I thought there might be signs of intelligent life on debatepolitics.com after browsing a couple of threads. I should have done more homework, because ever since posting here, I find nothing but personal insults and attacks when you hit people with facts they don't like and cannot refute and/or rebut. Human nature, I supposed, but slightly irritating nonetheless.
I've also notice that when you provide some attempt at in-depth coverage of an issue and you post accordingly, some here have the tendency to whine about the length of a particular read. If I wanted to Blog, I'd call-up Go Daddy and start my own private no-dialog page. Blogs are for Blogging, not for dialectic debate. Issues have depth and without depth, you are doing nothing more than narrative selling and I can watch the 'news' for that.
The other problem I have is with the silly request for a "link." As if the "link" itself carries more weight. This is the internet - the world wide web. If I want to read Wikipedia, I can simply go there and do so. I come here to read what's on the mind of The People, not what I can easily flush through a heuristic based algorithm on some search engine. What I post, comes from my brain, background and experience when I'm posting leading declaratives. When I post in rebuttal, THEN I might use a "link" to an outside source, but not before then.
I believe that outside sources should be used in rebuttals and that if one puts up a "fact", that I claim is untrue, then it is my responsibility to go out there and prove them wrong, either by posting something with logical extensions that prove my theory or point, or with third-party details. I may also use a video in my lead to spark debate at the outset - or in rebuttal to answer a claim made that I dispute. But, videos are typically special cases, because they can contain the principles explicitly and not through mere third-party dialog and/or rhetoric.
Most political forums that I've seen have good potential, few rise to the occasion and fulfill their genuine ideals upon which they were founded.
But, the world is what you make of it, most of the time.
