You know, I don’t think we ever actually have a debate. I can’t remember ever seeing one. Just a series of vague questions with pat talking points. Often the same talking points repeated from “debate” to “debate”. I’d much rather see a discussion. And exchange of ideas. Maybe a political correspondent and a candidate for a couple of hours actually discussing a topic rather than jumping around and never exploring where they really stand.
For example, Hillary Clinton talks in a general way about universal healthcare. Ok. On the face of it, everyone being healthy sounds like a good idea. And certainly costs are out of control. But I’d like to ask in detail, how do we pay for it? Who would it cover? Every American or would it be another thing that other people get for free but I have to pay for myself and now them? What is to stop my employer for reducing benefits or dropping coverage if the government is doing it? How would we reduce the cost to the taxpayer? How would providing health insurance for poor Americans be cheaper than just treating them at emergency rooms since we know that the cost of health insurance exceeds the cost of health care when amortized over large groups. That’s how insurance companies make their money. Without a lengthy discussion by someone that is interested, we won’t find out where this is going until it becomes another failed, expensive, social experiment. And this can lead into discovering that if she wants everyone to have “free” healthcare, what other benefits does she want to give? Free college? If so, does the government only pay for a community college or do we get free Harvard or something?
I doubt it will happen, but I’d really rather see a discussion rather than a debate. I think we may learn something and you never know, there may be some kernel of good ideas there…. Somewhere.
A substantive public policy discussion in the public political arena? I'd love to see that, too, but I don't think it's ever going to happen. Not for diabolical reasons, but because the American electorate is just not interested in any depth on policy – their eyes start to glaze over after about 8 syllables… Too harsh? I think not – because if the majority of Americans were actually interested in a substantive public policy discussion, the politicians and the lamestream media would be falling all over themselves to provide it, for the power and money that would accrue. Capitalism is a wondrous clarifier when it comes to understanding what people actually want.
So I think our substantive public policy discussions will always happen in the backwaters, not on television shows or in high-volume newspapers. The closest thing I've seen to such a discussion in the “mainstream media” has appeared in Reason magazine – and most people, I suspect, wouldn't lump it in with the mainstream media. Least of all the publishers!
But the political blogs are doing a bang-up job of making these discussions publicly available – and even truly public, on those blogs that allow comments. If you want to engage in a substantive discussion on public policy, I know of no better place to pursue it.
If you take a stab at it, you'll quickly notice an interesting and somewhat puzzling pattern: the righty blogs and libertarian blogs are chock-a-block full of such discussions, while they are hard to find on the lefty blogs (empty rhetoric and foaming-at-the-mouth attacks are much more popular there). Certainly the lefties have no monopoly on lunatics and nutballs – but for whatever reason, that fringe is much more visible on the lefty sites. I suspect there's an important message in that fact, but I really don't know what it is…
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