Austhus won the Face Off.

Austhus vs Reagan Dollar Bill

Stewart
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Wins: 8
Losses: 1
Ties: 1
Lawrence, KS
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8
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Neutral
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Wins: 0
Losses: 1
Ties: 0
No City, XX
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3
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Political zealots have hijacked the national debate on nearly every issue facing this nation.


Sure, it's easy to say "the moderates aren't being paid attention to." But the argument goes further than that. From immigration reform to the definition of torture to healthcare spending, the vast majority of Americans sit somewhere in the midddle, swayed by the passions and arguments of the national discourse. However, that discourse has been taken over by the extremists on the far left and the far right. Every question must have a black-white answer. Amnesty or Zero Tolerance. Socialization or the Cutthroat Free Market. Total Isolationists or Global Flagbearers. The "If you're not with me, you're against me" attitudes of the extremes are the cause of the fall of general interest in politics and will be the fall of this nation.


I believe that you only just weakened your own thesis. The question began with the statement ???Political zealots have hijacked the national debate on nearly every issue facing this nation.??? You then took the argument ???further??? without advancing significant thoughts to the actual question at hand.

Well, actually you did imply your thoughts which work contrary to your answer:
The perception of one side vs. the other may get ratings but does not dominate the actual electorate, not historically and not currently. You can???t confuse the two and come to a conclusion which you did.

By you saying that the ???attitudes of the extremes are the cause of the fall of general interest in politics and will be the fall of this nation.??? I believe that these individuals who argue for the ???extremes??? are the very political zealots who are TRYING to hijacking the national debate. I also believe that in you choice of words you may be one of them.


I never implied that the extremes dominate the actual electorate. However, you cannot deny that the media is generally focused on the people willing to take things further right and left.

Who gets more press: Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war, far-left camper, or Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS), a "conservative democrat" who tries to balance the war effort with the party's efforts?

Who gets more attention: Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who insists there are "too many mosques in America," or Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), a Muslim convert who preaches tolerance?

Think about how people react to moderates and how people react to extremists. No matter how you feel about the extremist positions, you know they tend to incite more passion than the "let's think about things" crowd. Zealots draw the camera to their debate and, in doing so, dominate the discussion with black-and-white options.

Again, I don't believe the electorate is close to either side: quite the opposite, they have a general distaste for it. But at this time, they are being fed an argument between extremes.


You are confusing the issue. It doesn't matter that political zealots dominate the extreme rhetoric or get ratings, they cannot actually hijack national debate. That is the issue at hand because "hijacking debate" differs greatly from attention on the news and blogs or what side most of the electorate is on. The suposed media focus is much different than the question being asked to be debated here.

Although political zealots are TRYING to hijack national debates in this country, they do not dominate it. That is because these zealots may get the most attention. But, most Americans are moderates who can think for themselves despite what is shown on most TV shows.
So, although these zealots get attention, they have by no means any real power to sway a majority of the moderate, well thinking Americans enough to change the snapshot of an election. THIS is the necessary condition for being able to "hijack debate" in this nation.
Therefore, they can never "hijack" national debate. The confusing of attention with actual power is the issue here. Without any real power, zealots are merely talking heads and cannot "hijack" much. Let alone "every issue facing this nation."


For proof that you give the general populace too much credit in terms of their intelligence, I give you Exhibit A: the 2004 election. If you tap into the primal fears of humanity and then say "vote for me or all this bad stuff will happen," then the "collective intelligence" of society tends to go out the window.

And that's how these extremists do it: through fear. "You will go to hell." "Our way of life is threatened." "The smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud." Zealots make us fear for our lives and souls, and then convince enough of the population that the only way they will remain safe is by voting for them.

Rhetoric like this forces the moderate population to be silent. They do not want to be viewed as soft on positions, especially since the public debate is pushed to the margins.


I am afraid that you have confused the entire issue being debated at hand. You have taken the scope of the argument asking if zealots are actually hijacking debate to fear=votes. The ACTUAL issue is that regardless of perceptions on TV, these extremeists statistically cannot sway elections and therefore have no real power to "hijack" politics. This isn't a right vs left issue.

People such as yourself claiming that this will be the reason for the "fall of this country" are, in their choice of language, the ones trying to hijacking national debate.
As far as your claim about the fall of general interest in politics goes, voter turnout has been increasing and that is the only true measure that we have to gauge "interest in politics", so your theory that this discourse has a negative effect on national interest in politics is also incorrect.
Zealots may try to dominate the discussion and get the most attention, but do not confuse this with "hijacking." Without the power to actually change elections, merely get ratings and show what is convenient on tv shows, blogs, etc, and maybe only sway a handful of voters, they lack the real power to actually "hijack" de

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Capitol

I personally think it would be hard to argue against the idea of zealous extremism in American politics. This is a lose-lose kinda argument...

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Stewart

Perhaps... let's see how the argument plays out.

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Paul-button

why not go back to following the bill of rights?...the Constitution? Here is a quote from Dr.Ron Paul on this subject: The biggest threat to your privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding citizens??? personal matters. We must stop the move toward a national ID card system. All states are preparing to issue new driver???s licenses embedded with ???standard identifier??? data ??? a national ID. A national ID with new tracking technologies means we???re heading into an Orwellian world of no privacy. I voted against the Real ID Act in March of 2005. To date, the privacy focus has been on identity theft. It was Congress that created this danger by mandating use of the standard identifier (currently your SSN) in the private sector. For example, banks use SSNs as customer account identifiers because the government requires it. We must also protect medical privacy. Right now, you???re vulnerable. Under so-called ???medical privacy protection??? rules, insurance companies and other entities have access to your personal medical information. Financial privacy? Right now depositing $10,000 or more in cash in your local bank account will generate a federally-mandated report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the United States Department of the Treasury. And then there???s the so-called Patriot Act. As originally proposed, it: * Expanded the federal government's ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight; * Allowed nationwide search warrants non-specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight; * Made it far easier for the government to monitor private internet usage; * Authorized ???sneak and peek??? warrants enabling federal authorities to search a person???s home, office, or personal property without that person???s knowledge; and * Required libraries and bookstores to turn over records of books read by their patrons. I have fought this fight for many years. I sponsored a bill to overturn the Patriot Act and have won some victories, but today the threat to your liberty and privacy is very real. We need leadership at the top that will prevent Washington from centralizing power and private data about our lives. -Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) We are already living in a "police state"

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Stewart

You know, I know you keep saying "Ron Paul for President," but I keep hearing "blah blah blah."

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Military

Are you going to infect every thread on this site with Ron Paul? Ron Paul lives in la la land, and fortunately that's were he is going to stay.

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Liberty

I disagree with dollar bill's analysis of austhus's argument. You cant spend too much time with charts and graphs, but its pretty obvious that the rise of "them and us" political discourse can correspond with decreasing political participation and knowledge. His argument goes like this (roughly): 1.people are in the middle, politically speaking 2.political extremists dominate political debate 3.when political extremists dominate political debate -> people don't participate or care as much. 4. Nonparticipation hurts the political process (assumed) 5. Therefore the extremists hurt the political process. Also I believe you took an ad hominem swipe at Austhus dollar bill by inferring he is an extremist. Poor style and I vote for Austhus. I would have refuted his argument very differently.

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Stewart

Thanks for the backup, haha. Admittedly, I need to work on translating what I think into words slightly better, but you inferred my argument well. And I'm glad I wasn't the only one confused about the "extremist" accusation.

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Neutral

"Although political zealots are TRYING to hijack national debates in this country, they do not dominate it. That is because these zealots may get the most attention. But, most Americans are moderates who can think for themselves despite what is shown on most TV shows." There is a very large group of people for which the above statement is not true, and, when we are talking about elections that come down to 3% points, it does not take much.

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Neutral

I respectfully disagree with HAHAHAOHWOW because that is not anything close to what I am arguing. I am trying to focus on the scope of the question. Actually, btw, I never said anything or implied anything about participation. The only real indicator we have of political participation is voter turnout, which has been increasing. Therefore, I did not argue that, nor do I believe that it is true that this has any negative effect on the electorate's intrest. Also, I did not use an ad hominem argument, because I did not use pegging him as an extremest (for saying this will be the downfall of America) as any premise for an argument. An adhom. argument uses the personal attack as a premise for a conclusion, as you can see in my argument, that was both not a personal attack and not used as any sort premise. Had that been an ad om. argument, it would've went roughly like: "A smokes, so his argument against smoking tobacco cannot be trusted and must be invalid." Clearly, that didn't happen. I'm glad you voted and I appreciate your participation but I also wish that before you had voted that you read my complete argument. This is a cool website for us nerdy-argument driven junkies btw.

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Neutral

Keith, I also respectfully disagree. If you look historically zealots cannot sway a whole 3% of the elctorate. This is based on exit poll data which is the most reliable measure that we have on the matter. Although it seems that way, data shows otherwise upon some further research.

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Neutral

Your argument says that the 2004 election was won because of fear. That is just not true. "Your ex A" is not only untrue but VERY irrelevant. The scope here is hijacking political debate, it has little to do with what the zealots are saying to try to sway votes, they can't sway enough of the elecotrate and do not have enough actual real power to hijack politics.

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