Reciting Democrat Party talking points and insisting they are "facts" isn't a valid debating technique either Chaz.

If you don't have time for extensive blogging and commenting I think we can all understand that. Clearly, there are higher priorities and family is at the top of that list. But spare us the lecture on how were are all unfit to debate you. If you can't handle details and semantics maybe it is you who are not fit to debate. The devil, as it is said, is in those very details. Once we cede the debate arena to lofty rhetoric and do not delve into those details, all hope of arriving at an acceptable solution to a given problem is lost.

Concerned taxpayer

No one is unfit to debate me and I'm sorry if I gave that impression. Also I'm not inclined toward hi falutin rhetoric either.

I love sports analogies so let me try baseball. In baseball each team gets three outs per inning. If one team demanded four no one would think that's reasonable.

Similarly in debate there are certain "niceties" that make debate worth while.

If someone is making a very large and broad point, its easy to find something minor to argue about. In a recent debate here, I claimed that Bill Clinton has balanced budgets, run a surplus and paid down part of our national debt.

At that point my use of two words "paid down" became the big article of contention.

That's what's called a distinction without a difference. The term paid down can be argued about and was.

I was accused of lying in fact.

At that point the larger point I was trying to make was impossible to return to.

So rather than a real debate, we decended into confusion.

Debating in good doesn't shouldn't rely on such tactics.

Does this mean that details aren't important. No. But too often here we go so far teasing out the "devil in the details" that we can't "see the forest for the trees."

I hope you understand where I'm coming from a little now.

I don't really walk around with my nose in the air--LOL

oops

I forgot to point out that a "distinction without a difference" means that yes--we can argue about a certain definition, but in the larger picture it doesn't make a huge difference.

A "distinction without a difference" is essentially a sophisticated type of hairsplitting.

Dear Chaz,

I agree with your desire to avoid these 'distinctions without a difference.' Perhaps I am going to make such a distinction right now.

There was indeed some confusion in the aforementioned blog entry and comments thread over the use of "paid down." While I believe you eventually clarified what you meant by that locution, I think it took a while. Granted, sometimes we don't see the mistake or equivocation we may have made as quickly as we'd like, but it behooves us bloggers to make sure our language is as precise as possible. What I am saying in your case is that "paid down" was initially your mistake, innocent as it was. Had you slowed down for a moment and edited yourself more tightly, you could have saved yourself a lot of head pain.

I am not blaming you, really. I am merely pointing out that sometimes our conflicts are the result of our unintended miscues.

What I think happens, at least in your blog and comment threads, is that commenters rather quickly turn to ad hominem - abusive fallacies. There is a real (bad) attitude in a lot of comments, and it is almost always unnecessary. Debate too quickly devolves into sarcasm, snark, malice, disdain, mockery. There is simply no need for it. And there is hardly any productive value in terms like wingnuts or moonbats or countless other words and phrases meant to dehumanize. Debate should be about facts, and how facts are synthesized and reported. Debate should be about methodology, about its precision or imprecision. But a person is not an idiot if a mistake is made, nor is an interlocutor a scum-bag or nutjob or a*****e if he or she is disagreeable, clumsy or uninformed. Most people realize this; most bloggers expect to be respected, and yet almost in spite of themselves bloggers and their readers quickly descend together -- often but not always -- into petty bickering about who is a better human.

But what has really dehumanized debate is something rather insidious: it is the suspicion that every THING and every PERSON is political. This post-modern trope is tripe, and it leads to bullying: people believe even a mistake is intentional, and that everyone lies; that lying is the heart of political discourse (at least on the side one opposes). This is born partly in experience; but it is mostly born of cynicism and, dare I say, laziness. It is always easier to attack the messenger and to ignore the message; and it is easier to punch one's way out of conflict than think one's way out.

I very much appreciate this entry of yours, as it serves again to remind me that civility is a wonderful and glorious necessity, and that I must daily, even hourly, resist the temptation to punch that glorious necessity in the nose.

Peace,

Gnade

Bill

I looked up the term pay down. It means making a payment toward a net debt.

By that definition pay down is the correct term

Bill

You are on the money about the snarkiness and name calling.

I've come to recognize who will do that rather than debate in good faith.

Thanks for your comments.

Bill

Here's a website called "Pay Down Debt"

http://paydowndebt.unl.edu/

Here's another definition

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/paydown.asp


What Richard Barnes was claiming was that if you pay on the interest of a loan, that doesn't qualify as "paying down"

Under some definitions perhaps he had a valid point and perhaps not. But in the context of the debate about which Presidents have run us into massive debt, the point is minor.

When people write, they are often allowed what are called "terms of convenience" In this case "pay down" is a term of convenience.

I'd be curious to hear what other terms might have been useful in that context.

So what better way to discredit Democrats than to divert the argument.

ONE LAST THOUGHT: The Debt from the Reagan years is yet to be paid. When Clinton ran surpluses some people argued that he should have returned the money to taxpayers,

But voters have to take as much responsibility on the way our country is run as politicians do.

We live in a representative democracy. Americans elected Reagan with a promise to cut taxes and build up our military at the same time.

Americans have to take responsibility for that decision. Clinton simply did what any good money manager would do.

The surpluses remained in the US Treasury and applied to our outstanding debt.

Bill

Just found this: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pay+down

Not trying to pound and pound, but my point is that my use of the term "pay down" is defensible.

Now given this definition of a distinction without a difference from Wikipedia we can clearly see how a semantic arguement diverted attention away from my main point ( which I supported with a deficit and surplus graph by the way).

"A distinction without a difference is a type of argument where one word or phrase is preferred to another, but results in no difference to the final outcome. It is particularly used when a word or phrase has connotations associated with it that one party to an argument prefers to avoid."

Dear Chaz,

I have no problem with "paid down" per se, but it is sufficiently ambiguous to merit close editorial scrutiny. Had you cited the dictionary immediately, you would have wrested back control of your original debate.

I know from my own life and studies that more debates turn weird because of some semantic misunderstanding than perhaps for any other reason. "Paid down," while technically accurate, is just not convincing in a serious or academic discussion about the merits of deficit spending. Each of us who write must change our language -- particularly our diction -- based in part on the topic we've chosen and the audience we are writing for. Sometimes, locutions like "paid down" are just a little too colloquial for a discussion that requires linguistic precision of a fairly high order.

Again, I am not blaming you. Even if you could have straightened things out easily, your interlocutors did not necessarily give you that opportunity, because their tone and language was rather aggressive and put you on the defensive. That defensiveness was aimed at the wrong thing for a while; provoked by an apparent and unfortunate accusation you were a liar, you defended your honor and dignity (which is fine). Had you not felt accused, you would have quickly dealt with the confusion swirling around "paid down."

All this proves that the tone, spirit, and diction of commenters who come across as abusive actually corrupts healthy debate.That is why we should stay on topic, avoiding ad hominem attacks and terms at all costs.

Does that make sense? I find that my interlocutors hurl out ad hominem fallacies in part to get me to slip from reason into emotion: they hope to rattle me enough that I will slip into irrationality, thus giving the illusion that they have proven me wrong.

Be well.

Gnade

Bill

If you could analyse ten debates between me and my detractors you would see the same tactics ten times.

This is not an isolated incident.

I'm way beyond debating certain "regulars" here.

Life is too short to make the same mistakes over and over again.