until someone tries to stick their bare ass or problems in your face, or insists you rake the leaves in their yard …
Good luck with that idea.
Gavin McInnes at Taki’s Magazine had a good bit on such encounters a couple years ago.
Here’s the link and a quote:
http://takimag.com/article/an_alien_pod_person_in_a_room_full_of_leftists/print#axzz4wWrwFPP6
“…The left went from thinking outside the box to becoming myopically fixated on anything that sounds mean or benefits “white males” (AKA someone who reminds them of dad). What remains is a sea of knee-jerk liberals who aren’t just intolerant of other points of view, they literally can’t handle the truth…”
It would be nice, but not for me. The social tax is potentially enormous.
Despite everyone claiming to be nice, tolerant, open minded and intelligent, ALL my acquaintances, in this deepest of blue areas where I live, would shun and despise me as the devil incarnate if I voiced even the mildest conservative opinion.
It’s a drag actually– because everything is politics– but, on the plus side, misery is funny.
So, my gambit is to try to be like a conversational equivalent of a kitty video, and then go in for the punchline.
I am all for civil discourse and in most all face to face conversations and debates I have had it has been civil. Where I see a big difference in online. If I were to believe that political discourse in this country was only online I would conclude it is really bad. But I have experienced many good conversations with people from all spectrums [I’m moderate left] so in my view the discourse is okay.
I would say too it depends on perspective. It’s like looking at the news and believing that there is crime everywhere and then looking out your window and seeing birds singing and sun shining and a quiet day. Who to believe? The hype or the reality?
The media wants us to believe we all hate each other. It makes good ratings to find Trump haters or Obama haters or haters. But I don’t hate people who have different opinions – although sometimes I have to let them know I disagree with them and why. That’s okay.
LOL. Great comment.
Voice an opinion and then blame the opinion on me … i.e., on some rabid anarcho-libertarian conservative you ran across online: one who insists that claims phrased in distributive (logical def.) benefit terms, but which are not actually distributive in their benefit, are examples of moral fraud, and their advocates therefore are beyond the pale of reciprocal human obligation.
That should eff them up. And get you shunned nonetheless.
Now, the distributive received benefit vs claimed benefit part is important; because otherwise they default to standard operating utilitarian B.S., overlain with talk of “externals” … as in spillovers … as in an ‘imputed’ return of value … assertions which are themselves based on uncritical and circular utilitarian (i.e., collectivist) assumptions in the first place.
That is, and as in, “You get paid back, Esther dear ( delivered in patronizing tones) by the privilege of living in a kinder gentler society; even if you personally wind up sacrificed by a drug addled psychotic on the altar of its generosity and tolerance … So shut up with the selfish complaining and pay your taxes!”
Neither do I. As long as they don’t expect me to haul their water, or cart their obnoxious asses around, or live the degraded and contemptible way they happen to find satisfying.
. . . or reach into *my* pocket and raid *my* assets to fund *their* drug rehabilitation program.
from the site:
The Asteroids Club (noun) :
1. a unique non-debate on America’s biggest problems, which are hurtling toward us through space and time at an alarming rate of speed.
2. Welcome to the Asteroids Club
The Asteroids Club is a new approach to communicating about the civic problems that polarize – and paralyze – us. The concept grew out of the field of moral psychology, which tells us that people are more likely to find common ground when they unite to fight common threats. We hope you will join in our adventure and help us grow this new idea by starting an Asteroids Club in your hometown. There are so many asteroids and so little time.
*************
Jonathan Haidt, the founder, is a leader in the field he helped create, “moral psychology”. He is an NYU academic.
The bottom line is this is a load of crap. It is merely more of the Democratic sameness of “let’s compromise and do it our way.” But with the added urgency of “the word is ending. Asteroids are hurtling our way. Life will end if ‘we’ don’t work together”. Which always means, do it our Leftist way or you’ll kill us all. The same agitprop Ehrlich used in the 1960s to warn us of death by overpopulation. The Population Bomb and similar fiction.
Moral psychology is happy horseshit. Most psychologists dispense crap in one form or other as a livelihood.
You think I have no respect for them? You are correct.
DNW-
You give me an idea. I could express my political ideas honestly, but with enough convoluted complexity that it leaves folks scratching their heads! So, instead of arguing or shunning me, they will think I’m adorably eccentric. Excellent!
But, making a yummy hot dish and buckling people over with a belly laugh at a potluck has better prospects. 😀
Except for online, no one talks politics in real life, besides someone occasionally bleating “Trump,” and then everyone looks at them like they just took their clothes off at the dinner table.
Meantime, it is election season and it appears there is a stealth war going on in my town.
I wondered why there weren’t very many political lawn signs– hoping maybe people don’t care about politics! Yay!– But no. It turns out there has been rampant theft of all of them this year.
I recall other attempts along those lines, for instance, the moderate voice blog. They have all failed. It is hard to be peaceful in time of war against dishonorable enemies, or even to have a temporary truce and soccer match on Christmas Eve.
Ymar Sakar Says:
October 25th, 2017 at 10:04 am
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The Perception of Peterson Passion is totally dependent on which videos you watch. When in lecture mode, he is very civil and engaging. But he does go into rant mode on some subjects, outside of the classroom.
A suggestion for vetting appropriate personalities might include asking their opinion on what are essentially unarguable facts.
For instance, “Do you agree that at this time that green energy cannot replace fossil fuel energy?”
If they respond in the negative citing things like solar and wind are competitive blah, blah…they’re not good candidates.
Whereas, if they are curious about how you’ve reached your conclusion…then perhaps there is some hope for them being able to question their own assumptions (and perhaps yours!).
But he does go into rant mode on some subjects, outside of the classroom.
I’ve seen his Neo linked Beast mode videos too. His emotional affect is always either in lecture mode to me or “nervous energy mode”. I would have had a hard time figuring out what his actual politics and central beliefs were, if he wasn’t responding to the Leftist SJWs enough for me to figure it out.
For pro lecturers like him, public speakers, they almost always have a stylistic and moderate or self controlled emotional “affect”. Otherwise they would burn themselves out with the highs and lows. To the point where their voice cracks and they can’t talk straight. I’m sure you’ve seen that somewhere, Aesop…
So emotions, controlling them and making use of them, is considered a higher human skill. Too much emotion, and it becomes difficult to use rhetoric. Peterson is at least someone trained in rhetoric and the Greek logics.
As for the Leftist alliance, a lot of the reason why center Left people don’t actually think there’s a problem in the country is that the Leftists leave them alone, until they violate dogma, and the non Leftists act like rational people. They are in a bubble and they don’t see it.
Passion controls reason. Rationalization is the tool that supports our world views, our passions and emotions. There are scant few humans who can do the opposite. Summon up emotions via pure intellectual pursuits.
The Leftist alliance gives orders, and the rest of the zombies obey. They are triggered using Facebook mind control, emotional triggers, and various other Neural Linguistic Programming methods. Look them up. It’s not just Chomsky involved in “linguistics”.
If people here were talking to actual individuals, they might get through to a Leftist. But you’re just talking to somebody’s religious dogma cultist and sock puppet. “They” no longer have a soul. Their minds are not connected to their bodies, somebody else is in control of them now. They sold their souls for some payout from the Left. That is why you can’t change them. They don’t want to be changed.
You can only kill them and release them from the hell they are creating for us. The more you fight them, the more you become like them. The more you want to learn their Alinsky to beat the SJWs, the more you become the replacement for the SJW cannon fodder. They aren’t that important. If they can convert even one single human of the younger generation to Alinsky, it is enough to satisfy the powers that be. Even the entire Leftist alliance, which are not merely SJWs, and the entirety of Islam, may be sacrificed, if only 20% of you humans will fall down and worship the god of the Left.
Those numbers alone are enough to destroy you. White creates black, black creates white. Yin and yang. Creation and destruction. The never ending cycle of violence.
Hate each other humans, so that hate may consume you, so that the real Rulers can dispose of the Ruling Class and show you what humans 6000 years ago saw. If you could actually control your emotions, you might transcend the limits of humanity. We can’t have that. So instead of controlling and using hate, allow hate to use and control you. You gain the world, you just have to pay a little something.
I have believed ever since I read a story from Japan, that humans have a choice. They can choose a few fates.
Change the world or change yourself, which will it be.
There are things in this realm that cannot be seen without hate. The corrollary is that there are things that cannot be understood without love.
That is why in order to Awaken Americans, hate was necessary. But if that is all you humans feel, welcome to hell, because you are now the sock puppets of greater powers than you can imagine. Learn to use your hate and control it using Yin and Yang? Who expects mere mortals to develop that high a skill level…
A good faith discussion requires each side to accept various facts.
That’s a rare combination these days.
For example, if you say that satellite temps show no warming for twenty years, the response is generally something like one of Torquemada’s informants would have said. “YOU DON”T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING?!”
Or if you mention that a number of climate scientists have acknowledged that their models “run hot”, which is to say the predictions of temps over the last twenty years have been wrong, all of them predicting higher than observed. See the previous graf for the response.
People NEED global warming for any number of reasons and facts which throw it into dispute are definitely not welcome.
The same is true of a number of other issues.
Which, I suppose, is why my experience of such discussions is that, after two back-and-forths on facts, the libs start with the ad hom, or they abandon the discussion altogether.