I do/do not engage in debate with Right Wingers...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

[GoneOffShore]

1. Only in rare instances

especially as I don't know that many RW's. Most of the ones I do know realize that starting a discussion with me is like teasing a rabid dog.
I will hurt them.

[Lord_Ingues]

19. hell yes I debate them

I know the damage they do by spreading their ideas is far, far worse if I stay silent and don't combat it. By land, by air, by sea! :headbang:

[newyawker99]

24. Hi Lord_Ingues!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Reverend_Smitty]

2. I claim that I won't debate them...

but they end up saying something so asinine that I have no choice, especially with my family...I feel as if I am defending my honor. Them picking on Kerry or any other democrat for no real reason, feels like they are personally attacking me and every thing I believe in so I must stand up to them no matter how futile the effort may be.

[Reverend_Smitty]

3. dupe

double post...happening to me alot today

[k in IA]

4. I used to always like to discuss policy and other issues with my

Repug in-laws but I have stopped since the run up to the Iraq War. I have just been too upset (angry!) about the whole debacle and its human and financial toll to discuss it with people who bought the BS.

[tandot]

5. Actually, I don't know any Right-Wingers. But I wouldn't engage

in any discussions, anyway. I wouldn't be able to dumb down enough to discuss anything on such a low educational/mental level.

Besides that, I really think that anyone who still thinks Bush is the best President ever, after all we know, has some substantial mental issues to deal with.

[RoyGBiv]

6. I pick my battles...

I never rule out debating with an entire class of people, although I'll rule out debating individuals because with certain individuals, it's not actually a debate.

But, more than that, I try to choose my battles wisely, preferably by approaching a topic of disagreement obliquely and forcing my opponent into agreeing to a position on some casually related issue that actually disagrees with one or more of his own political positions.

Discussing historical subjects often provides ample opportunities to do this. I've found that a lot of right wingers hold positions on historical subjects that do not agree with their present political opinions. I really like people who hate Abraham Lincoln but love Dubya. People who hold a blind hatred for him tend to rail on and on about his abuses of the Constitution, and they can get cornered rather easily if they don't choose their words carefully.

[guitar man]

7. Not really debate

More like setting up a Burmeese tiger trap. By the time they realize they have stepped onto it, it's too late. :wow:

[jokerman93]

8. Nope

I almost lost my job last year when discussing some of the lies and outrages that were bringing us into the war. The people I work with weren't rabid freepers or anything, just good, solid oblivious 'Murican's who believe everything they're told, and couldn't care less anyway. I'm pretty sure they were only vaguely aware that the war was real. I was regarded as a conspiracy nutcase until just the last couple months when the all the BS started getting out to the public. I can't get the last year of ostracism and slander back, but at least they're all being cool about it again.

One guy told me today his girlfriend just asked him last weekend who the vice president is. Jeez. It's either rabid toothless freepers who think they represent America, or shiny happy scary pod-people.

I don't engage anymore unless it's in an organized situation, or on-line. Sorry, but I'm not going through the social BS again. I've been lucky to have a good hi-tech job all through the down-turn, and lucky I didn't get canned.

If anyone has any arguments against my position, I'm willing to listen, but I see no other way.

[Nay]

13. I'm with you, jokerman. It's bad enough to have to go to work ,

but trying to unbrainwash people on company time is dangerous. The social BS has to be fairly calm or I do not do well -- I already am not a people person, and I think most of them are too wound up in trivialities for me to engage with them in any meaningful way.

[Virginian]

9. I won't get into arguments but

If the conditions are right, I will ask logical questions to try to get them to think. Sometimes this works, but most of the time, they end up yelling and nothing logical comes out.

I asked one about Elian Gonzales. We have treaties with countries where the child is returned to the custodial parent. It may not always work as we would like, but we should hold up our end of the treaty, even if it is not with one of the countries involved in the treaty. Shouldn't this also apply to Elian?

Shouldn't Paris Hilton pay some taxes? She has all this money to inherit and then she will live off the dividends. Shouldn't she pay taxes just like any working American? After all, if she won the state lottery instead of the birth lottery, she would pay taxes.

Why should the people of DC pay taxes without any form of representation in either the house or the Senate. After all, wasn't that our rallying cry for independence, "No taxation without representation?"

Why do the Republicans hate Hillary so much? What has she done that causes her to be such a lightening rod?

I get some angry answers to these questions sometimes. I don't quite understand why they can't be discussed logically. I guess because there isn't a good logical answer.

[Mortos]

10. Fight them on the airwaves

I call talk radio shows almost daily. I am now know as "Steve the Liberal", a mantle I wear proudly. We have to challenge the lies and stupidity of these right wing nuts who are the major source of information for a large portion of the voting public.

I have been hung up on more times than I can count but I have noticed a new trend in talk radio here locally and that is one of people calling in with differing viewpoints or calling to challenge the host's assertions. Only by confronting the lies and propaganda of the right will we win the hearts and minds of the public.

I encourage everyone to listen to and take part in your local talk radio programs. The national ones are almost impossible to reach, but the local ones are usually begging for callers.

The thing I love most is proving them wrong or getting them so flustered they either hang up or mute me. I would love to see the majority of the callers be people like those here rather than the drooling idiots who call to agree with the host.

[DrWho]

11. I do

Oh boy I do.

ON other sites though.

[JohnLocke]

12. I prefer to think of it as education.

[Mike Daniels]

14. Wife and the in-laws are all moderate Republicans

So, invariably the topic turns to something political.

Everyone treats everything pretty even-handedly though with the joke being that one side will turn the other around eventually...although that's probably not going to happen.

[Jose Diablo]

15. I do not discuss anything with RW'er outside of

professional discussion. I do not anything to do with them, at all. They disgust me.

[Right Makes Might]

16. I generally only debate them on line

for two reasons 1) I debate with hard-righters to expose their wrongness to others (cuz they're not going to change their minds) and 2) because otherwise I'd want to hit them.

Just kidding, although I do get all shaky and upset when I actually fight (as opposed to a friendly discussion), so I find it easier with the buffer of my computer screen.

[Right Makes Might]

17. sorry, it doubled for some mysterious reason

:wtf:

[Cerridwen]

18. Like teaching a pig to dance . . .

"you get muddy and it aggravates the pig"

Aggravated neocons are extremely dangerous.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

22. I've also heard this as "never mud wrestle with a pig. You get dirty,

the pig likes it."

[Cerridwen]

23. I like yours better .....eom

[proud patriot]

20. I debate them in person only

:hi:

[Mike Niendorff]

21. when I feel like it :)

When I'm in the mood to remind them of their second-rate minds, their general intellectual incompetence and their complete lack of personal integrity, then, yeah, I'll call them out.

Kind of like "when I'm in the mood for shooting fish in a barrel".

:evilgrin:


MDN

[sendero]

25. I used to...

... but I tend to go from nice to scathing in about 10 seconds when people say clearly stupid stuff to me.

I got into it with a neighbor several months ago, and our once-good relationship will never be the same.

I feel that the only people who are likely to be effective at swaying someone's opinion are those with cooler natures than myself. I wish I could do better, but I don't think it is in me.

Also, IMHO a large percentage of these people don't have minds that can change anyway. They'd sooner call a pile of dogdoo a chocolate pie than they would admit that their king is a doooooofus.

[LDS Jock]

26. In order to debate, don't they have to listen?

Only rarely do I debate them now, only when I know them. I used to do it on Internet bulletin boards but found it unproductive as well as upsetting.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

28. I agree with you and deseo, upsetting and nonproductive, but we also

need people like louis c and Michael Moore to breathe fire for our side. Takes all types.

[louis c]

27. I live for it

It is why I breath air.

I was a debating student in college. I carry news stories and props with me. I look for an audience while engaged in a very animated discussion with a right winger and do not stop until I make a complete fool of my adversary in front of others. You see, I don't care if I can convince him, I use him as a foil to convince those who have yet to make up their minds.

That's what I thought DU was for, to give each other the ammo for the next day's battle.

One of my most recent went like this. When the freeper talked of Saddam's gassing of his own people, I reminded him it was during the Reagan Administration while Cheney was Sec. of Def, and Rumsfeld was Special envoy to the Mid-East. That was the time to speak up. "What did they say then?".

Then I produced a picture of Rummy shaking hands with Saddam which I took off this site. You could hear a pin drop, and that was the end of the discussion. KO.