They voted en masse against everything the dems wanted to do.
Considering what the Dems where trying to do, that is for the most part something to be said in favor of the Republicans (to the extent they actually did it, on a number of issues there where Republicans who did go along).
As for DADT, or the earlier actual segregation policy, whatever their merits or demerits supporting either wasn't something that would rely on "gay bashing pure bigotry", which isn't to say that none of the support was based on that, but a lot was not. In another context a fair measure of the opposition to the civil rights act of '64, for example Goldwater's opposition to it, seems to have had no connection to bigotry (and to the extent it was based on bigotry or pandering to racists, it seems to have mostly come from the Dems).
Over the years I have almost never seen conservatives convince liberals or vice versa. So debates just devolve into arguments and that is just a waste of time.
Convincing someone on the major issues, at least if you mean actually changing them over to the other side, rather than just softening their position is rare, but it does happen some times. Softening positions is more common (although its also possible for debate to cause people's opinion to become more extreme or more set in stone), and the discussion may convince fence sitting "bystanders". Much more common than that is better understanding of where the other person is coming from and why, and I think that's a worthwhile goal. Also you can identify where compromise is possible, and where it isn't. And the discussion itself can be interesting. So even if people rarely do a 180 degree turn, that doesn't mean the effort is a waste of time.
I would suggest however you might get more out of it if you assumed some good faith, rather than jumping to the idea that those who disagree with you on issues you hold dear are horrible ogres. But perhaps all your looking for is to toss mud around and generate more heat than light. |
