In politics, debating is about spewing mantras, getting the upper hand and scoring points with voters. A person is the winner.
Discussions are about listening, speaking, reasoning, being intellectually honest, and finding good solutions. Everybody wins.
Politicians should be judged on their honesty, intelligence, good will, ideas, immunity to lobbyists and willingness to admit mistakes, to name but a few, and those are not things they can show in these "debates".
As long as the audience, the voters, are too thick to realise that a debate doesn't in any way show who is the best person for the job, and keep watching debates on television and talking about them and basing decisions on them, they run the risk of putting the less-than-optimal politicians in power. Mind you, they deserve what they get.
I am actually surprised not all of your post-WWII presidents have been shady and dishonest.
FYI: I'm Dutch, and following USA politics. Our own political discourse is rapidly moving in the same direction.
A lot of great thoughts in there, @ocrdu, I appreciate it. I'm not sure a debate has to have a winner (I think the media has played into conditioning that it does, at least here in the United States), but distinguishing a difference between a debate and a discussion makes a lot of sense.
You're right, politicians should be judged on the things you mentioned and it would be difficult to demonstrate or illustrate those in a debate - at least a real debate.
I hope the direction changes across the pond in the Netherlands. I almost said Denmark, I always get "Danish" and "Dutch" mixed up. We have a tulip festival here in Holland, Michigan every year. Lots of dancing wooden shoes, beautiful flowers and of course the windmills. :)
No marihuana then?
Heh, well, I've never smoked marijuana (or any narcotic) but I'm sure that if anyone wants marijuana here in the United States they would have no problem acquiring it. I'll leave it up to others to determine whether or not that is a good thing.
I just mentioned it because it seems to fit in the wooden shoes, tulips and windmill category 8-). Image is hard to shake off, even when marihuana use in The Netherlands is far lower than in the USA.
I do admit, hesitantly, that I have owned a pair of wooden shoes and that there are tulips in my garden.
Isn't that interesting, that when something is made legal its usage tends to go down dramatically? Maybe there is a psychological thing going on there, where something is more attractive if it is difficult or illegal to do.