I love a good debate, and I love the topic of faith in a higher being. This is a long one, but enjoyable. I tend to find myself enjoying my ideas and faith more when I actually have to question them – therefore I can become more certain in what I find myself willing to defend. Have fun 🙂
On this day 50 years ago (June 12, 1963), the nation, and this panel were faced with an ugly reality of racial indecencies as a leader in Mississippi’s NAACP was gunned down outside of his house with his wife and children inside. I personally love going back an listening to old debates and panels, especially that I might notice the semantical differences that point towards the very real social order of the time. It’s one of the reasons why I love watching Mad Men, I feel like I’m understanding the world better thanks to understanding our older generations better.
There is so much nuance and confusion that could be injected into these conversations, but there are certainly things about them that are simple (discrimination as it was in these times was simply wrong, and that is very clear to me). But to sum up our cultural and natural barriers in life I shall quote my good friend Luke, “Life is one crazy life my man.”. I couldn’t agree more. May in the craziness of our lives we not forget to look out for others.
Chase Whiteside debates James O’Keefe at Temple University – YouTube.
I love a great debate, especially one with informed young people. These are two guys who have two very different styles of journalism, and they are compelled by rather different philosophies. I really like Chase Whiteside, and I think that Jame’s O’Keefe gets a bad rap. I appreciate that they both believe in what they are doing, so I hope that you enjoy this.
I must warn that this at many points seems like a trial for James O’Keefe, but I think he does rather well in explaining himself.
Whether you enjoy this or not you should probably look both of these people up, because we are probably likely to see them both for quite a while.
Complete Vice Presidential Debate 2012: Joe Biden vs. Paul Ryan – Oct 11, 2012 – Elections 2012.
I will relay my thoughts about the debate later, I plan to watch it a few more times before I write a more full post. In short I think that Biden won, but that there will be some push back for having scoffed, laughed, and smirked at so many of the things that Paul Ryan used said… Although, I did find that his reactions were somewhat warranted at times, as Ryan seemed to be pretty full of it… Moreover, Biden needed to come across as strong, and he definitely wasn’t weak… Ok, I’m done for now, but I hope you enjoy the debate, and feel free to let me know what you think.
C-SPAN: Full Vice Presidential Debate with Gov. Palin and Sen. Biden.
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Sarah: “Hey, can I call you Joe?”
Joe: “You can call me Joe.”
Sarah: “Okay good, thanks.”
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The time has come… I love this time, when caring about what’s going on doesn’t make me completely bothersome to my friends 🙂
Tonight the the Vice-Presidential debate, and I think that there are a few things to point out to those who seem to have short memories.
4 years ago Sarah Palin was said to have losed the Vice-Presidential debate to Joe Biden by the main stream media, but the McCain-Palin ticket was wildly happy with her performance… She spoke simply, and a lot of people liked what she had to say. I personally am glad that she was not ever given a real chance to be the President of this country, but I love hearing her as a part of the debate. As a governor she helped fight a lot of big oil companies on behalf of the people… People forget that.
On the flip side, Joe Biden does seem to say and to things that can very easily become a laugh line, but he is no joke… Vice-President Biden is incredibly smart, and practiced in what he’s doing. As the Chairman on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations he knows a lot about this world that we live in. Not to mention, the gaffes that he has made have been pretty honest mistakes for the most part… I haven’t seen too many “Freudian” slips of the tongue about him believing something other than what he claims to believe. He has done things like asked a man who sat in a wheelchair to stand and be recognized .. He dropped the F-Bomb in a microphone after the Affordable Care Act was passed (I actually kind of liked seeing him genuinely excited, we never see stuff like that from political figures).
And as for Paul Ryan, he has shown himself to be a formidable fighter and contender, but he also seems to be pretty deceptive and dishonest to me… I’m disappointed in how he’s campaigned since being selected, and I don’t want him to be the Vice-President. However, I am glad that he can be a spearhead to start conversation about actual changes that need to be made, and hopefully he can be that spearhead.
I think that underestimating either the Vice-President or Congressman Ryan would be unwise, but to get excited for tonight’s debate I’m going to have to watch the debate between then Senator Biden, and Governor Palin… Please join me 🙂
So the battle over the senate is always hard fought, but this time around there is one major “power house” election that has far more notoriety than all of the others. The election between ‘consumer advocate’ and Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, and current Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. They have already had 2 debates, and the third of four debates will take place tonight (October 10. 2012). So far in their two debates Senator Brown (who replaced Sen. Ted Kennedy in a special election when he passed away during the healthcare debates) has come across as kind of a bully (which is not his reputation, so it seems like he’s possibly behaving according to political advisement would have him) with his attacks on her Native American background (saying that she’s not really Native American, and that she’s used that tagline as an advantage to get ahead), and he has attacked her work as a lawyer in a case about asbestos. Professor Warren is from Oklahoma (as am I), and it’s very likely that she does actually have Native American ancestry (as do I), but regardless this seems like a meaningless distraction to me, especially the relentlessness that Senator Brown has had in attacking the issue. Senator Brown is also an Independent (as am I), and I do appreciate that about him. However, he was formerly a Republican in the Massachusetts state legislature, and he has campaigned as one with his remarks to the President. I have mixed feelings about this election, but I prefer Elizabeth Warren, we need some tough Democrats in Washington, most of them are pretty wimpy (which was the saddest part of watching Anthony Weiner go away… He was tough).
Alright, well I wanted to post about this to say that this is a race to watch, but also to offer up a great example of how a debate should be moderated (as one is every week on his show “Meet the Press”) by David Gregory. David Moderated the second debate between these candidates, and I really wish that he would just moderate all of the Presidential debates. I like that he gets involved when he spots political spin, he could’ve really made that first Presidential debate a real debate… Ok, well below I’ve posted the first Massachusetts Senate election debates, and if you are only going to watch one of them I recommend the second one with David Gregory… Enjoy
Debate 1:
Debate 2:
Presidential Debate 2012 (Complete) Romney vs.Obama – 10/3/2012 – Elections 2012.
Here is the full debate, and I’m going to put my quick thoughts below (so that I don’t spoil anything if you want to make up your own mind), but I’ll post some more thorough thoughts later.
Full Debate
OK, so far all of the analysis that I’ve heard tonight is that people feel that Mitt Romney got the best of this debate. On a personal note I don’t necessarily agree, but I understand how that might be true when speaking about the electorate. I think that this is going to be surprising to many because of the views that people have about these 2 people and their person-ability (and on that note I think that Obama looked much more comfortable but that Mitt looked more engaged, as he looked the President in the face almost the entire time that he wasn’t speaking). However, this isn’t all that surprising as this debate was about domestic issues (aka: The Economy), and considering the fact that this debate was almost entirely about President Obama’s record (because the voters know at least something about it), and the roles will likely flip in the coming debate (particularly in the foreign policy debate).
I think that the topics that we will likely hear more about over the coming days will be much of the same:
I would love to hear more specifics about each of these things however. I want to hear about Romney’s plans to close loopholes, but I’m in suport of that. And I want to hear Obama defend the Affordable Care Act, as it still seems mysterious in a lot of ways (although I support so much of it), and I want to hear them both define their approach their plans for foreign policy from this point forward (even though I feel like I understand the President’s approach so far). I would also appreciate a more cooperative conversation about regulation, but I think that’s pretty wishful thinking.
I took some notes, and I’m going to watch this video again, and consolidate my notes so I can make a few more observations about what took place tonight. Please feel free to let me know what you thought about this debate if you have an opinion, I would love to hear from you.
-Grady
I’m very excited for this debate, and if you are looking for a place to watch it you can watch it here, live. That is of course if you don’t have a TV, because it will be live on several channels (listed below), but if you are stuck somewhere without TV, just come to this blog gradycarter.wordpress.com and you can watch it here. I always love getting your feedback, and I’d love to get some feedback about this debate. So feel free to email me or comment your thoughts, and let me know if you’d like to share them on the blog, that can be worked out, if they’re thoughtful and not too angry 🙂
The first in the series of Presidential debates between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will be happening tonight at 9pm et, 6pm pt from the University of Denver in Colorado. The debate will be 90 minutes long with a focus on domestic issues. We will have the live stream embedded so you can watch the debate right here on this page.
Live Stream:Â Begins around 8pm et / 5pm pt, check back here to watch live
If you have trouble with the YouTube Feed below there are several places that you can click, like this one:
C-SPAN Live Debate Feed
Live Stream (Only Works during the Debate)
Spanish Live Stream:Â Univision Live
Air Time:Â Wednesday, October 3, 2012 @Â 9pm et / 8pm ct / 7pm mt / 6pm pt
Channels:Â ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and more including CNN Espanol and others
Moderator: Jim Lehrer (Host of NewsHour on PBS)
The debate will focus on domestic policy and be divided into six time segments of approximately 15 minutes each on topics to be selected by the moderator and announced several weeks before the debate.
The moderator will open each segment with a question, after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond. The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a discussion of the topic.
Following the broadcast, we will have the full video of the debate available for viewing. Check back for links.
via First Presidential Debate tonight from the University of Denver « 2012 Election Central.
I enjoy a good debate, and I really enjoy watching people take a stand.
Also, a side story about Chris Wallace: While I was in Washington D.C. this April I actually met a Fox News camera Man on the street next to the Capitol building and I told him that there were 3 Fox News reporters who I liked (Shepard Smith, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace) and he told me that I need to get over Chris Wallace because he was rude to all of the people on the set, constantly. I don’t know him, and I hope this isn’t true, but ever since he told me that I’ve had a harder time with liking him, but I’ll continue to like Bret and love Shepard (Shep Smith is the best…). Ok, enjoy this old interview.
Argument vs. Debate: Can we tell the difference anymore?.
“I just see no profit in continuing a discussion with someone who simply wants to argue.”This was the final comment made during a discussion I had online recently. It all began with a blog post I happened upon criticizing the President’s decision to deny the Keystone Pipeline permit claiming it was another example of policies meant to ruin the economy and deny Americans access to energy. Despite a couple of initial comments referring to my “kool-aid drinking” the back and forth progressed in a fairly civil manner.
In retrospect, I should have not wasted so much time on the discussion but there was little else to distract my attention that particular day. Overall, the discussion was unremarkable, just people of differing opinions countering one anothers’ supported and unsupported claims but what stood out was that final comment from the blog owner. Was all this an argument? I saw it as a debate, not as an argument, not the negative connotation commonly attached to the word. It prompted me to sit back and wonder…have we lost the ability to distinguish between meaningless arguing and substantive debate? Has it become popularly credible to characterize the expression of opposing viewpoints as arguing?
This harkens back to a previous posting of mine, “Does Perry’s Debate Regret Speak to a Broader Political Trend?” where I speculated on a recent trend in which politicians were avoiding situations where their claims may be questioned, where their policy ideas would be subjected to tests of validity. Is this what I encountered in this instance? Is venturing onto another’s blog to debate the validity of their claims a taboo? Thinking back on the exchanges with the blog’s owner it felt as if there was an air of indignance. Was this an intrusion upon a hermitage meant only for select members of a particular group which curiously enough was open to all wanderers traversing the internet?
In a formal sense, argument is generally described as a presentation of a well-developed line of evidence in support of a particular position or claim as part of a debate. Informally, an argument tends to simply assert a position or point of view with a varied level of support included, if any. Over the last dozen years the latter has evolved, through popular media outlets, into a method to instigate confrontation between those of hardened opinions from the extreme edges of the ideological spectrum.
Now coming from a scientific background with an ingrained compulsion to support whatever I claim, I use the terms debate and argument fairly interchangeably with a definition that leans closer to the formal rather than the informal description. This illustrates a personal view of debate on the internet in which one supports their claims through credible sources refraining from personal attacks. This is not to say I have never been caught up in heated exchanges that punctured the personal attack barrier from time to time. These instances, however, are rarely productive and I have learned to temper my impulsiveness for the most part.
Given the latter description of argument, how it has come to be a staple of cable news outlets, has this confounded the average individual’s understanding of what constitutes a debate or an argument? Is debate now perceived by the general public as something they witness on The O’Reilly Factor or the recent Republican presidential primary debates where emotional rhetoric geared toward a like-minded audience is the norm rather than substantive policy discussion? Has this spread into the ever-growing world of internet, political blogging where tolerance is sparse and challenges from those outside one’s group consciousness is now viewed as a trespassing offense?
I realize I have asked more questions than offered solutions but I found as I wrote this piece I wanted to engage the minds of the readers. Am I alone in this? What have you perceived? Have others had similar experiences? Is this indeed a trend anyone else has observed? What are the culprits? How did it evolve? There’s a plenitude here to debate, abundant arguments to make. We have but one overriding rule though…be civil.
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