Reactions to the Debate

 

Watching the English-language debate last night, I thought it was a draw. I thought Poilievre did a fine job, but Carney did not mess up, and I thought seemed likeable. Blanchet was really good; but it didn’t matter, because he was not speaking to his constituency. I thought Jagmeet Singh, with his constant interruptions, was intolerably obnoxious; of no relevance, but preventing viewers from hearing the contenders. It also seemed to me obviously bad strategy for Singh to keep interrupting Poilievre more than Carney, the frontrunner and his obvious competitor for votes. It was almost as if he was there to sabotage his own party. Given how far he was prepared to go against his party’s interests to secure his pension, I do wonder if he has been bought by the Liberals.

Accordingly, I was surprised and pleased to hear the immediate reaction from the CBC At Issue panel, partisan and pro-Liberal. To them, the big story was not the self-immolation of the NDP. It was that Poilievre won the debate, and probably gained ground.

They argue that he came across as reasonable and not scary. Meanwhile, Poilievre and Blanchet heaved some bombshells at him that he did not parry. He simply changed the subject; perhaps leaving them there, unexploded ordinance.

And the truly historic moment may have been when Carney got a free question, and chose to ask Poilievre: Why did he refuse to get security clearance? 

Dumb idea. Surely he should have known Poilievre had a ready answer, that took away this favoured Liberal talking point. And he was giving Poilievre a perfect opportunity to bring up Chinese interference.

Maybe they are right. Maybe Carney lost the election last night.

Now Discuss among Yourselves.

 

Nobody understands rhetoric. 

Donald Trump’s great talent as a politician and a leader is that he does. It is like magic. Pierre Poilievre does too. 

Lots of people have criticized Trump for saying, during the recent debate, that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are eating cats, dogs, and family pets. Kamala Harris laughed at him in split screen as he said it. The moderator stepped in to deny it was happening. Warren Kinsella and Ben Shapiro and many others saw this as a serious misstep by Trump. Kinsella said it made Trump look ridiculous.

I think we see, even just a couple of days later, how smart the reference was. It is all over the Internet, in song, meme, and dance.

The best way to make a point is with an image. The best image to make a point is a dramatic one; a shocking one or a ridiculous one. Trump knows this.

People who do not understand rhetoric, repelled by the shocking image, object to it instinctively. It makes them uncomfortable. Hence the blowback from the moderator, Shapiro, or Kinsella. “You can’t say that!”

It is not the rhetorician’s job to make anyone feel comfortable. Comfortable is boring and forgettable. It is to get his point across.

The image of foreign-looking people eating family pets is perfect because it makes people very uncomfortable. The more so because it has a strong emotional pull. People love their pets, usually more than other people. Good writers know that the perfect way to make a reader sympathize with their character forever is to show them being kind to a cat or dog in the opening pages. Or to make the reader hate a character, show them kicking a dog. 

Trump may also have, at a blow, won back all the childless cat ladies.

And we have the video, in split screen, of Harris laughing at the claim. She’s laughing at cats and dogs being killed and eaten? She has identified herself in many minds as the villain.

And the name of the town is Springfield? The same as in The Simpsons—a name chosen because every state in the union has a town named Springfield. It is perfectly generic. And Ohio? It is everyone’s home town. 

This could happen you, member of the audience, any day now. Your dear pet Mittens or Snoopy is not safe.

True or not, it is a perfect image to express the growing general alarm over high levels of immigration and lack of assimilation. It crystallizes it and fixes it in the mind.

Along with all the memes and TikTok videos, It has also set off a general investigation all over the internet to find out if the claim is true—making the issue of mass immigration the focus of discussion for days or weeks to come. 

And pulling up lots of evidence that it is indeed true.

As the evidence piles up that it is true, the image of Harris laughing at it looks like callousness. She doesn’t care. She’s fine with people killing Fido. And the moderators too are shown to be the bad guys.

Trump is great at this. His image of a wall across the southern border was similar. Give people a concrete image: a wall. Build the wall. 

So is the story of his showing the leader of the Taliban a photo of his own house. Make it concrete, make it visual, make it dramatic. Trump understand this. People think and especially people feel in images.

Trump also knows enough to repeat basic points, rather than getting bogged down in details. Political wonks object to this; to lack of details. But rhetoricians and ad men know the way to convince is to stress one point—the “unique selling proposition.” Too much detail, too many reasons, loses the sale.

We ought to use the wisdom of rhetoric the classroom as well. We deliberately reject it there, and in doing so we are missing completely the essence of educating, which is to make the lesson memorable. What you do not remember, you have not learned. Teachers and educational bureaucrats instead instictively reject anything that might make a lesson memorable. They keep everything as bland and forgettable as possible.

Back in the Seventies, the US government funded a massive survey to find which teaching techniques might improve results in the public schools. I think twenty different approaches were approved, and tested against each other and against a control group, in classrooms all over the US. All but one of the new techniques came from the Ed Schools, the educational experts. And all of them failed—all actually did worse than the control group. They were positively harmful. The one that turned out to be better, “ Direct Instruction,” was developed not by an Ed School, but by an advertising man.

But this was ignored. The results of the massive study were buried. The ed schools and the ed establishment were too powerful. We went with the methods proven to fail. 

I hear Direct Instruction is currently being introduced in the Philippines, however. I have had my own students in Qatar, who have experienced it, demand it. I suspect it is being used elsewhere in Asia. 

Another example of the value of rhetoric in education: you may have heard of Khan Academy. Short videos online that explain concepts in the school curriculum. It started with math, but now includes a variety of subjects. Everyone now seems to be using it.

Salman Khan, who created it, is an advertising man. He knows how to present.

While the usual public school classroom just has students break into small groups and stare at one another.

Nobody understands rhetoric.

I'm Speaking

 

Everybody is expecting Donald Trump to win he big debate this evening. I think this is dangerous for Trump. Expectations for him ae too high. Harris will have to be really awful to be seen to have lost.

To begin with, this debate will naturally automatically be compared with the last one, against Biden. So if Harris can avoid actually drooling on stage, she will look good by comparison.

Harris has a reputation as a bad debater, because of her epic failure against Tulsi Gabbard in 2019. This low expectation is automatically to her advantage: success in these debates is usually about exceeding expectations. And the low expectations may be unwarranted. Harris did well enough in a VP debate against Mike Pence in 2020; there is no reason to think ger skills have declined since then. And she is a lawyer and experienced prosecutor: the skills needed for that are debating skills. 

Trump has a reputation for being deadly in debate. But he can’t use his best weapons against Harris: the sharp put-downs. Because Harris is a woman, and a minority woman at that, she gets special privilege. You can’t punch a woman hard, or you look like a bully. This is the reason I thought the Democrats should have gone with Tulsi Gabbard in 2020: Trump is weakest against a woman. Granted, he was able to debate Hillary Clinton effectively; but nobody really believes Hillary Clinton is a woman.

So I expect Harris to at least hold her own.

Trump’s hope must be that she chokes under the pressure. There are signs she has trouble handling pressure. But they can dope her up, can’t they?

Mostly on the US Debate

 

Events are moving quickly; this is not a quiet summer. The Tories in the UK are in a panic. Reform is in a panic. The Republicans in France are in a panic. The Democrats in the US are in a panic. Things are almost moving too fast for commentary. What I say now may be obsolete in a few hours.

In the US, even all the left-wing commentators have turned on Joe Biden. His performance in the debate was historically bad. The best they can muster is the claim that, while Biden was incoherent. Trump was lying about everything. 

They never cite any particular lie. That perhaps says everything.

I did track down a list on CNN’s web site:

Trump: “Hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth. It’s crazy.”

Trump went on to cite to the former governor of Virginia, Ralph Northram. Here’s what Northram actually said, referring to his proposed legislation:

“The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

But that legislation was, in the end, voted down in the legislature.

There were other close calls in New York and California, but the bills were amended before being passed.

So Trump was not correct. Directionally true, perhaps, as his supporters often say, but an exaggeration. But it might also be unfair to characterize it as a deliberate lie; Trump was speaking without notes. He may only have been foggy on the details. “Have tried to pass” would have been correct.

Trump: “I say, let the states decide. This is — every legal scholar wanted this to be where abortion should be.”

And of course, not EVERY legal scholar wanted the states to decide on abortion. To begin with, obviously, the justices of the Supreme Court count as legal scholars, and a majority of them voted for Roe v. Wade fifty years ago. A minority voted to keep Roe V. Wade last year. 

But given that the strict literal sense of the claim was obviously false, surely it was clear to everyone that Trump was not speaking literally, but using the common exaggeration, as in “everybody knows.”

The network counts as a lie Trump’s claim that there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency: “we didn’t have an attack for four years.”

CNN then cites an attack in New York that killed eight people in 2017, right after his election; and an attack by a lone gunman that killed three soldiers at an army base in Florida in 2019.

Another case of Trump being directionally correct, but exaggerating. He did not mean literally “none.” Just as we might say, “nobody loves a rainy day,” without expecting to be challenged with an example of someone who does.

They also count as a lie Trumps’ claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen.” Which is, at a minimum, a legitimate opinion. 

And they counted Trump’s claim that Biden got money from China as a lie because it was presented “with no evidence.” There certainly is evidence of this; although it has not (yet?) been proven in a court of law. 

And the commentators never point out that, apart from not making sense, Biden told many lies. As, to be fair, all politicians do, pretty much all the time. Yet, mysteriously, it is only Trump who is ever accused of this. Biden actually claimed that there were fewer illegals crossing the border now than when Trump left office, and that the numbers are declining. He claimed to have gotten inflation down from where it was under Trump. There was essentially no inflation under Trump. He claimed that Trump initiated the policy of “children in cages,” which was inherited from the Democratic administration in which Biden was vice-president. He claimed that there were people wearing swastikas marching in Charlottesville, and that Trump had called them “fine people.” This has even been debunked by left-wing Snopes.

And so it goes.

Surely Biden now has no chance against Trump. And there is no good way for party insiders and powers to swap him out at this late date.

They did this to themselves, by forcing RFK Jr. out of the primaries and out of the party. Were RFK coming into the convention with a pledged minority of delegates, they could have plausibly coalesced around him at the last minute.

But even if the convention were to turn to someone other than Biden, the backroom powers have tied their own hands. The convention is scheduled for so late in the season that, if the nominee turns out to be anyone other then Biden, it will be too late to get them on the ballot in at least the critical swing state of Ohio.

Bottom line: Biden is not the only incompetent in power on the left.

On the Third of Two Debates

 

Clockwise from top: Trump, Biden.

Does anyone else notice how much Donald Trump resembles Muhammed Ali?

Watching the US Presidential debate last week, I thought Biden was leading in the early going, but then Trump came on strong and won on points.

Perhaps this was a “rope-a-dope” strategy. Biden obviously easily gets tired. So, it made sense to save the best ammunition for later, when Biden could be expected to lose focus and be less able to effectively respond. And that’s the way I thought it played out.

In retrospect, though, I increasingly think Trump did better than win on points. He murderated da bum. I think he scored several knockdowns and three virtual knockouts. And still looked pretty doing it.

The first knockout was when Trump brought up the recent revelations from Hunter Biden’s laptop, Biden turned to look straight into the camera, and said:

“There's a reason he's bringing up all of this malarkey. He does not want to talk about the substantive issues. It's not about his family and my family. It's about your family and your family is hurting badly.

“You're sitting at the kitchen table this morning. We should be talking about your families, but that's the last thing he wants to talk about.”

And Trump responded with the uppercut on the outthrust jaw: “That’s a typical political statement. ’Let's get off the subject of China and let's talk about sitting around the table.’ Come on Joe, you can do better than that. I’m not a typical politician. That’s why I was elected.”

Trump here reminded everyone why he got elected. Because he cut through the crap, and promised to drain the swamp. I think he jarred a lot of memories, and cast Biden, convincingly, as the ultimate swamp creature. Are people really ready to go back to that—when they were so fed up with it?

He seemed to follow up with other responses. “All talk, no action.” “If this is a great idea, you’ve been in Washington for 47 years. Why didn’t you do it?”

I think that volley was unanswerable. 

Biden thought he had a counter to the Hunter Biden laptop revelations in claiming, as the media has, that it was “Russian disinformation.”

Trump was ready for that one. He could have made the logical argument that it hardly matters where it came from if the accusations are demonstrably true; and there is no evidence Russia was involved. But many voters might be unable to follow the logic. Trump has a talent for the quick jab. That is why he loves Twitter: “Russia, Russia. So that’s how he’s going to play it. Now we’re back to Russia.”

To my mind, it tellingly made Biden look intellectually limited, like a stage humour with a fixed idea he can’t get beyond. I think it reinforced a lot of people’s concerns about Biden. A talking suit, not a leader. And a liar, who just makes things up. This was on top of swiping away any power the “Russia” claim might have had to counter the Hunter Biden revelations.

Biden did not openly manifest and incoherence. Nevertheless, I think his dementia caused him to land at least two devastating blows on himself, in the later rounds. He was getting tired.

Challenged on fracking, he insisted he had never opposed it, and idiotically doubled down by defying Trump to post the video showing he had. That was remarkably stupid, since he knew Trump could. 

This may have been a manifestation of Biden’s narcissism. M. Scott Peck observes, of narcissists, that when challenged directly they seem to become delusional; he calls them “ambulatory schizophrenics.” For that brief moment, Biden may have sincerely imagined he had never opposed fracking, and there was no such video.

Trump, of course, next day sent out a highlights clip of multiple examples of Biden and Kamala Harris saying they would end fracking. Just as had been advertised in advance by Biden.

Proving to all beyond all reasonable doubt not just that Biden opposed fracking, but that that Biden is a bald-faced liar. Undermining everything else he has ever said, and exposing him again as just another corrupt politician who will say anything.

This was the second knockout blow, although the full effects were not seen until the next day.

I think Biden realized soon after he said it that he had gotten himself in trouble; that the next day the video would inevitably be there and the truth would come out. And I suspect that buffaloed him into making his next damaging statement, in a vain hope it might cover his anterior portions. He then said straight up that, yes, he did in principle want to end the entire oil industry. “Over time.”

Of course this is true, and evident to anyone who looks at the Democratic platform. But many or most voters might not have known it, and Biden might have danced away from the point, unpopular in several critical swing states, had he not already compromised himself with the lie about fracking.

All Trump had to do was to then point out how significant this was.

Had there been no early voting, I think this too would have been a knockout: this would have ended Biden’s chances in Pennsylvania or Ohio, probably needed to win. Because there has been a lot of early voting, he may survive. But reportedly “can I change my vote?” has been trending on Google.

The Great Peterson-Zizek Marxism-Capitalism Debate

Before actually watching it, I read two reviews of the recent Toronto debate between Jordan Peterson and Salzov Zizek on Marxism vs. Capitalism, in Quillette and in Maclean’s. From both, I got the clear idea that Peterson had embarrassed himself, revealing that his understanding of Marxism was superficial.

This sounded plausible. What business did Peterson really have debating economic systems? He’s a psychologist. No doubt he has overextended himself.

But then I watched the debate. Granted that it failed as a debate. But this was in no way Peterson’s fault. It was entirely due to Zizek.

Peterson started proceedings by giving an account of ten fallacies he found in The Communist Manifesto.

The commentators had criticized him for sticking to The Communist Manifesto, as if this showed a lack of knowledge. They say that this suggests only a superficial study of Marxism. But I think this is quite wrong. The way to understand anything is to go to the original text, and this is Marx and Engels’ statement of their core message. (Das Kapital is way too abstract and theoretical here.) It seems to me a matter of focus, vital in a debate. Straying further afield in opening a one-hour debate is likely to introduce confusion and red herrings. Just as the most legitimate way to introduce Christianity is to go back to the actual Gospels. If you start instead with Augustine or Aquinas or the Church Fathers, you can quickly sneak in some pretty debatable assertions. They are better reserved if needed to illuminate the core text.

In any case, whatever Marx or other “Marxists” have written elsewhere, if there are indeed ten basic fallacies embedded in The Communist Manifesto, Marxists need to address them.

Zizek did not address this argument. In his response, he simply ignored what Peterson had said—he was, in fact, reading a prepared text. He was failing to engage. Hardly Peterson’s fault.

And what Zizek said had little or anything to do with the topic for the debate. He did not directly address either Marxism, Capitalism, or happiness. Instead, he brought up personal observations seemingly at random, not even building them into a coherent argument.

The term “word salad” fits.

This is a familiar tactic among academics. He read sentence after sentence roughly on the model: “Ocelots are undoubtedly orange. But here we unnecessarily confuse ourselves. The orange of ocelots can be of any colour.”

It is all perfect nonsense, designed only to make you sound as though you have some superior insight in comparison to the common view. Yet at the same time you are careful not to really have made any assertion at all. Not having said anything, you can never be shown to have said anything wrong.

It is all a tiresome academic careerist game that subtracts from rather than adds to the sum of human knowledge. Such academics are purely parasites on society.

Listening to Zizek drone on like this for ten minutes, never saying anything, I puzzled over how Peterson could possibly respond. Trying to “debate” anything from Zizek would be like boxing with a balloon. Take him up on anything, and he could simply respond, “No I did not mean that. I was really saying the opposite.” But if you say he said the opposite, he can give the same response. Failing all else, he could say he meant anything “ironically.”

It is an old and tired game, similar to Calvinball.

I think Peterson did as well as anyone could under the circumstances to try to make the debate meaningful or worthwhile for the audience. He with painful politeness prefaced his next remarks with the suggestion that Zizek’s thoughts were too “complex” to respond to in detail. Many commentators seem to have inanely taken it as an admission that Zizek was outclassing him, and he had no good response.

Yet Peterson also then pointed out, in excruciatingly polite fashion, that what Zizek said seemed to have nothing to do with the topic of the debate. He had listed various things he considered wrong with the world or with most people’s thinking today, in no particular order; but in what way was this a criticism of capitalism? Moreover, since he seemed to have no interest in Marx or any tendency to refer to his ideas, why did he call himself a Marxist?

Which seems to me just about all Peterson could do, short of publicly calling Zizek an academic fraud. Which perhaps he should have done, for everyone’s sake. I’m not sure I could have bitten my tongue so well. That’s probably why Peterson has managed an academic career, and I haven’t.

Since he could not determine, let alone examine, any opinions of Zizek’s, all Peterson could finally do, if he was not to declare Zizek a fraud, was to declare that they did not really seem to disagree on anything. Which is what he then did, making the debate a bust as debate. They lamely agreed on the trite and irrelevant proposition that money did not buy happiness.

To make anything useful out of the debate, it is easier to examine claims made by commentators in the reviews, than to try to distill anything coherent from what Zizek said.

OK. Ben Burgis writes, in Quillette:

“Unlike Žižek, Peterson apparently believes that attempts to carry out a political program inspired by Marx’s writings can only go wrong.”

Burgis does not explain why this should be a criticism of Peterson. That, of course, is why he zeroed in on The Communist Manifesto, the core text, and showed it to be founded on fallacies. Are we obliged to believe that Marxism must be right a priori?

Burgis also objects to Peterson’s equation of postmodernism with “cultural Marxism,” on the grounds that “Marxism is, after all, precisely the sort of ‘grand narrative’ decried by poststructuralist thinkers.” But here he is not raising any insightful objection to Peterson, but ignoring his argument. He is quoting here almost verbatim from Peterson during the debate: Peterson pointed this out, before explaining why he thought the connection nevertheless held. Peterson’s reason for linking the two, he explained, is that postmodernism seems based on the Marxist concept of society being necessarily based on power and exploitation, and on oppression of one class by another. With the “oppressing” class intrinsically morally evil, and the “oppressed” being incapable of doing any wrong.

If this does not come from Marx, where does it come from?

Moreover, why doesn’t the point that postmodernism itself claims to reject all “grand narratives” simply demonstrate that postmodernism is being self-contradictory? In fact, postmodernism seems to me to be just another example, on a grand scale, of the kind of word salad and intellectual scam Zizek was using in the debate. Postmodernism is intrinsically self-contradictory; and this disproves it. It is itself a meta-narrative, and it declares all meta-narratives to be wrong. QED.

Burgis’s objection holds once again only if we start by assuming the desired conclusion, that postmodernism, like Marxism, is necessarily correct, and it is up to external reality, and any dissenting debaters, to fall into line with this truth as and when it seems required.

Which, indeed, expresses the very core of postmodernism in a nutshell: truth is whatever I want to be true. And you must conform to my wishes in this as in all things.

Burgis also makes an argument against Peterson’s equation of Marxism with “equality of outcome.” And, to be fair to Zizek, Zizek also brought this up in the debate. I have heard the same in the past from another Marxist of my acquaintance. No, they insist, Marx was against welfare and a social safety net. Everyone must work hard.

“But what has been less widely appreciated is that Marx was far from an advocate of strict ‘equality of outcome.’ In his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program, Marx argued that in the earliest stages of a post-capitalist society, individual workers would have to be compensated unequally for a variety of reasons.”

I’m not sure how this ends up being flattering to Marx or to Marxism. Do we not want a social safety net?

But notice how carefully Burgis has to phrase this: “In the earliest stages.” As Peterson responded to the same point during the debate, this claim simply cannot be reconciled with Marx’s view of the ideal communist society, which does indeed promise equality of outcome: no more social classes, and “from each according to his abilities to each according to their needs.” If not strict equality of income, that means income is equal so long as all human individuals have, in principle, the same needs. Presumably it only means that a family gets more than an individual, and someone who needs a special medicine or medical treatment, say, gets it. In other words, just as Peterson alleges, and just like modern Marxists, Marx is promising equality of outcome. And, just as Peterson alleges, and just like modern Marxists, he intends to do this by treating people unequally in the here and now, “in the earliest stages.”

And, as someone once wryly said, Marxism is here the opiate of the intellectuals: inequality now for some pie-in-the-sky future.

Burgis writes:

“In his opening statement in the debate with Žižek, Peterson said that Marx’s solution to the ills of capitalism was ‘bloody violent revolution.’ That’s not quite right. Marx advocated revolution against the hereditary monarchs who ruled most of Europe when The Communist Manifesto was published. But I know of no passage in his and his collaborator Engels’s voluminous writings in which either man said that socialists would need to resort to a violent seizure of power in an advanced parliamentary democracy where the franchise had been extended to the working class.”

That’s not quite right. Whether Marxism requires violent revolution indeed reflects an ancient debate within Marxism. And perhaps Bernstein and his social democrats are right that it does not. But Peterson was explicitly criticizing The Communist Manifesto, and in The Communist Manifesto, Marx himself, Burgis later reminds us, points to the Paris Commune as his model of communism. And, as a matter of historical fact, the Paris Commune involved a violent revolution against a just-elected parliamentary democracy where the franchise had been extended to the working class. Accordingly, Marx was here indeed literally calling for violent revolution against democratic governments, in the absence of king or emperor.

A barrricade set up by the Paris Commune

Peterson’s description might possibly be wrong if applied to Marx’s thought as a whole. But Peterson made it clear that he was referring to The Communist Manifesto.

And, if Marx contradicted himself or was later ambiguous on this point, what is canonical for “Marxism,” if not the Manifesto? It seems a little cultish, after all, to instead hold every word uttered by some founder figure as received dogma. And unsurprising if this practice results in endless contradictions.

In his opening criticism of The Communist Manifesto, Peterson objected to the call for a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” not merely on the grounds that it is undemocratic, but that it is self-contradictory in practice. If, Peterson pointed out, you simply take the means of production out of the hands of the current proprietors, on the grounds that they are “bourgeois,” and give control to any given other group, on the grounds that they are “proletarians,” how have you changed anything systemic? Have you not just replaced one group of oppressors with another? Without assuming there is something innately evil in the current group, whatever caused them to abuse this power is simply going to equally tempt the new group.

Burgis ignores this argument, and focuses only on insisting that Peterson is wrong to consider a “dictatorship of the proletarian” undemocratic. Not Peterson’s point.

Burgis cites the Paris Commune, again, as an example of how it is all supposed to work. “All elected officials in the Commune could be recalled by their constituents at any time and for any reason.” Hey, what could be more democratic than that?

But, to begin with, the Paris commune itself was not democratically elected, any more than Lenin’s “Soviets” in the October Russian Revolution. The majority of Parisians ignored or boycotted the elections that formed the Commune—they being, of course, illegal. There was already a government in place, newly elected. Only the radical elements voted, inevitably returning a radical result, not one that reflected the popular will.

And, of course, the Commune then energetically suppressed free speech and the free press, shutting down the major newspapers, and held all their deliberations in strict secrecy—making it impossible for any electorate to hold individual members to account.

The supposed right to recall was therefore moot. And there was no process in place to do this anyway. None were recalled during the brief life of the commune. It was only theoretical.

It was indeed a dictatorship, by a small in-group who pretty much simply called themselves “the proletariat.” Had the commune survived, would the draconian measures have persisted? Who knows? But at the same time, whatever residual freedom Parisians felt and exercised under the Commune might equally have had to do with the general chaos of war, and the inability of any government to impose its will.

Regardless, having been formed undemocratically and in defiance of a democratic government, the Commune’s dictatorship of the proletariat is hardly a model of democracy.

 Burgis claims that Peterson mischaracterises Marx, saying the success of capitalism in raising people out of poverty disproves him.

"Why should it, though? One of the reasons Marx thought that the transition from feudalism to capitalism was progress is that it allowed the 'forces of production' to develop in a way they couldn’t when they were fettered by feudal social structures. "

This either misunderstands or misrepresents Peterson's point. It was not that the success of capitalism disproves Marxism. How could it be? It was that, given that capitalism has demonstrably, as Marx himself admits, so rapidly given the world dramatically better material conditions than anything else that has ever been tried over the millennia, how is this an argument now for tossing it over for any new and untried system?

Burgis goes on, 

"Some of this is disputed territory. Is $2 a day or $5 a day a better indication of 'extreme' poverty? Should we care about raw numbers or about the percentage of the population that is desperately poor?"

This ignores again Peterson's argument. Peterson pointed out that it does not matter what figure you choose: $1.90 a day, or $3.00 a day, or $5.00 a day. Whichever figure you pick, the rise out of poverty at the bottom end is equally dramatic. And Peterson was explicitly talking about the percentage of the population as well as the raw numbers.

Andray Domise in Maclean’s:

“When confronted by Žižek as to which particular academics could be considered cultural Marxists—‘Give me some names,’ he demanded, and even threw a couple of bones—Peterson simply could not come up with an answer.”

This is nothing more than a lie. When Zizek asked him, Peterson replied quite promptly that, according to survey, 25% of social science profs self-identify as Marxists. He then also mentioned two names: Foucault and Derrida. He could have given many more: Chomsky, Hobsbawn, Zinn, Butler, Sartre, Lyotard, Marcuse, Adorno, and so on. But that would have been pedantic. Two should suffice.

Zizek, it is true, objected to calling Foucault a Marxist. But this is bogus. Peterson did not call Foucault a Marxist. He called him a “cultural Marxist.” This no more implies a strict adherence to Marxism as a political or economic philosophy than calling someone a “cultural Catholic” implies their strict adherence to all Church doctrines. Foucault was, in fact, for some time a member of the French Communist Party. “Madness and Civilization” is obviously based on some Marxist assumptions: it declares the insane an oppressed class, oppressed because they are poor—proletarian, more or less.

I am left scratching my noggin here. How can these commentators get it so wrong? Are folks so dumb that they sincerely get it all so wrong, are they cynical and lying, or are they stark mad?

I think it’s door number two.

The New Mechanics' Institutes

Mechanics' Institute, Toronto

Few seem to understand that a functioning democracy, and a well-functioning civil society in general, including businesses that work, depends crucially on the skills of parliamentary procedure and formal debate. And few seem to understand that these do not come to us spontaneously, but actually go against natural instincts. The natural instinct, after all, is to get upset if anyone disagrees with you.

The English are so good at this. It fits the politeness and decorum of the national character; although which came first is hard to say. Englishmen out for a pint together will debate in these terms; and will deliberately insult one another to harden each other up. Nothing beats the Oxford Union; but watching debate in the British House of Commons, after being used to Ottawa question period on C-Span, is itself a revelation.

We are foolish to suppose that this can be easily and automatically ported to any other culture and society at will. It does not work nearly so well even in Canada or the US. Let alone, say, Vietnam or Iraq. Yet the US government, for one, never seems to get this. It was striking wisdom for the Emir and government of Qatar to understand, and begin the long work of introducing their people to democracy by first setting up debating societies everywhere, hosting the Doha Debates, and sponsoring Al Jazeera. That is the way it must be done, and it will take at least a generation.

More troubling is that, through ignorance or design, the skills of parliamentary procedure and formal debate are rarely taught in the public schools, and never as a core subject, even in Canada or the US. They are, of course, taught rigorously in the British or Canadian private schools. 

Oxford Union.

This is the best way imaginable to create and perpetuate a class system. It means that only the upper classes, who can afford to go to these exclusive schools, learn how to organize and run things. There is also good evidence that it was deliberately done, back in the original “Progressive” era of the 1920s and before. “Progressivism” was always, and still is, about creating and protecting a North American ruling elite. 

And this suppression of essential knowledge, as well as being discriminatory, is destructive to society as a whole. Because there is no way any longer that we can keep the unfashionable masses out of management; we need more managers, and progressively fewer dumb and obedient robot helots, as technology advances. And the general population also has the right, in our system, to decide essential matters for all of us, through the ballot box. For the sake of all, they (we) had better know how to make good decisions.

We are seeing the bill come due now, with Antifa goons rioting in the streets and shouting speakers down. And these Antifa goons, note, are generally the nominally better-educated among us. We let the previously unprepared, after all, go to university, opened those gates wide, and flooded the higher levels of the system with folks who have no idea what the various buttons and levers do.

Well-intentioned, no doubt, itself an attempt to end the class system, but ill-informed.

All of this is brought to mind by a unit I am being asked to teach at the moment, on how to write an opinion essay. Something I think I know something about. I am doing it now. 

Canadian House of Commons.

Good thought; good idea. But the person who wrote the curriculum, the subject expert himself or herself, obviously has no idea how to do so, let alone how to teach it to someone else. Their instructions are incoherent; they cannot seem, in their own mind, to even distinguish claims from counterclaims, pro from con. They do not grasp the actual structure of an argument.

Their assigned essay topic illustrates the problem: “What can be done about China’s pollution problem?” Following, inevitably, a little lecture about China’s pollution problem and its supposed causes.

In other words, rather than getting to form and express an opinion, the student is being told the “correct” opinion in advance. On a topic on which there is essentially no disagreement. Raise hands, everyone: who here is in favour of pollution?

And no, this is not a Chinese thing. This is an American curriculum.

Isn’t this also what has happened to our current politics, and isn’t this a pressing problem?

Over a century ago, wealthy philanthropists launched “Mechanics’ Institutes” in major cities, where the poorer among us could learn skills needed for the new world of industrialization.

We need something like that now again. We need a movement to teach and study debate and parliamentary procedure; how to run a meeting. We need it on the night-school model of the Mechanics’ Institutes, too, because even if the public schools were to instantly reform and introduce the subject, that still sacrifices all the adults who have already completed school. Worse, these same adults are the teachers we have in the schools today. Until they learn it themselves, as we see from my current curriculum, they cannot competently teach it.

Qatar is way ahead of us on this one.

Fun with Old Books

Exploring old books in Project Gutenberg, I discover that Ontario textbooks all used to contain this frontispiece:

And here is a comprehensive set of suggested debate topics from the US in 1889,




THEMES FOR DEBATE.

Which is the better for this nation, high or low import tariffs?

Is assassination ever justifiable?

Was England justifiable in interfering between Egypt and the Soudan rebels?

Is the production of great works of literature favored by the conditions of modern civilized life?

Is it politic to place restrictions upon the immigration of the Chinese to the United States?

Will coal always constitute the main source of artificial heat?

Has the experiment of universal suffrage proven a success? Was Grant or Lee the greater general?

Is an income-tax commendable?

Ought the national banking system to be abolished?

Should the government lease to stockgrowers any portion of the public domain?

Is it advisable longer to attempt to maintain both a gold and silver standard of coinage?

Which is the more important to the student, physical science or mathematics?

Is the study of current politics a duty?

Which was the more influential congressman, Blaine or Garfield?

Which gives rise to more objectionable idioms and localisms of language, New England or the West?

Was the purchase of Alaska by this government wise?

Which is the more important as a continent, Africa or South America?

Should the government interfere to stop the spread of contagious diseases among cattle?

Was Caesar or Hannibal the more able general?

Is the study of ancient or modern history the more important to the student?

Should aliens be allowed to acquire property in this country?

Should aliens be allowed to own real estate in this country? Do the benefits of the signal service justify its costs?

Should usury laws be abolished?

Should all laws for the collection of debt be abolished?

Is labor entitled to more remuneration than it receives?

Should the continuance of militia organizations by the several States be encouraged?

Is an untarnished reputation of more importance to a woman than to a man?

Does home life promote the growth of selfishness?

Are mineral veins aqueous or igneous in origin?

Is the theory of evolution tenable?

Was Rome justifiable in annihilating Carthage as a nation?

Which has left the more permanent impress upon mankind, Greece or Rome?

Which was the greater thinker, Emerson or Bacon?

Which is the more important as a branch of education, mineralogy or astronomy?

Is there any improvement in the quality of the literature of to-day over that of last century?

Should the "Spoils System" be continued in American politics?

Should the co-education of the sexes be encouraged?

Which should be the more encouraged, novelists or dramatists?

Will the African and Caucasian races ever be amalgamated in the United States?

Should the military or the interior department have charge over the Indians in the United States?

Which is of more benefit to his race, the inventor or the explorer?

Is history or philosophy the better exercise for the mind?

Can any effectual provision be made by the State against "hard times"?

Which is of the more benefit to society, journalism or the law?

Which was the greater general, Napoleon or Wellington?

Should the volume of greenback money be increased?

Should the volume of national bank circulation be increased?

Should the railroads be under the direct control of the government?

Is the doctrine of "State rights" to be commended?

Is the "Monroe doctrine" to be commended and upheld?

Is the pursuit of politics an honorable avocation?

Which is of the greater importance, the college or the university?

Does the study of physical science militate against religious belief?

Should "landlordism" in Ireland be supplanted by home rule?

Is life more desirable now than in ancient Rome?

Should men and women receive the same amount of wages for the same kind of work?

Is the prohibitory liquor law preferable to a system of high license?

Has any State a right to secede?

Should any limit be placed by the constitution of a State upon its ability to contract indebtedness?

Should the contract labor system in public prisons be forbidden?

Should there be a censor for the public press?

Should Arctic expeditions be encouraged?

Is it the duty of the State to encourage art and literature as much as science?

Is suicide cowardice?

Has our Government a right to disfranchise the polygamists of Utah?

Should capital punishment be abolished?

Should the law place a limit upon the hours of daily labor for workingmen?

Is "socialism" treason?

Should the education of the young be compulsory?

In a hundred years will republics be as numerous as monarchies?

Should book-keeping be taught in the public schools?

Should Latin be taught in the public schools?

Do our methods of government promote centralization?

Is life worth living?

Should Ireland and Scotland be independent nations?

Should internal revenue taxation be abolished?

Which is of greater benefit at the present day, books or newspapers?

Is honesty always the best policy?

Which has been of greater benefit to mankind, geology or chemistry?

Which could mankind dispense with at least inconvenience, wood or coal?

Which is the greater nation, Germany or France?

Which can support the greater population in proportion to area, our Northern or Southern States?

Would mankind be the loser if the earth should cease to produce gold and silver?

Is the occasional destruction of large numbers of people, by war and disaster, a benefit to the world?

Which could man best do without, steam or horse power?

Should women be given the right of suffrage in the United States?

Should cremation be substituted for burial?

Should the government establish a national system of telegraph?

Will the population of Chicago ever exceed that of New York?

Should the electoral college be continued?

Will the population of St. Louis ever exceed that of Chicago?

Should restrictions be placed upon the amount of property inheritable?

Which is more desirable as the chief business of a city—commerce or manufactures?

Which is more desirable as the chief business of a city—transportation by water or by rail?

Should the rate of taxation be graduated to a ratio with the amount of property taxed?

Will a time ever come when the population of the earth will be limited by the earth's capacity of food production?

Is it probable that any language will ever become universal?

Is it probable that any planet, except the earth, is inhabited?

Should the State prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors?

Should the government prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors?

Should the guillotine be substituted for the gallows?

Was Bryant or Longfellow the greater poet?

Should the jury system be continued?

Should the languages of alien nations be taught in the public schools?

Should a right to vote in any part of the United States depend upon a property qualification?

Can a horse trot faster in harness, or under saddle?

Should the pooling system among American railroads be abolished by law?

Is dancing, as usually conducted, compatible with a high standard of morality?

Should the grand jury system of making indictments be continued?

Which should be the more highly remunerated, skilled labor or the work of professional men?

Which is the more desirable as an occupation, medicine or law?

Should the formation of trade unions be encouraged?

Which has been the greater curse to man, war or drunkenness?

Which can man the more easily do without, electricity or petroleum?

Should the law interfere against the growth of class distinctions in society?

Which was the greater genius, Mohammed or Buddha?

Which was the more able leader, Pizarro or Cortez?

Which can to-day wield the greater influence, the orator or the writer?

Is genius hereditary?

Is Saxon blood deteriorating?

Which will predominate in five hundred years, the Saxon or Latin races?

Should American railroad companies be allowed to sell their bonds in other countries?

Should Sumner's civil rights bill be made constitutional by an amendment?

Does civilization promote the happiness of the world?

Should land subsidies be granted to railroads by the government?

Which is the stronger military power, England or the United States?

Would a rebellion in Russia be justifiable?

Should the theater be encouraged?

Which has the greater resources, Pennsylvania or Texas?

Is agriculture the noblest occupation?

Can democratic forms of government be made universal?

Is legal punishment for crime as severe as it should be?

Should the formation of monopolies be prevented by the State?

Has Spanish influence been helpful or harmful to Mexico as a people?

Which is of more importance, the primary or the high school?

Will the tide of emigration ever turn eastward instead of westward?

Should the art of war be taught more widely than at present in the United States?

Was slavery the cause of the American civil war?

Is life insurance a benefit?"


The same text includes, among "sundry interesting facts,"


"The average duration of human life is 31 years."

Who Won?

Strange about that debate. All the common taters said that Trump lost badly. And I thought so too. Then the snap polls came in. They were just as strong the other way. They sll say he crushed it.

Okay, they weren't scientific. They could be manipulated. Still--polls from MSNBC, Time magazine. Hard to believe Trumpites are so dominant among computer geeks without being dominant in the general population. The well-educated and the young are not an obvious Trump demographic.

This might, of course, be an expression of enthusiasm, not numbers. But then, that too bodes ill for the Democrats. Who is likely to turn out to vote?

So I listened again, and I think I may see why. By conventional debating rules, sure, Clinton dominated. She had all her talking points ready. But Trump dominated her on the ancient and vitally important, but generally overlooked, matter of rhetoric. Political commentators are interested in policy. But without that interest, the rest of us are naturally, spontaneously, more impressed by rhetoric. We come away with a general tone of the matter. That is why it has been a traditional object of study.

Most of what Clinton actually said was tiresome cliche, the sort of boilerplate phraseology any good writer knows to avoid. The kind of stuff well-calculated to put your audience to sleep. Stuff we have all heard before, election after election. Much of it designed to obscure a point rather than to make it clearly.

I started to take notes. Especially early in the debate, there seemed to be one of these in almost every line.

• Wealthy pay their fair share;  meaningless--what is "fair"? But who van be opposed to "fairness"? 
• Close the corporate loopholes;  again meaningless. What counts as a "loophole"? And haven't politicians been promising to do this for generations? And yet you say there are still " loopholes"? 
• trickle down economics -- nobody on either side has ever believed in "trickle-down economics." But it sounds good, which is to say, bad. Classic straw man.
• Grow the economy -- sure. Who's against that?
• We just have a different view - meaning what? Just sounds thoughtful
• I understand that - meaning what? Just sounds thoughtful
• Invest in the middle class - why the middle class? Because nearly everyone sees themselves as middle class. If the majority saw themselves as lower class, or upper class, she would no doubt be investing in them. 
• Wall Street - a bogey man. A faceless entity, so safe to demonize.
• Grow the economy - surely a radical proposal. Who's against? What does saying you will do this matter, since everyone says they will do this?
• Clean energy - clean sounds good, dirty sounds bad, but otherwise open to any arbitrary definition.
• Power every home - and why wouldn't you power every home?
• Get the economy really moving again - really. How dare she? Doesn't she fear the backlash?
• Building on the progress we've made over the past eight years
• I've tried to be very specific -- a good way to dodge giving any specifics.
• Get the economy going again
• Hold people accountable -- again, who is against this? Yet up to now, we have not bothered to do it? Yikes" Who has been in power recently, then? 
• Robust set of plans - plans are always robust. But the term is meaningless in this context.
• Not add a penny to the debt
• Paid their fair share
• Streamline
• They are saying, "hey!"
• Rebuild the middle class
• Investing in the middle class
• It was a mistake, and
• I take responsibility - this line echoes Jack in Lord of the Flies. It is a way to avoid responsibility by paying it only lip service.
• Commonsense gun regulation - gee, can't really be against common sense, can we? 
• In our great country - obligatory pander to everyone
• All of us need to be asking hard questions - ooh. Makes her sound tough. Without committing to anything.
• Unintended consequences 
• Communities need to come together to do what will work - Meaningless phrase. Why wouldn't they? Haven't they? 
• Faith communities
• Racist birther - sounds tough, hurled at Trump, but nowadays everyone and everything is declared to be " racist," so it only means disagreement and an attempt to avoid debate.
• We are not going to sit idly by - obviously not a Buddhist, then. Impressive.
• We are going to have to make it clear - good idea. How novel. Why not start tonight? 
• The Russians need to understand that - an easy assumption that they do not. That's a pretty facile explanation. Im sure everything would have worked out better if Hitler had understodo he was not supposed to invade Poland, too.
• I have put forth a plan to defeat ISIS - why wouldn't you have? Your running for president
• I think we need to do much more - so why haven't we? Why haven't you?
• We have to be cognizant of the fact that - sounds so intelligent. But if we know we have to know what we know, we know.
• We've got to work more closely with our allies - Why didn't anyone think of this before? 

All political boilerplate, empty of real meaning and certainly empty of impact. Just all the clever words. Intrinsically deceitful, lacking in vision of any kind, and insulting to the electorate. This kind of thing might have worked in the past, when people heard less of it. With information now ubiquitous, people are beginning to notice that they've heard it all many times before. You can' t even fool all of the people some of the time any more.

Trump, by contrast, for all his logical incoherence, his incomplete sentences, used words we are not used to hearing in politics, words with meaning and emotional impact:

• Stolen
• Firing
• Sad
• We cannot do it any longer
• You're wrong
• We have to stop them from leaving
• That was a disaster
• You can't do what you're looking to do
• Devastation
• A disaster
• Money back
• Big fat ugly bubble
• Ripped off
• A third world country
• The worst of all things has happened
• You walk down the street you get shot
• Abused and used
• Knock the hell out of ISIS

They were truthful in the way that a good novel is truthful--vivid, true to life. Real words as might be spoken by real people to talk about real things.


At the same time, he was railing against just the sort of politics-as-usual Clinton had neatly set herself up as an example of:

• Bureaucratic red tape
• Red tape
• Regulations
• Typical politician
• All talk, no action
• Political hacks

It had to be devastating.

What is certain is that Trump has uncommonly good skills, or instincts, as a rhetorician. What is at least as evident is that Hillary Clinton has no skills and no sense here.

And, as it happens, this is crucial to success as a president.

Trump Surprises Me Again

Once again, as always, I was wrong about Trump. Apparently, the offer to debate Sanders came originally from someone else, perhaps even Sanders. And Trump has turned it down!

I can see only one possible reason why; only one possible downside to debating, from Trump's perspective. Trump must be afraid that Sanders might actually win the Democratic nomination, and that this would help him do it. And, if he is the candidate, unnecessarily boost his credibility in advance of the formal campaign.

I can understand Trump wanting to run against Clinton, not Sanders. Conventional wisdom holds that Sanders would be a weaker candidate, but I think that is wrong. To begin with, the polls do not show it. They show Sanders doing better than Clinton against Trump, or anyone else. In the end, people do not vote on policy or ideology. They vote for the guy they feel good about. Sanders is lots more likeable than Clinton.

And, quite likely, more likeable than Trump.

Against Sanders, too, Trump would lose his trump card, so to speak—voting for him being a thumb in the eye for the establishment. Hard to paint Sanders as an establishment candidate; next to him, Trump himself might look like the establishment. But dead easy to so portray Clinton.

Conventional wisdom also believes Sanders has a snowball's chance in a Bermuda summer of overtaking Clinton at this point. But Trump and his advisers may know or notice something we don't. The Clinton email scandal may be about to re-erupt. A damning report has just come down. The best result for Trump might well be a Clinton nomination immediately followed by criminal indictment, or at least some terrible press. Why help the Democrarts pull out of a nose dive?

While I'm here, let me also express my hope that Trump chooses Newt Gingrich as his vice-presidential candidate. Gingrich has what Trump needs to balance the ticket: most importantly, legislative experience; Southern exposure; conservative credibility. Gingrich is first-class with the media, and, like Trump, never intimidated by the press. And Gingrich is always fun to listen to.

The Trump-Sanders Debate

PT Barnum with his VP pick, Commodore Nutt

Donald Trump's offfer to debate Bernie Sanders for charity is a typical bit of PR genius.

First of all, Sanders would be crazy to turn it down. It gives him some free publicity Hillary Clinton will not get, on the eve of the crucial California primary. It also lets Sanders fix the image in Democrat voters' minds of himself as the nominee. And it puts in voters' minds the image of Sanders as the natural opponent of Donald Trump, aka the Devil Incarnate to many Democrats. Given all these considerations, the event is pretty likely to happen.

Even if it doesn't, Trump wins. The offer itself is a news story keeping him in focus instead of just the Dems. Because it is for charity, and specifically an unspecified women's charity, Trump can then say that Democrats do not really care about women, while he does. And, of course, he can claim that Sanders is scared of him.

But the true art of the deal is to come up with a win/win proposition. That is what this is. Sanders should thank Trump for the opportunity.

For Trump, it gives him a big jolt of free publicity. Especially if the offer is accepted, it injects him into the news cycle just as, otherwise, everyone would be focusing only on the Democratic race. In particular, it takes the spotlight off Hillary, his most likely opponent, diminishing her. Boosting Sanders also makes eventual unity harder for the Democrats. The closer Sanders comes to being the Democratic pennant-bearer, the stronger will the temptations be to launch a third-party bid, vitrually handing the presidency to Trump.

Trump platform.

It all works best if, as is far more likely, Hillary still ends up being the Democratic nominee. But if Sanders comes close enough that she wins only on the strength of the automatic delegates representing the party establishment, it makes Trump look that much more like the candidate of the common man. But even if it overshoots and hands Sanders the nomination, or something does, it is still not a bad thing for Trump. At worst, the Democratic nominee is getting no more exposure than he is. Some might also argue that Sanders would be easier to run against; I'm not at all sure about that. His policies might be less popular than Hillary's, but people are more inclined to vote on personalities.

It shows once again Trump's PR talents. He is, if nothing else, a great salesman. And the American people love that sort of showmanship. It is in the fine tradition of P.T. Barnum and W.C. Fields, the Yankeee pedlar and the emcee of the Old West medicine show. Sure, Barnum was a liar and a cheat, and the patent medicine probably did not work, but the lie and the cheat were so entertaining, they were more than worth the price of admission. It is popular entertainment in the fine, culturally democratic, American tradition.

Munk Debates

Steyn

In the old days, back in the Medieval university, professors established their careers in two ways: first, by public lecture. If nobody came to listen, they were doomed. Second, by debate. With their knowledge of their field and their ability to think directly challenged, and the chance of public humiliation. The modern thesis examining committee is a vestige of the second practice. These were no doubt unpopular among academics themselves, but they had the great benefit of serving as an objective check. No wonder they have been abolished. Another example of Adam Smith's timeless observation: when people of the same trade get together, for whatever reason, they will immediately conspire against the public interest. The modern practice has devolved into something which now has no protections against the corruption of an academic field, or academics generally; everything is decided by fellow profs. There is the thesis committee; there is the tenure committee; there is the “peer review”of publications that are highly formulaic. There are points for the number of times one's articles are cited—by other academics. There is nothing to see that the general public's needs or interests are being served, although the general public is expected to pay through the nose for it all.

As a result, smart operators can create their own subject, tailor it to their interests, and never be challenged. New, often silly, fields are appearing all the time, and once thy are created, the door is shut to any new or better ideas in that area. Human progress and human knowledge is hindered, not advanced, by this. All in the interests of an entrenched and wealthy group of practitioners.

Farage

Happily, the Internet may be changing that. We may be going back to the old ways. First, by making public lectures widely accessible, thanks to MOOCs, TED Talks, EdX, Coursera, and their ilk. There is now, for the first time in a long time, an actual advantage to being a good lecturer, a good teacher. Second, by reviving the art of public debate, the results widely available on YouTube at any time. Here in the bracing air of public debate is where good ideas really thrive, and bad ideas come to die.

You want to watch a really good recent debate? Try the Munk Debate on refugee policy here. The Con side was represented by an all-star team of Nigel Farage and Mark Steyn, both wonderful to listen to. Getting both of them on stage, the one flown in from Europe, the other from the US, was quite a coup. They dominated, and won handily by audience vote.

But then, I think the representatives of the Pro side were less stellar: Louise Arbor, and a relatively unknown New York Art History professor, Simon Schama. Not sure they were the best spokespeople available, although I can easily believe they were the best the Munk people could find willing to go toe to toe with the devastatingly effective Steyn and Farage.