So I have an idea that may be interesting and may not work: a thread where a person that supports the democratic party and one that supports the republican party ask questions of each other designed to get the other person to explain why their party is better on a given issue (or, if they think its worse, why that doesn't matter to them).

I'm posting this to develop the idea (or if reaction is uniformly negative, kill it). For example, I think that there needs to be a way to define issues or issue areas in advance so that there isn't any talking past each other.

Thoughts?

I have always wanted to see a borodog/ Dvaut thunderdome. I personally back this idea 100%. Ikestoys v. Iron would be super fun too.

Can only those two people post? What if someone just decides to stop replying?

IN.

ELLIOTR

It would have to be only those two people at least for a time. There could be a spectators/commentary thread or it could just be opened up more generally.

If someone quits then they quit. Obv this is all voluntary.

ElliotR

Then you shall be presumed dead and defeated.

ElliotR

3 votes ElliotR.

Night in :06

lol I am an unkillable neutral

Oh yeah, this has potential. Already the intent comes out about wanting to crush a position as opposed to gain a better understanding about said position.

Wasnt this done before?

Maybe im thinking of summit else though.

Im willing to defend Hugo Chavez and the bolivarian revolution.

We've had debate threads before.

how about a formal moderated debate where loser agrees to never post in politics forum again?

Formal moderated debates on the internet always fail because nobody is objective enough.

Yeah I don't want a formal debate, I want more of a conversation

Fly vs Zan plz.

nick_van_exel

It isn't really Thunderdome unless there is a steel cage involved. Err....steelhouse?

steelhouse

I would suggest that each poster has to present 3 ideas to debate that their ideology supports, and the opponent gets to pick 1 of those.

So if for sake of argument a demo and repub were to debate topic choices could go something like:
Repub:
End affirmative action
Balanced budget
Full right to bare arms
Demo:
Reform of immigration laws
Reduction in armed services
Universal Healthcare

A few problems I could see...
- If the posters could post in outside threads about the topic, it could lead to debating outside of the official debate which people judging would take into consideration with the arguments.
- The posting in the thread should have some sort of framework, like one person posts, the other person posts, and so on. Maybe they have a set time to respond, with reasonable flexibility obv.
- The person posing the idea should be required to clearly define it. No claiming to be for an idea, then later in the defending the idea claiming that what they really meant was XYZ not ABC and you are talking about a different flavor of that idea. Maybe even a defined period of question asking about specific examples within their idea so it is clear what they mean, with reasonable moderation to prevent dodging of questions, as well as allowing the poster to define things in reasonable terms if the question asker is just trying to pin down some particularly unsavory example (loldeathpanels).

Thats my thoughts. Look forward to sweat thread if ya'll get it started up.

Are there even any republicans on this forum?

See posts 13, 17, and 18 ITT. (Pretty sure, maybe I missed someone or have someone misclassified. )

Did you just call me a Republican?

Is this in response to me?

I think nick_van_exel is the only one of those three. Not sure what Steelhouse is.

OMG The former Governator is gonna glowstick me to death for calling him a Republican!