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lunafaer (she/they)'s avatar

i lack the emotional stability to debate anyone, so i leave that to cooler heads. however, the archetypes you feature in this article are incredibly insightful and helpful in breaking down their bullshit. while i avoid debate, i don’t avoid talking about what’s happening right now to every person i encounter. the information you present here is useful in responding to semi-good faith questions.

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Rick Herbst's avatar

Lunafaer, that’s a great point about good faith vs bad faith actors… In Hasan’s Jubilee debate, there were a surprising number of good faith actors who - due to age, inexperience, lack of skill - had zero depth of backing by objective facts, and that’s what Hasan went after time and again. I was fascinated by his ability to zone in on the “type” of MAGA he was debating and once identified, go for the jugular and not let go until they were voted out or time ran out for that section of the debate.

Bad faith actors were there, too, and wow… did I realize how much BS gets thrown around in the name of things like critical race theory, immigration policy (it’s so simple: A lot of white people just don’t want brown skinned people around, with no idea or connection to the economic or workforce implications that deportation will create).

It’s my firm belief, just on the simple math, that crop harvests will not happen, ranch work will grind to a halt while cattle are not cared for, and prices will be gouged all the way to the stratosphere within the next 6 to 8 months.

Thanks so much for your insightful comment!

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Patrick Allan McPherson's avatar

Thanks, this article was informative and helpful! Looking forward to part II.

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Don Freeman's avatar

Just leave us not let the Orange Urine Aide GUZZLING apologist SPINELESS FECKLESS mAGA rEPUBLICAN sycophants get by with calling CONVICTED SEX TRAFFICER Ghisline Maxwell a victim, like dj tRUMP described and changed the narrative as describing, referring to 1/6/21 Convicted FELONIOUS Criminals incarcerated Domestic Terrorist as "HOSTAGES"..

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Carolene Logue's avatar

I hope you're okay with this idea:

You've provided a great tool for short training sessions for the members of our Indivisible group to practice the skills of factual, to the point responses when confronted with a lie. I plan to bring small groups 4 to 6 people together in round table style. A moderator will divide the group 2 by 2 and give one person the premise and the other person the facts. Give each topic a time frame to have a discussion about their assigned side of the topic. The moderator will stop the discussion at a predetermined timeframe and ask each team to summarize their discussion in 3 minutes or less, and report the summary back to the moderator who will make brief notes about each teams report and then the moderator will briefly report to the whole group each teams summary. No debate skills needed just the commitment to listen respectfully to each other.

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Wendy Parker's avatar

I absolutely LOVE the Big 13 list. Excellent information and receipts to back it. Thanks again for a great piece, Rick. Welcome back, my friend.

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