By now the video has made plenty of rounds online and I'm sure most people have enjoyed the train wreck. I should not gloat, but in all honesty it's kind of hard not to. Of course, I'm all for debates and disagreements, but I do think that we live in too much of a bubble and our platforms for discourse are more like safe spaces for people to vent their political frustrations.
I think the video is worth watching regardless of what side of the isle you land on. I mean, if you are a leftie you might be happy because someone pwned a con, and even though that is quite silly, I would not blame you. But, even if you are a right leaning mind, there's a lot you can learn on how not to debate, how not to engage in the free market of ideas.
There's been tons of commentary on the subject already, and truthfully there's not a whole lot I can add. But, there is one point I do want to make, one that I believe is not only fair, but for some reason people don't seem to accept it as a reality.
Within the political spectrum, change is almost always initiated by the left, and the right is always there to mediate any proposed change. In other words, I'm baffled at the idea that it is insulting to say the right wing in America is not proposing new ideas, because it's simply how our politics work.
How can we deny this? Think about this, conservatism, the word, comes from the word conserve, which means to keep the same, aka NO CHANGE. So why would we even talk about something as ridiculous as Halls of Intelligentsia, beats me.
This is factually true: The left IS proposing the new ideas, and the right IS fighting them. Now, this does not say if the new ideas are good or bad, and for the most part they tend to be disastrous, but that's not the point, the point is that the water got so muddy, the conversation got so emotional, that nothing of essence was said.
At any rate, if you got 16 minutes to kill.... click play!
MenO
