Blogging Tory "Atheist Conservative" is disappointed that some of us here at CC HQ are unable to engage in civil conversation. Specifically, in his comments section, he(?) writes:
There are two different methods to debate someone online. You can debate their ideas, or you can debate their validity to present them.
A fine suggestion, AC, so who do you propose we engage in intellectual discourse with first? Would that be those members of the Blogging Tories that don't allow comments of any form? Or the BTs who moderate their comments section so as to carefully and quietly reject any that they don't ideologically agree with? Or the BTs whose primary response to thoughtful and nuanced disagreement is "Wow, it sure is easy to get you idiots all excited, har har!!" Or perhaps the BTs who publish blatantly erroneous crap, get corrected on it, and then refuse to acknowledge the corrections and publish the same crap a month later as if nothing ever happened? (And you'll note, AC, I'm not even talking about the bigots, racists, white supremacists or howling scientific illiterates.)
So, AC, where do you propose we start? Seriously, if we here at CC HQ wanted to have an intelligent and logical discussion with one of the Blogging Tories, where should we go? I am so open to suggestions, and I really want to indulge you, so here's what we're gonna do.
I'm going to call your bluff, AC. You want intelligent discourse? Fine, you got it. First, let's pick an opening topic, and I'll let my readers chime in here. What would you folks like to chat about first? The recent copyright legislation? Bill C-484? The outrageous, continuing and blatantly illegal incarceration of Omar Khadr? What? Pick something, at least to start with. And this is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna have the party over at AC's place. We'll let him post the synopsis of whatever topic we choose, and open the comments section (which must be unmoderated) on that blog post ... and we'll watch. And we'll see just who is capable of careful, meticulous, reasoned and intellectual discourse. And who isn't.
Well, AC? How about it? We can put that hypothesis of yours to the test and, hey, bonus, you'll get buckets of traffic, I guarantee it. And when it's over, we'll let you judge who was capable of carrying on a civil discussion, and who wasn't. Does that work for you? Hmmmmmmmm?
Readers ... a topic, if you will.
9 comments:
Well done. Any of the topics you proposed would be good. Or human rights commissions, which has the advantage of cutting across ideological lines.
I will say that there are a few conservative sites worth visiting for a good conversation, but the signal-to-noise ratio in the comboxes tends to become unfavourable over a fairly short period of time.
"Readers ... a topic, if you will."
"The Red Herring That Is Incivility On The Internets".
also, "Substance Over Style"....
KEvron
I'm guessing that the legalization of same-sex marriage in California is too obvious? ;-)
Omar Khadr seems like a pretty good starting point for me. I'd like to see a reasoned (i.e., non emotional) argument as to why his treatment is OK.
Resolved: Canada should abolish universal state healthcare OR
Resolved: Universal state Healthcare is a right that must be protected
Resolved: Abortion in the last trimester should be outlawed except in cases where medically it is required to save the health or life of the mother. OR Resolved - There should be no limits on abortion.
Resolved: Canada needs to honour the treaties it signed with Aboriginal Nations - OR Resolved:Canada should forget about Treaties and abolish the concept of Aboriginal rights
Omar Khadr is probably not a viable topic, the specific case for continued detention is based on intelligence assessments not in the public domain. The pro-detention side would not be able provide any of the actual reasons for his detention.
Unaha-closp:
I call bullshit. "Classified intelligence assessments" on a 15-year-old? They scooped him up and accused him of throwing a grenade. We can simply assume that he did so and then argue whether he should still be kept in a cage to rot.
Sounds a lot like The Great Canadian Debate that Olaf and I did awhile back.
"We can simply assume that he did so and then argue whether he should still be kept in a cage to rot." except that the US Military seems to have doubts whether he actually, you know, killed anyone.
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