Debating Tactics

Our little "discussion" with Michale Edge-of-your-Seato a few posts back inspired me to make this post. I've noticed that social-policy arguments here (and in many other places) tend to be a bit scattershot and unfocused, and I'm no less guilty of it than anyone else. So I thought I'd compile a little primer on how to debate.

I'm not pretending that this is going to get some fundie to throw up his hands and concede, nor do I expect one blog post to be a cure-all for all debating woes. But I hope to help you sound more informed, more logical, and more rational than our usual redneck opponents. For the purposes of this lesson, I'm going to use the gay marriage issue as my example, simply because it's fresh in my mind. So here we go, The Watcher's Guide to Debating.

Step 1: Define Your Terms. This is the single best way to get started. It sounds ridiculous and overly simplistic, but it's amazing how true it is. You can't debate something if you can't articulate what, exactly, you're debating.

Remember to make everything both clear and specific. Both you and your opponent need to know what the issue is, and what each side's position is. What do you want to happen, and why? (Remember the why can be brief, even implicit. We'll get to our whys later, but for now, we just need to put forth some type of value.)

So how do we state our issue?

"Gay marriage is good."

That's a terrible issue statement. What do you mean "good?" So what? Why is it good? What does its being "good" mean for society? And for that matter, what is "gay marriage?"

"Same-sex marriage should be legal."

Okay, that's better. It's not perfect, but at least we now have some statement of purpose. We're debating whether it should be legal. And look! We've clarified what "gay" is. But we still don't have any reason. This is just a naked policy statement, with no values behind it. Why should same-sex marriage be legal, especially when our issue statement gives no reason for it to be?

"There is no reason a free society should ban same-sex marriage."

Ah. Now we have a value. This is a "free society," meaning people should be able to do what they want, and not have it banned. You may also notice that, almost automatically, this flips burden of proof. Now, instead of giving a reason why something should be legal, one side needs to give a reason why it shouldn't. The debate at this point is clear, as we're going to have the anti side presenting its reasons and the pro side explaining why this is a free society, and you can't argue that.

The only problem now is that we're begging the question. We've begun with an incorrect premise, depending on how you define "a free society." Really, this isn't a free society, and I'm glad of it. There are many things we aren't free to do, such as murder, steal, and rape. We can't do these things because they infringe on others' rights, so we need to clarify exactly how "free" the society is we're talking about.

"Individual freedom outweighs any negatives that arise from the legalization of same-sex marriage."

This is about as far as I want to take it. You may be able to put it more clearly, or more succinctly, but this issue statement works well enough for now. We have two clearly delineated sides: the "individual freedom side" and the "negatives of gay marriage side." Neither one is absolute, and they both know it. The freedom folks know that we aren't free to do whatever we want, and the antis know that gay marriage is not 100% without any value whatsoever. It is each side's job to tip the scales in his or her favor, knowing it will never be perfect.

Frankly, I'm starting to think that if debates started this way, both sides would sound smarter.

Step 2: Understand Your Opponent's Argument. You can't argue with someone if you don't know what they're getting at. If you have to, phrase it back to him, and see if he agrees. But the bottom line is, you have to know what it is that you're refuting. This helps in two ways: It keeps focused on the task, and keeps your opponent from moving the goalpost (changing what you have to prove in order to prevail.)

Michael Ejercito argued that the government looks at many types of relationships differently. Look at a limited partnership vs. a corporation vs. an LLC. So why should gay couples be treated the same as straight couples?

Okay, like you, my first thought upon reading that was "What the hell?" I didn't know what, exactly he was trying to prove, and I didn't have Mr. Ejercito handy to ask. So I did what I could do: read it over and over again until I did understand.

The point that he was trying to raise, summed up, is "the government has a precedent of treating different groupings of people differently, so it can treat a man and a woman differently than two men or two women."

Now, this logic is rife with fallacies. You can pick whichever one you want, but the upshot of it is that to debate a point, you have to know what value is being upheld. Here, knowing that he's upholding a simple statement of fact (the government can do this), you can argue simply "Why should it?" Don't be an idiot and chase him all over corporation law (like I did), arguing the differences between marriages and businesses. He can just keep moving goalposts until you get tired, so stay on track.

Step 3: Recognize a Red Herring. There are many, many types of fallacious arguments. Some are seen all the time, and others hardly ever make an appearance. You'll find a pretty comprehensive listing here, but I want to focus on one in particular. Fundies love to pull red herrings, and what concerns me most is that liberals too often take the bait.

A red herring argument is one which shifts the debate off the main topic and onto an irrelevant side issue. Michael Ejercito proclaimed, as many fundies do, that "Children do best in a home with a mother and a father."

Your first reaction (as mine was), is to jump all over this statistic and respond with stats of your own, proclaiming that two parents of the same sex do NOT, in fact, raise worse-off children than one man and one woman. Factually you'd be correct, but logically speaking, don't. Don't go down this road. If you do, you will have allowed the fundie to jump into the front seat and start driving you where he wants to go.

My response to the assertion is "So what?" The fact is, it doesn't matter whether children of gay parents do better, worse, or the same as children of straight parents. This is not a basis on which the government decides whether or not to grant a marriage license, so it's a completely irrelevant assertion: a red herring.

Let me unpack that, so you can see what I did there. In debating, each side will ALWAYS raise sub-issues. The way we created this debate topic, someone has to, as the anti side is charged with presenting sub-issues (negatives) to prove that they outweigh the pro side's individual freedom. What they are not asked to do is begin pointless detours.

To figure out if a topic is relevant or not, ask, "If I concede this point, will I be closer to losing the overall argument?" So, let's find out: let's concede. Fine, gay parents raise children who are worse off than straight parents. Is this a reason not to grant marriage licenses to gays?

The answer is no, it isn't. MANY couplings, by statistic or just common sense, would raise children who are worse off than other couplings. A drug addict who dropped out of school and an alcoholic cocktail waitress, for instance, probably won't raise kids as successful and well-behaved as a Harvard-educated doctor and a Yale lawyer from suburban Connecticut. And yet, we don't drug test a couple or check their educational status before they're allowed to get married.

A carnival stuntman and a stripper? Probably not going to raise kids who are as well-adjusted as a senator and a CEO. Should we ban them from getting married too? Do we?

Of course not. There is NO minimum threshold set for ANYONE regarding how "good" of a parent they need to be before we let them get married. So we define our opponent's central argument (Gays should not be allowed to marry because their children won't turn out well) and we discover that this is not a valid argument. In other words, being likely to raise maladjusted children does not constitute a reason to deny ANYONE a marriage license, so there's no point in debating it.

(Please note here: an argument doesn't work if it doesn't apply universally. If someone tries to exclaim "but teh queerz are diff'rnt!" they've already lost. If you have to resort to making arguments that only apply when they're convenient for you, you haven't made an argument.)
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There's plenty more I can get into, but I'm sure by now your eyes are bleeding, so I think I'll just end it here. As always, comments are welcome. And unlike Andrew Schlafly, I'll even allow ones that disagree with me ;)