To be continued...

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Maybe the problem is I seek more impartial news sources like Reuters and AP and that translates as me saying I am impartial. I get the feeling like if I tune into news that has a more partisan slant then I will get slanted that way, like indoctrinated. If I have a conservative slant to me I think that is just my natural stance, rather than I was raised that way or I was influenced by watching/reading a lot of Fox. If I sound like a Foxer, then that is just my natural slant I believe, at least at this stage in the game. I'm still developing of course.

Also I may be indicating impartial because I don't care that much. And that's why I say objective and detached. Like more of an observer. But I get the idea I should talk less about myself and just stick to what I have to say about the subject.

I get what you are saying about using tactics but I don't think that is something I am going to be able to swing. It is my opinion rather that the AP's. It's the way I see it myself rather than the way so-in-so sees it, even if the way I see it is screwy. I will read Trump reduced the size of a national park that is less than a year old and my reaction to that info is bfd. Looking from satellite view the land that was cut out looks unremarkable to me. My opinion is that it was too big and all that other land should not have been included in the first place. I don't care what Reuters or AP or CNN or Fox thinks about it, that's what I think about it. I call it as I myself see it.

All these formulas for debate you are saying are too complex for me to process. It would kill my spontaneity and then I would never get around to writing anything. When I put too much thought into something it stalls me out.

For example, two years now I have been playing an online video game that you are supposed to play a certain way. Using traits and stats and none of that computed to me. I just went in and played my character without formulating its traits or stats. The friend who introduced me to it and plays it with me, has always been saying I play it wrong. He tries and tries to get me to play it right, but I keep playing it my way. However after all this time I have more recently become more apt to play it the right way because I have gotten a better feel for how the traits and stats work now. I am finally after two years thinking more like a gamer.

With the stuff about appearance and eating I get celebrities get made fun of for that, but with Trump it seems laid on way too think and seems too obsessive and too vitriolic for something that inconsequential. It's not the criticisms themselves as much as how totally overboard people get over them.

It's like they are far too worked up over every minute thing to possibly be rational or objective. There seems to be only one train of thought and that is we hate Trump and want him removed period end of story. Just blind seething unreasoning hatred.

^^I'm glad you gave me a rundown of your thought. I'll accept you as a moderate, although don't be surprised if others don't, as I said there's some what I would call 'imaging' problems you're gonna face with other people, and that's why they're going to attack you. I'm calling it good though, and I'm glad we got this one on one because I get a lot better sense of where you actually stand. Again I apologize for any distress I caused you. I will still debate you when I think you're misguided or wrong, but I'll keep it very short and polite, because I understand what I may see in the signals you're giving off aren't necessarily what you're trying to get across. And it's not just you I have my own 'imaging' problems as well, I'm very aggressive when I go into 'debate' mode, (basically I see this as one giant autism clusterf**k on both our parts which turned our tone sour). Another thing I'd note, I'm quick to pounce, and I see that in your 'style' as well, that's why we had 'fireworks'-- we're very similar in that regard.

Yeah, if my advice isn't gonna work for you don't follow it, it's just advice from my own study/experience, it doesn't translate for everyone. I've been told several times I 'lecture', and that's never really my intention, my mind just thinks in really complex ways (again not really an asset here) that come off as, well, a professor lecturing. In that sense, our autism symptoms are the exact opposite: where you have a memory that has gaps I've got one that won't shut the hell up and give me peace. I'm also going to presume from here on out that you're in it for the interaction, and not to practice your skill set (I'll say it one last time, you do have a natural ability for debate, perhaps not in real life speaking, but certainly through writing), and so I won't throw out random advice, but if I'm around and you ever want any just ask, I'm actually very approachable outside of debate.
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As for the political scene, I'm going to mention age one last time, and not in a derogatory fashion as I used it in debate, but just for a practical point. You're too young to have seen this country when it actually functioned correctly, because at one point it actually did. The partisan sniping you see in debate and the rhetoric that's out there has been slowly building pretty much since the end of WWII. At the end of WWII it was still D vs R, but both sides had the country's best interest in mind before they had their own party's bottom line in mind (bottom line I'm using to mean not how much money, but how many seats in power). If you look at election numbers pre-Kennedy/Nixon (I call that the turning point election) presidents would consistently win an election with high margins (10-20%). Our last five have been decided by less than 4% (which is why they're all toss ups on election day because that's well within any poll's margin of error). We are more polarized than we've ever been.

That creates the lunacy that you see from both extremes. When a nation is consistently 50/50 politically that creates incentives to hunker down on one's own side (old adage: trust the devil you know, not the one you don't). Now we're in a D v R clusterf**k and because the animosity is so high both sides know that if they're on the losing end when that deadlock breaks they're f****d for good. So they're both fighting harder than ever to be the winner and that's where the conspiracy claims and outright fabrication come into play: it doesn't matter what's true or not, just stick to your group's talking points or be outcast. The thing about a 50/50 nation is that there's no place for outcasts, you're f****d on an individual level, so no ones strays outside those lines and the cycle continues. But it will reach a tipping point at some time, and we'll eventually have a president that wins in those high margins again and get things rolling with a clear mandate on direction. Until that happens trying to argue from facts, logic, or reason will have minimal impact on persuading someone to agree with you unless you're already in their camp or those facts align to their camp.
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Again, sorry for being long winded. I'm calling this thread good, but if you reply I'll certainly read it. But I am going to sign off with a friendly little jab (take it jokingly): school work sucks, glad I don't have to do it anymore, sucks to be you.

I should curtail my ponce mode. In another forum there was a member I really liked who was very good at it and I guess I tend to "channel" him sometimes. There's one here too, but he doesn't post much and I forget his handle. But he's good at taking people's arguments apart.

As far as age goes, in addressing me not having lived during a certain period of time, you went on to refference things that happened before your time. I like history a lot. I've recently been exploring the reign of Elizabeth I and I'm getting pretty familiar with how things were back then politically and economically without having actually lived through it. And tbh 36 doesn't sound all that old to me. My dad's baby brother is around 36. When I think of someone who's lived through a lot and is in the position of being a wise old sage, I think of my grandpa, rather than someone the who's the age of his youngest child.