>Ascribing malice seems a bit irrational to me. I agree with this, I'm thinking more along the line of debate mistake. I make them, I always invite corrections

>Ascribing malice seems a bit irrational to me. I agree with this, I'm thinking more along the line of debate mistake. I make them, I always invite corrections and I think the willingness to speak on terms of your debate opponent smooths the debate process. Sometimes it does get a bit impractical, heh debating libertarians often involves learning whole new versions of english lol Still I think you will be more successful if you put forward your caveat on definitions ahead of time, nothing is to be gained during a debate by preemptively declaring your victory, so if I were to suggest improvements to rhetoric, I'd examine my own use of "the fact is that" type things and make sure that what I describe during these uses are indeed facts agreed upon by the debate participants. Like if I were a libertarian, instead of declaring taxation is theft, I would offer a "wouldn't you agree" and this way we debate participants share a goal of honing in to the fundamental disagreement at stake and I can tell you in my experiences it often comes down to a lack of shared values instead of facts in dispute.