Image 01 Image 03

Notre Dame College Democrats Accuse Republican Debater of Using ‘Hateful and Dangerous’ Rhetoric

Notre Dame College Democrats Accuse Republican Debater of Using ‘Hateful and Dangerous’ Rhetoric

“not just factually inaccurate and problematic, [they are] unacceptable and harmful to our community at Notre Dame”

This is just so typical. It has become a reflex for Democrats.

The College Fix reports:

Notre Dame College Democrats condemn GOP debater’s alleged ‘hateful,’ ‘dangerous’ rhetoric

In the latest example of self-proclaimed free speech progressives showing they’re anything but, board members of the Notre Dame College Democrats used the student paper to rip a College Republican debater’s language as “hateful” and “dangerous.”

A week before Election Day, the Notre Dame College Republicans’ Shri Thakur took on the College Democrats’ Blake Ziegler on topics such as immigration, the economy and crime.

The Observer’s account of the debate is fairly thorough; both debaters offered up many of the same talking points we heard from politicians and talking heads throughout the 2022 campaign season.

Things got a bit heated on the issues of abortion, education and crime with Ziegler claiming that, as a Jew, he doesn’t want “have to listen to Christianity to tell [him] when life begins.”

Ziegler also accused Republicans of being “transphobic” and “homophobic” due to their efforts regarding age-appropriate school curricula. He claimed current high crime rates are a result of people being poorer (for which Democrats are not to blame, of course), not the (Democrat-promoted) defunding of police forces, sentence reductions and abolition of cash bail.

Among other things, Thakur countered with “We are going to defend our culture and put Americans first in the name of God, family and country and we are going to make America great again.”

Given that Notre Dame is a private Catholic institution, such a statement isn’t exactly out of the mainstream.

For the seven board members of the College Democrats, however, Thakur’s debate performance was “a display of racist, transphobic and antisemitic rhetoric” for which he “must be held accountable.”

“[Thakur’s] election denial, promotion of QAnon conspiracies about Jan. 6, transphobic characterization of deeply personal experiences for trans children, comparison of Judaism’s position on abortion with Aztec child sacrifice, dogwhistles on race when discussing DEI and promotion of nationalism are not just factually inaccurate and problematic, [they are] unacceptable and harmful to our community at Notre Dame,” wrote Alexandra Conley, Riya Shah, Anna Guzmán, Benjamín Gracia, Katie Werner, Megan Keenan and Sydney Dittmar.

DONATE

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.

Comments

In other words, they had no good retort to what he was saying.

Tacit loss to Thakur.

In other words, “HOW DARE YOU?????”

People get really upset when you point out their victimhood, and how perhaps it is their responsibility for it in the first place, and absolutely their responsibility for bringing it to an end. That is the R word that really pisses them off.

To paraphrase Lenin, those who debate decide nothing, those who referee the debate decide everything. So the question always has to be, how woke is the judge?

“not just factually inaccurate and problematic, [they are] unacceptable and harmful to our community at Notre Dame”

Who’s community? Not the guy who’s being condemned, I think. Meanwhile, what a steaming pile of propagandist rhetoric.

“fatually inaccurate” is provable-ish, in a conversational mode that allows proof.

“problematic” may be provable-ish, with some variety of that particular jello nailed to some tree at hand. Otherwise it’s just another synonym for “makes me feel bad.”

“unacceptable” is a judgement. It’s pesonal, based on a rubric characterizing what was said, and another of what is Ok or not. Since it’s personal, in the end “unacceptable” is also assertion of power: I get to declare what’s acceptable or not.

“harmful” is entangled with rubrics like “unacceptable.” It’s similarly entangled with consequences, though different ones. “Unacceptable” — I’m not gonna put up with what comes of this. “Harmful” — I assert that as a consequence this thing here, reduces what is good, right, and beneficial about whatever gets harmed. ‘Harmful to me” is one thing, “harmful to our community” is another, “harmful in general” another thing yet.

So a guy of presumably Indian descent makes a conservative argument and the Democrat response is ‘racism, transphobia, anti-Semitism’ and other factually inaccurate and problematic dog whistles. Par for the course. How is America to survive an indoctrinated generation incapable of basic logic?

Ziegler claiming that, as a Jew, he doesn’t want “have to listen to Christianity to tell [him] when life begins.”

If he doesn’t want Christianity telling him its views, then he shouldn’t attend a Christian university.

[Thakur’s] comparison of Judaism’s position on abortion with Aztec child sacrifice,

He did no such thing, since Judaism’s position on abortion is not remarkably different from Catholicism’s position. (The main difference is on whether personhood starts at conception or 40 days later; since few abortions occur in those 40 days, this is of little practical significance.)

Note that nearly all of the complaining College Democrats are female. They don’t exactly negate the view that women can be hysterical, emotion-driven creatures, do they?

A Punk Named Yunk | November 21, 2022 at 11:33 am

In medieval times, Rabbis were forced to debate Christian scholars on, for example, why the Talmud should not be burned. Nearly everything the Rabbi would say was branded heresy and blasphemy because, of course, it disagreed with a Christian cleric and the Rabbi was forbidden to use such arguments. Some debate, eh?

The one exception was a debate between Pablo Christiani (an apostate Jew) and Rabbi Moshe bar Nachman, where King James of Aragon granted the rabbi full freedom to speak. And he gave them an earful. But he was expelled from Aragon for his efforts, This is portrayed with better than usual historical accuracy in a short movie called “The Disputation”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pVDmfp86o8

If you have some Jewish background, this very short article:
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4612923/jewish/The-Disputation-of-Ramban-Nachmanides.htm

In any true debate about logic and facts (which, I know, precludes Democrats from participation), bringing such personal opinions in as a justification for trying to save a side’s failure to use those basic conditions means an automatic loss. That’s why Democrats always lose debates and why they didn’t engage with GOP candidates this last election.