<<Remember when Hugo Chavez stepped up to the UN podium and said that it still smelled of sulfur from the previos speaker?
<<Even at the head of state level , there is a lot of making it personal, to wit; Ad Hominim.>>
I consider that not only one of Chavez' greatest moments, but also one of the General Assembly's greatest moments. There is nothing wrong with using metaphor to illustrate a point, in this case that Bush was one of the most evil men produced in modern world history, and that the country he represents is almost equally evil, and that despite the never-ending propaganda bullshit of the mightiest power on the face of the earth, it could do nothing to stop Chavez from stating those truths to the world. The U.S.A. or the evil bastards who control it may one day murder Chavez and destroy Venezuela as they have destroyed Iraq but nothing will take away that moment from the world when Hugo Chavez stood before the entire world and denounced Bush and his country for the evil that they had brought into the world.
That was not, incidentally, in the course of a debate. Nor would a debate in the UN's General Assembly be anything like a debate in a debating club. The GA is similar to a Parliament in that debate is under the control of a President, who can rule on whether or not a speaker has breached the rules of the debating assembly. Here in 3DHS we have to self-regulate, as there is effectively no President. There is no outside power that can stop a speaker who goes too far. (Unless the speaker commits some truly outrageous and horrific breach of the unwritten rules, such as spelling "America" with three K's.)
<<I don't think our debateing here is done in the ideal way , which would provide a fact rich argument , persuasive with logic and rebuttals that would erase all sloppy thinking produceing an avesary of ideas and facts to insure that the ideas and facts known would acheive a high degree of examination and understanding of all sides of all questions would be advanced.
<< We seem to argue more like the real world argues , useing obfuscation to cover weaknesses and scateing fast over thin ice.>>
IMHO, we don't adhere to the highest forms of debate, but we're not the worst either. We fall short.
<<Attacking the honor or honesty of the person presenting a real arguement ought to be understood as a sort of an admission....>>
Except that it's not. Those who have attacked the honour or honesty of another debater here generally reserve the right to disagree with his views at the same time. There is no real admission, just the gratuitous attack. You can't make it into something that it's not, plane.
