This is a surprisingly common misconception, given that no one (I assume) expects this to be the goal of a presidential debate, or for that matter of the college debates I used to judge. IOW, if there is someone I/we are trying to convince (as opposed to just enjoying the rhetorical pugillism for its own sake), it’s the lurkers.
I’ve seen lots of posters on this board change their minds when they learned something new or saw things in a different light. I’m not talking about a dozen over the dozen years I’ve been here. If pressed, I could probably come up with 20 examples in the past six months or year.
If you haven’t seen someone change their minds as a result of your debate contributions, well, I can’t help you.
If Cologne didn’t change your mind, nothing Slackerinc says will.
I almost did a FYP, but I think that might not be allowed? Anyway, I’d change it to “nothing *anyone *says will”. It’s epistemic closure.
But you know, at the risk of semi-contradicting myself, I do think there are signs of minds changed, in the very subdued reaction I noted earlier. Most are too stubborn to actually say “okay, fine”, but they don’t have the heart any more to make risible assertions like these, all from the first page of the thread:
“If [the FBI Director] believes that Syrian refugees are ISIS sleeper agents, then yes [he is a paranoid idiot].” (Smapti)
“I find it absurd that the masculine portion of the refugee population should be denied entry on the basis of a infinitsimal security risk.” (Qin Shi Huangdi)
“The Democrats already have their winning talking point. All they have to do is point out that not accepting the refugees is letting ISIS win.” (BigT)
“If people are getting freaked out, this is because people are idiots.” (El Kabong)
“But of course it won’t happen, because it’s politically tone-deaf, satisfies nobody, and is foolish on its face.” (LHOD, before Hillary proposed something very similar; **LHOD **also called voters’ concerns “unfounded fears”, this being before not only Cologne but the two separate refugee arrests I posted about on Friday.)
Minds are clearly changing, which is why Democrats should have just gone with the most high-minded argument(what are our ideals worth if we’re not willing to risk anything for them?), but instead most just go with the “there is no cost to our favored policies!” argument.
Easy for you to say as a Republican. I as a Democrat am not okay with planting our flag in the quicksand of boldly declaring “Democrats are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, so that we can support any of our Muslim friends in coming to this country. Even if it might mean an increase in terrorist attacks on soft targets, that is a price worth paying so that we might stand firm on principle.” Nope, not interested in being tarred with that one, thanks all the same!
Yeah, but better to be tarred with “bleeding heart” than “cynical liars, why were they protecting terrorists?” This one is on the President. He completely contradicted his own administration to claim that the process was thorough and reliable. It’s going to be a fair question to ask what his motivation was.
Ehhhhh…I’ll take ©, please, Alex.
Well, C is to be on the cautious side of this from the start. Europe is learning the error of their ways as well, although a lot of women had to fall victim to their muddled thinking too. The biggest problem is the “survival of the fittest” system of admissions. Muslim men were advantaged by the process because women and minorities are too scared to go to the camps, where they are abused by the majority.
They were also more likely to drown on the way.
My views were softening prior to Cologne. Now I say vet 'em harder. Ask them about women especially. Asking them what they think of homosexuality couldn’t hurt either. They say anything even remotely un-PC, back to the camp.
BUMP given Trump’s close-to-inevitability of if not getting 1237, getting close enough to cajole his way to it via unbound GOP delegates. Also, bump given this development.
While on Mexican illegal immigration, free trade, and especially on environment, I disagree with Trump pretty strongly, events in Europe, like this, do make me agree on not letting Syrian refugees in. We don’t need anti-Semites in our electorate, ever.
Hillary and other Dems need to distance themselves from Obama’s stance, especially now that she can move to the center, given Bernie’s effective primary demise.
And what about when word spreads through the camp to lie about these things in order to clear the vetting process?
If investigators can’t see through it, that doesn’t say much about the prospects for vetting in general.
Exactly.
THat assumes that accurate info spreads through these camps. From everything I’ve read, rumors that US soldiers have x-ray vision that enables them to see Arab women naked spread faster than accurate information.
Anyone getting a little more worried now and thinking maybe I had the right idea? You’re a stubborn lot, I know; but why would we ever want to pick this hill to die on, to defend the most anti-feminist, anti-LGBT, anti-freethinking group of people on the planet? C’mon.
1000% agree. But if Hillary finally saying “Islamic terrorism” is a sign, then as I suspected during the primaries, she will pivot on this too.
Yesterday, she kind of signaled she did, not saying that “Trump wants to ban all Muslims” but rather saying Trump wants to “ban the families and friends of Muslim Americans as well as millions of Muslim business people and tourists.” That leaves wiggle room for not banning all Muslims, but still lowing immigration to the United States in pursuit of a Green Card and citizenship.
This issue wouldn’t have been so out front of Bernie had not pushed Hillary to “prove” she wasn’t a conservative to a largely spoiled and ignorant primary electorate.
I value our democracy, which Trump seems to have little regard for, rather than making a few bleeding heart guilty whites happy or trying to make the Muslim world like us more; something Obama has tried but to no avail.
Not to mention some groups, like Jews might feel very threatened by the specter of thehigh likelihood that these refugees don’t like them (notice how the Democrats who voted against refugees were from largely Jewish districts?).
Hopefully you’re right. And didn’t she advocate, a few months back, something like my OP: giving priority to women and children?
she’s in it to win it. She sees the writing on the wall, and I expect a reversal, probably something like being open to looking at “working with Congress to keep immigration/refugee admittance safe.” That 60,000 number definitely will not hold.
She’ll be called a flip-flop, but she’ll probably just find Trump flip flops on terrorism to throw back at him.
Gotta say; the most destructive part of Bernie doing what he did but trying to be something other than token opposition was force Hillary to go left to prove she was “progressive,” because since she couldn’t just copy his domestic policy, she had to give on foreign policy, Islam, etc.