#debate

If we don't believe in moral absolutes and then we get into a cultural-political debate, how are we going to win? ↗

— Randall Terry

#debate #get #going #how #into

The point is that television does not reveal who the best man is. In fact, television makes impossible the determination of who is better than whom, if we mean by 'better' such things as more capable in negotiation, more imaginative in executive skill, more knowledgeable about international affairs, more understanding of the interrelations of economic systems, and so on. The reason has, almost entirely, to do with 'image.' But not because politicians are preoccupied with presenting themselves in the best possible light. After all, who isn't? It is a rare and deeply disturbed person who does not wish to project a favorable image. But television gives image a bad name. For on television the politician does not so much offer the audience an image of himself, as offer himself as an image of the audience. And therein lies one of the most powerful influences of the television commercial on political discourse. ↗

— Neil Postman

#campaigns #debate #democracy #discourse #elections

The last time that I consciously wrote anything to 'save the honor of the Left', as I rather pompously put it, was my little book on the crookedness and cowardice and corruption (to put it no higher) of Clinton. I used leftist categories to measure him, in other words, and to show how idiotic was the belief that he was a liberal's champion. Again, more leftists than you might think were on my side or in my corner, and the book was published by Verso, which is the publishing arm of the New Left Review. However, if a near-majority of leftists and liberals choose to think that Clinton was the target of a witch-hunt and the victim of 'sexual McCarthyism', an Arkansan Alger Hiss in other words, you become weary of debating on their terms and leave them to make the best of it. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#arkansas #bill-clinton #corruption #cowardice #debate

A sure sign of ineptitude and malice is manifested when one's attacker is willing to cover himself with mud in order to try and make some of it adhere to his target. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#debate #ineptitude #malice #norman-g-finkelstein #smear-campaigns

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don't have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed. ↗

— Nelson Mandela

#closer #debate #emerge #end #engage

It should simply be an empirical matter whether the climate is changing or not and whether we're responsible. But the various sides of the debate have now become so tribal that it's no longer a matter of changing our views as more information comes in. ↗

— Ian Mcewan

#changing #climate #comes #debate #empirical

I can't do a film after having debated it. I am unable to do a film while discussing it with my team. I issue directives. I do not achieve it otherwise. ↗

— Hayao Miyazaki

#after #am #debated #directives #discussing

Now a great debate has been born. The thesis is Democratic Socialism. The antithesis is free-market capitalism. The Obama Democrats have posed the challenge. It is now up to the Republicans to pick it up and fight along these lines. ↗

— Dick Morris

#antithesis #been #born #capitalism #challenge

Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. ↗

— Hillary Clinton

#debate #freedom #freedom means #means #openly

All we do is bring the debate from both sides, and let you as a viewer decide where you want to end up on the issue. That's very important. That's exactly what happens in 'Redemption Inc.' ↗

— Kevin O'Leary

#both sides #bring #debate #decide #end