Rules for a Productive Political Discussion

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

I don’t think Lifty is against rules, per se. I think he might be drawing a distinction between 1. spontaneously-ordered rules - i.e., implicit “rules” that are constantly created via the continuous interaction of posters, but by their nature cannot be made explicit. And 2. rules that are created abstractly in the heads of a few and are thereby made explicit - rules which are more likely to be clumsy with respect to actual situations.

That said, surely lifty would agree with the imposition of traffic lights - that’s roughly akin to these rules here, no?

22

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
That said, surely lifty would agree with the imposition of traffic lights - that’s roughly akin to these rules here, no?
[/quote]

Absolutely! And I also believe that privately owned and operated traffic lights are more efficient.

23

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
That said, surely lifty would agree with the imposition of traffic lights - that’s roughly akin to these rules here, no?

Absolutely! And I also believe that privately owned and operated traffic lights are more efficient.[/quote]

lol

24

[quote]kroby wrote:
Jim Jones, David Koresh, Warren Jeffs, Brigham Young…

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers…
[/quote]
I anticipated a response such as this. That said, we must take the “good” with the “bad” lest we restrict freedom for everyone.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. A thread such as this is the last place we need RULES. I have plenty of rules that I have to follow in the real world that I should not have to be held to account for written words on a message board. That said, I’ll gladly suffer the consequences because it is no matter to me.

[quote]
You’re not some wild card saving the politics forum from the masses, lifty. You’re actually exhibiting one of the very attributes that this thread is trying to put a stop to with your “Anarchy rules” comment. What does that serve? It’s childish. Time to put on the big boy pants and act grown up.[/quote]

Like it or not this forum is anarchy defined. All conventions followed are completely voluntary. We members make our own unspoken rules. They require no definition. You are free to post and I am free to ignore it. That is the epitome of “live and let live.”

I thumb my nose at rules that needlessly restrict my liberty.

25

[quote]rainjack wrote:
There’s a difference between those the thumb their noses at the rules, and those whose only mission is drum the same monotonous drivel in every single thread they enter.

It used to be fun to get into to lively debates in here. 100M comes to mind as a great guy to fight with. There used to be that guy who was supposedly a tenured guy at Stanford - he was always fun to scrap with. The hermit from Wyoming was fun, too.

The thing about all of them is that they had a message beyond “Bush Lied - People Died” - and they did not derive every single bit of their knowledge from wiki-fucking-pedia. [/quote]

hspdr was the Stanford guy; I don’t who you’re talking about w.r.t. Wyoming hermit.

I searched the PWI archives going back three or four years ago, and it was truly stunning how much more intelligent discourse there was back then. It was higher level discussion all around, but especially from the left-wing perspective. I don’t really know what happened, but the rational, informed left-wing voice has been reduced to a whisper in this forum.

Frankly, it was kind of depressing to come back here to the current PWI.

And I guess 100M had more intelligent discussion way back in the day, RJ? Because all I’ve seen him do the last couple of years is mindlessly regurgitate DNC talking points. I wouldn’t call him a valuable member at all. Was he different in the past?

-Edited for clarity

26

[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
rainjack wrote:
There’s a difference between those the thumb their noses at the rules, and those whose only mission is drum the same monotonous drivel in every single thread they enter.

It used to be fun to get into to lively debates in here. 100M comes to mind as a great guy to fight with. There used to be that guy who was supposedly a tenured guy at Stanford - he was always fun to scrap with. The hermit from Wyoming was fun, too.

The thing about all of them is that they had a message beyond “Bush Lied - People Died” - and they did not derive every single bit of their knowledge from wiki-fucking-pedia.

hspdr was the Stanford guy; I don’t who you’re talking about w.r.t. Wyoming hermit.

I searched the PWI archives going back three or four years ago, and it was truly stunning how much more intelligent discourse there was back then. It was higher level discussion all around, but especially from the left-wing perspective. I don’t really know what happened, but the rational, informed left-wing voice has been reduced to a whisper in this forum.

Frankly, it was kind of depressing to come back here to the current PWI.

And I guess 100M had more intelligent discussion way back in the day, RJ? Because all I’ve seen him do the last couple of years is mindlessly regurgitate DNC talking points. I wouldn’t call him a valuable member at all. Was he different in the past?

-Edited for clarity[/quote]

Hspdr - that was the guy.

I don’t know how much more intelligent anyone was back in the day, but at least you could stay on topic, and the level of hatred was not nearly as high. Oh, sure, people got pissed, and I would spit out rainjackisms like watermelon seeds. But at the end of the day, I really wouldn’t mind having a beer with any of them.

The same cannot be said for the people we have in here now.

100M is a classic Clintonian lib. But at least he is honest about it. I don’t doubt for a second that he loves this country, and only wants to do what he thinks is best for it. He hates Reagan, and worships at the feet of big gov’t. But he doesn’t have to agree with me - what fun would that be?

27

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
So, after seeing many, many promising threads devolve into the usual miasma of personal accusations, I thought it might be worthwhile to attempt to discover some basic principles that govern a productive political discussion.

Here are a few I think are important:

  1. Assume good faith on the part of the person with whom you are having the discussion - at least until you have an objectively obvious reason (as opposed to a subjectively paranoid reaction) to do otherwise. Don’t pick fights unnecessarily. N.B., it’s not necessary or wise to assume good faith on the part of politicians… but the people who support them are a different story.

  2. Feel free to believe strongly you’re correct - but assume and keep in mind there is a possibility you could be mistaken (personally, this is probably the hardest one for me to remember).

  3. A)Address what people actually say/type, as opposed to either what you want to argue against or some possible negative interpretation of what they say/type (this ties into the first point). If there are negative implications to someone’s position, feel free to address them - but that’s different than accusing someone of having some possible negative meaning to what he communicates.

  4. B) Address what people actually say/type, as opposed to trying to make their position fit into some easily dismissed label, e.g., racist, liberal, Nazi, communist, etc. - unless of course you can demonstrate it is that (important note: that’s different than just labeling it as such).

  5. This ties into 3)B) and almost seems too obvious, but it’s necessary: avoid ad hominem arguments.

  6. Try to address the main points of what people are trying to communicate, rather than focusing in on, and fighting about, tertiary details (either in an attempt to avoid having to deal with the main point or in a paranoid quest to find something offensive) - particularly in long posts.

  7. Don’t change the subject in an attempt to get the argument on to a subject that you prefer, or away from a subject you want to avoid - if that’s true, just don’t participate in the thread.

These are what I thought up over the last half hour - I’m interested to see what other people think on this meta-topic.

Far too often real world political debate is not fundamentally a macro-cosm of the thought processes of an intelligent person, or even of one smart person arguing with another. The politics of confrontation usually turn ugly - but do they always need to do so? [/quote]

Agree with almost all of this, but I doubt it’ll happen: many if not most fall back on reflexive partisanship and vitriol, or are idiots/kids. Good luck.

28

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
So, after seeing many, many promising threads devolve into the usual miasma of personal accusations, I thought it might be worthwhile to attempt to discover some basic principles that govern a productive political discussion.

Here are a few I think are important:

  1. Assume good faith on the part of the person with whom you are having the discussion - at least until you have an objectively obvious reason (as opposed to a subjectively paranoid reaction) to do otherwise. Don’t pick fights unnecessarily. N.B., it’s not necessary or wise to assume good faith on the part of politicians… but the people who support them are a different story.

  2. Feel free to believe strongly you’re correct - but assume and keep in mind there is a possibility you could be mistaken (personally, this is probably the hardest one for me to remember).

  3. A)Address what people actually say/type, as opposed to either what you want to argue against or some possible negative interpretation of what they say/type (this ties into the first point). If there are negative implications to someone’s position, feel free to address them - but that’s different than accusing someone of having some possible negative meaning to what he communicates.

  4. B) Address what people actually say/type, as opposed to trying to make their position fit into some easily dismissed label, e.g., racist, liberal, Nazi, communist, etc. - unless of course you can demonstrate it is that (important note: that’s different than just labeling it as such).

  5. This ties into 3)B) and almost seems too obvious, but it’s necessary: avoid ad hominem arguments.

  6. Try to address the main points of what people are trying to communicate, rather than focusing in on, and fighting about, tertiary details (either in an attempt to avoid having to deal with the main point or in a paranoid quest to find something offensive) - particularly in long posts.

  7. Don’t change the subject in an attempt to get the argument on to a subject that you prefer, or away from a subject you want to avoid - if that’s true, just don’t participate in the thread.

These are what I thought up over the last half hour - I’m interested to see what other people think on this meta-topic.

Far too often real world political debate is not fundamentally a macro-cosm of the thought processes of an intelligent person, or even of one smart person arguing with another. The politics of confrontation usually turn ugly - but do they always need to do so? [/quote]

Sounds like you’re on pain killers, got any extra?

Anyhow, I blame Bush, the Iraq war, Israel and the foreign policies of the U.S. for these issues!

29

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
…
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. A thread such as this is the last place we need RULES. I have plenty of rules that I have to follow in the real world that I should not have to be held to account for written words on a message board. That said, I’ll gladly suffer the consequences because it is no matter to me.
…[/quote]

I only used the word rules to make it fit in the title bar better - as I said in the OP, I’m interested in the principles that lead to a good discussion.

BTW, thanks to whoever said I manage to avoid ad hominem - I think it was rainjack. I try, but I don’t always succeed. Makkun, on the other hand, has the patience of a saint.

30

I thought of a couple more that might be useful:

  1. Don’t post or respond to rants. By rants I mean streams of claims and invective with no back-up. It’s easy to avoid responding - the time cost associated is far too high - I usually get upset that I even wasted time reading them.

  2. Don’t dismiss either book learning or personal experience out of hand. It’s a version of ad hominem, but I thought it would be good to specifically state this one. Instead, ask questions to elucidate the value of the claim. Of course, some people take asking them questions as a personal attack, but you can’t please everyone…

31

[quote]rainjack wrote:
tGunslinger wrote:
rainjack wrote:
There’s a difference between those the thumb their noses at the rules, and those whose only mission is drum the same monotonous drivel in every single thread they enter.

It used to be fun to get into to lively debates in here. 100M comes to mind as a great guy to fight with. There used to be that guy who was supposedly a tenured guy at Stanford - he was always fun to scrap with. The hermit from Wyoming was fun, too.

The thing about all of them is that they had a message beyond “Bush Lied - People Died” - and they did not derive every single bit of their knowledge from wiki-fucking-pedia.

hspdr was the Stanford guy; I don’t who you’re talking about w.r.t. Wyoming hermit.

I searched the PWI archives going back three or four years ago, and it was truly stunning how much more intelligent discourse there was back then. It was higher level discussion all around, but especially from the left-wing perspective. I don’t really know what happened, but the rational, informed left-wing voice has been reduced to a whisper in this forum.

Frankly, it was kind of depressing to come back here to the current PWI.

And I guess 100M had more intelligent discussion way back in the day, RJ? Because all I’ve seen him do the last couple of years is mindlessly regurgitate DNC talking points. I wouldn’t call him a valuable member at all. Was he different in the past?

-Edited for clarity

Hspdr - that was the guy.

I don’t know how much more intelligent anyone was back in the day, but at least you could stay on topic, and the level of hatred was not nearly as high. Oh, sure, people got pissed, and I would spit out rainjackisms like watermelon seeds. But at the end of the day, I really wouldn’t mind having a beer with any of them.

The same cannot be said for the people we have in here now.

100M is a classic Clintonian lib. But at least he is honest about it. I don’t doubt for a second that he loves this country, and only wants to do what he thinks is best for it. He hates Reagan, and worships at the feet of big gov’t. But he doesn’t have to agree with me - what fun would that be?

[/quote]

RJ I remember that guy, Hspdr, and he was fun to spar with. He was an avid Social Democrat if I recall.

I agree about two years ago we used to have some good dust ups on this forum and folks actually had respect for each other and different ideas. A lot less fanatics that’s for sure. I became friends with a few of my most vocal advesaries. Can’t imagine that happening with the current ones. Sadly most left and the discourse level dropped a great deal since then.

32

I resurrected a thread last night that is 4 years old. Take a look at it - It’s kinda like looking at your high school yearbook.

I think it even has your very first post in the political forum, Hedo.

http://www.T-Nation.com/tmagnum/readTopic.do?id=448098

33

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
I thought of a couple more that might be useful:

  1. Don’t post or respond to rants. By rants I mean streams of claims and invective with no back-up. It’s easy to avoid responding - the time cost associated is far too high - I usually get upset that I even wasted time reading them.

  2. Don’t dismiss either book learning or personal experience out of hand. It’s a version of ad hominem, but I thought it would be good to specifically state this one. Instead, ask questions to elucidate the value of the claim. Of course, some people take asking them questions as a personal attack, but you can’t please everyone…[/quote]

I have to disagree with number 2 - at least as it worded right now. I think anyone who starts off a post in here with, “my professor says…” or “Today in Pol-Sci we…” they have effectively removed any credibility from whatever follows.

Beowolf - bless his little heart - may be the exception in spite of my many tirades against him.

I don’t think being young and in college is an ad hominem, as it goes to credibility.

Maybe I am a bit jaded as a fucking college kid cost me 4 days in the hospital, and almost cost me my right hand. I never take a college kid’s word at face value.

34

I think we need another rule I would like to call The anti Bovine Defecation rule .which is state one point at a time. And if you post a link tell how it has influenced your thinking as apposed to stating multiple links that are so broad no one know which point you are making. Remember we are communicating differences in opinion, now is not the time for a vocabulary or writing lesson, if you can say with out using your thesaurus or dictionary all the better.

35

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
I think we need another rule I would like to call The anti Bovine Defecation rule .which is state one point at a time. And if you post a link tell how it has influenced your thinking as apposed to stating multiple links that are so broad no one know which point you are making. Remember we are communicating differences in opinion, now is not the time for a vocabulary or writing lesson, if you can say with out using your thesaurus or dictionary all the better.[/quote]

That would be more clear, but might reduce the level of the dialog - complex arguments aren’t necessarily incorrect arguments, but they do have more points at which they could be wrong.

Also, need for the dictionary and/or thesaurus is very relative. Just as an FYI, when I used to get drunk with my buddies in high school, a couple of them were always highly amused with their requests for “Tell us some more college words [BB].”

But I do understand that it’s usually more productive to point out the reason one is providing a link - and the particular parts of any given argument one disagrees with. However, sometimes links are provided for informational purposes as well - which is usually apparent, or explained in a sentence (e.g., “Here are a few blogs that covered the last debate” or “Here are a few different reactions to this speech.”), but in the spirit of productive conversation please ask if there are questions.

36

[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
…

  1. Don’t dismiss either book learning or personal experience out of hand. It’s a version of ad hominem, but I thought it would be good to specifically state this one. Instead, ask questions to elucidate the value of the claim. Of course, some people take asking them questions as a personal attack, but you can’t please everyone…

rainjack wrote:
I have to disagree with number 2 - at least as it worded right now. I think anyone who starts off a post in here with, “my professor says…” or “Today in Pol-Sci we…” they have effectively removed any credibility from whatever follows.

Beowolf - bless his little heart - may be the exception in spite of my many tirades against him.

I don’t think being young and in college is an ad hominem, as it goes to credibility.

Maybe I am a bit jaded as a fucking college kid cost me 4 days in the hospital, and almost cost me my right hand. I never take a college kid’s word at face value. [/quote]

That sounds like quite a story… You’ll have to share that sometime. You’re OK, right?

W/r/t the arguments though, if they’re laughably incorrect on their face, either we should be able to laugh them off or poke holes in them fairly easily, right? I’m not trying to suggest that one can’t point out that something wouldn’t work in the real world based on experience - just that it’s generally not productive to phrase it alternatively: “That’s wrong because you’re in college.”

37

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:

BostonBarrister wrote:
…

  1. Don’t dismiss either book learning or personal experience out of hand. It’s a version of ad hominem, but I thought it would be good to specifically state this one. Instead, ask questions to elucidate the value of the claim. Of course, some people take asking them questions as a personal attack, but you can’t please everyone…

rainjack wrote:
I have to disagree with number 2 - at least as it worded right now. I think anyone who starts off a post in here with, “my professor says…” or “Today in Pol-Sci we…” they have effectively removed any credibility from whatever follows.

Beowolf - bless his little heart - may be the exception in spite of my many tirades against him.

I don’t think being young and in college is an ad hominem, as it goes to credibility.

Maybe I am a bit jaded as a fucking college kid cost me 4 days in the hospital, and almost cost me my right hand. I never take a college kid’s word at face value.

That sounds like quite a story… You’ll have to share that sometime. You’re OK, right?

W/r/t the arguments though, if they’re laughably incorrect on their face, either we should be able to laugh them off or poke holes in them fairly easily, right? I’m not trying to suggest that one can’t point out that something wouldn’t work in the real world based on experience - just that it’s generally not productive to phrase it alternatively: “That’s wrong because you’re in college.”[/quote]

I don’t think that is usually how it goes. It is more like, “You are in college, regurgitating what you were just taught, and trying to tell someone who actually pays taxes how those taxes should be spent.” The student is not necessarily wrong - he just doesn’t have the credibility to be lecturing real citizens about something he has seen in real life.

38

Hspder was great - lumpy was amusing. Elkhunter and I got into it a few times but he was a good guy. tme was interesting. I miss ALDurr and Iscariot - very interesting perspectives. RSU was like Beowolf but more left-wing - good kid, even if I disagreed with him a lot. 100M was just posting the other day.

I don’t want to look at the past with rose-colored glasses though - it wasn’t too long after I first started posting that I recall people yearning for the good old days when Timbo posted more often… There are lots of interesting recent additions. Dr. Skeptix is good, and stokedporcupine has potential. Anyone relatively new I’m not thinking of right now, my apologies.

Where’s JeffR been lately BTW? Schrauper used to be a favorite, but he only posts every once and awhile.

39

RSU - The Florida Kid.

He cracked me up. Pissed me off, but cracked me up.

40

I tend to tab in and out from the site, while working on other things. If I’m having a busy week, I don’t post on the forums (though I make sure to keep up with new articles on the home page) as often. Certain topics will catch my interest, some don’t, and others I’m simply tired of discussing.

Anyways, I try to keep cool and calm in the passionate debates, even if I feel like some are getting a bit personal towards me. However, I’m not perfect and have found myself responding to comments I should’ve just ignored. I think the biggest thing to remember is to passionately go after the subject matter and not the person.

Personally, I’ll be spending much less time here. Mostly because of the same old tired topics. However, noone, no matter how much we’ve gone at each other, has earned actual hatred from me. So, there is that. I hope everyone here knows they can tell me I’m wrong, and why I’m wrong. I’ll respond in defense of my position, of course. But, I believe we’ll both think to ourselves, “He is so wrong about this, but at least he’s cool to go back and forth with.”

Another problem is with posts going dramatically off subject. I’ve allowed myself once or twice to get caught up in side debates for far too long, but generally there’s one or two people constantly pulling posts into territory completely foreign to the topic. I’d hate to be specific, but everyone is probably thinking it…every other post doesn’t have to turn into a debate about Iraq, when it’s not even related to the subject, at all.

Well, I’ve moved to FL. so I’ll be busy with work and getting settled in. Good luck to inspiring a bit more civility around here. I’ll drop a post from time to time.