Outside Westminster, political debate must seem like white noise that bears little relevance to people's everyday lives. But political choices made by the governments we elect have a real impact on how we live.
Political debate is of no interest to me. What I want are practical solutions.
If the court is a political institution making important political decisions, then the public should debate the politics of Supreme Court decisions.
In a way, the debate about Margaret Thatcher in Britain has just gotten fossilized in this notion that she is either this she-devil who wrecked the industrial base of the country and ruined the lives of millions, or she is the blessed Margaret who saved the nation and rescued us from our post-war decline.
Bob Gates has unusual standing in the debate about the Obama administration's foreign policy: He was defense secretary for both a hawkish President George W. Bush and a wary President Obama. He understood Bush's desire to project power and Obama's skepticism.
The debate on healthcare was not done like most of our conferences are done - meaning it was not all on television. There was this procedural feeling that the bill wasn't done thoroughly and didn't reflect peoples' wishes. It's not coincidence that upwards of 60 percent of folks in my district are against it.
Having spent a number of my younger years with trade-union parents attending NUT annual conferences, I feel comfortable with an agenda in my hand and a procedural format for debate.
It's tempting to dismiss the debate about the National Security Agency spying on Americans as a technical conflict about procedural rights.
Rather than allowing jihadists to shut down debate, it must proliferate so much that they simply cannot kill us all.
I heard there was a debate about fighting teammates, and if a fight should happen because the fans or promoter wants it, I will fight a teammate, but family is ridiculous.
I almost became a political journalist, having worked as a reporter at the time of Watergate. The proximity to those events motivated me, when I wound up doing philosophy, to try to use it to move the public debate.
The public discourse online is not done through the polite language of debate.
When a person's religious beliefs cause him to deny the evidence of science, or for whom public policy morphs into a battle with the devil, shouldn't that be a subject for discussion and debate?
Let's talk about policing and public safety. Let's debate what works and what does not. We must abandon practices that do not work, and do more of the things that actually do work to save lives.
In high school, I didn't know what comedy was, but I was involved in speech and debate and public speaking.
Unfortunately, most gun control advocates are not really interested in rational debate, and their political games simply send Alice chasing white rabbits down holes.
Parliamentary obstructionism should be avoided. It is a weapon to be used in the rarest of the rare cases. Parliamentary accountability is as important as parliamentary debate. Both must coexist.
When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union. And we won. Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?
Most of us know nothing about constitutional law, so it's hardly surprising that we take sides in the Obamacare debate the way we root for the Red Sox or the Yankees. Loyalty to the team is what matters.
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.'
