Whatever circle jerk CNN’s pet sycophants cook up won’t be a debate. Debate is supposedly an attempt to suss out truth, or at least test knowledge. Sigh, ok fine, it’s really just nerds doing word based rhetorical gladiatorial combat. Still it’s nothing of the sort when “officiated” by biased mental nullities like CNN’s staff.
I imagine an ideal situation where it’s better. Join me in a flight of fancy!
I ponder learned men and women discussing issues of great import. I imagine Socrates rocking a Greek toga while Cicero in Roman garb that’s basically a hipper version of an old Greek toga strides about. Everyone there is smart, civil, and intelligent. Any moderator who interrupts gets stabbed. You need to swear on your mother’s grave that you’ve read at least three books per quarter just to watch. If you’re lying, the Oracle of Delphi knows and rats you out. Liars are thrown down a well… which, now that I think of it, should be applied to Congress starting now. We might need to dig more wells.
Socrates is a stone cold asshole who answers every question with a question. The crowd shouts and complains. Thinking is hard. They don’t like it.
Cicero is such a mental bad ass that he can share conjecture with a re-animated a 200 year old dead philosopher. On the other hand, he’s an elitist douchebag.
Cato the Elder seizes the microphone and shouts; “Furthermore, I consider Carthage to need to be destroyed” and drops the microphone. (The microphone has a function which is unclear to a man from 2,200 years ago but it looked cool when he watched rappers drop theirs and he wants to look cool.) The Republic of Tunisia exclaims “not cool dude” but nothing happens. This is because almost nobody in America knows Tunisia exists and of those only eleven people know Carthage was an ancient city there. Those eleven people are all killed when a single elevator mishap at a Holiday Inn Express kills the entirety of the “East Wichita, Mensa / Carthage Special Interest Group”. However, Cato’s words incite Syria to invade Iran which attacks North Korea which assassinates the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, for reasons nobody understands.
Confucius tries to calm the crowd, imploring them to use their greater reason and morality; which seems to work. Then Socrates askes another damn question “Oh yeah? And how do we know you even exist?”. Pandemonium breaks out!
Then, because it’s my imagination, Diogenes shows up stark naked and carrying a plucked chicken. The scene fades as the greatest minds of humanity help Diogenes beat the cameraman with the chicken.
CNN has a 5% boost in stock value that lasts for exactly one day before the whole thing is forgotten. Meanwhile, the United States has the greatest debt ever assembled in all of human existence, so Congress wisely passes laws about transgender street signs.
Would that be worse that what’s going to happen tonight?
Bravo! A tour de force….aaaand it was far worse last night, seeing “our” current Gaius Caligula ran out of battery power within the first 30 minutes, after which it was a (thankfully) difficult task to hear of what he spoke. Meanwhile our temporarily deposed Gaius Octavius has made great inroads towards regaining and restoring the empire to some semblance of prosperity to come.
Ha ha ha “Caligula ran out of battery power…” What a great quote.
Just for the record, if Diogenes was running… I’d vote for him! Buck naked and flailing about with a chicken all served to make a point. It was logical and yet weird enough to get our attention 2,000 years later. Makes more sense than yesterday. Whatever the heck is happening now is more like the geezerfied circular firing squad of the late Soviet period.