Ernie : The Prime Lesson to gain from Centroids is the value of civility when we disagree. And, to be candid, not to stroke your ego, it is difficult to see how we could have been as successful as has been true except for the kind of conciliatory person you are. Other sites I have been part of, not all, but at least half, have been "Heap Big Leader Must Be Deferred To --Always." HBLMBDTA or "Heap Defer," . for short. C-Span sometimes hosts debates in the spirit you discussed. Others of their debates are street brawls , but there are some. The question is, simply, how do we get people to watch the good debates so that their value can become obvious ? There probably are some valuable lessons to learn from the two opponents in Iowa for a House seat, two friends who refused to go negative on principle, but I have no information about how that turned out. Your suggestion is well taken, now we need to figure out the practical side of the idea. Billy ----------------------------------------------------------- In a message dated 3/29/2010 2:22:40 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, On Mar 26, 2010, at 6:53 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: For the past several decades, negative political persuasion has increased while political discourse has decreased. It is not enough to say, "Don't make personal attacks," or "Be civil in discussing issues." It is time to reestablish healthy disagreement and conflict in political campaigns. To do so we need a procedure and a set of norms for candidates for office to follow. These guidelines should be based on validated psychological theory. In engaging in constructive political discourse the following guidelines should be adhered to: A very nice theory, and one I largely agree with. The challenge is figuring out how to *implement* it. For example, could this be codified in a new debate format, and pitched to the TV networks or good government groups who sponsor debates (e.g., League of Women Voters). Has anyone even tried? -- Ernie P. = _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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