You can't have an honest debate with a dishonest partner.

There are only two reasons why any sane person would want to debate another human being.

The first is to articulate and support an honest position. This means vigorously promoting and defending a particular point of view.  But, just as significantly, it also means acknowledging where one's argument is weak, misleading, or just plain wrong in light of alternative information. The key word here is "honest," not "defend," since the main purpose of this exercise is to pursue Truth, not win a debate by any means necessary.

The second reason is the antithesis of the first. The pursuit of victory, not knowledge, is the motivating force behind the debate. As cold, calculating, and completely amoral as it is to prefer winning to the Truth, it's still a mark of sanity to debate this way.  Defense attorneys do this all the time. Courts are not the arbiters of Truth, but rather the dispensers of Justice. Justice is about following procedures where the guilty go free because evidence is improperly collected. Thus, it's a perfectly rational outcome to set an obvious murderer free rather than establish a system whereby innocent people are improperly imprisoned. "Rational" doesn't mean "Right"; it simply means that the action isn't arbitrary. The legal system is about following rules to their logical end. It's the rules, not the "end," that drive the conversation.

Personally, I can accept either paradigm as a legitimate way to debate. Either the person with the better facts and analysis wins, or the person who follows the established "rules" the best wins. What I can't abide by are those people who mix the two and create a Third Way: namely, argue the facts when they have the facts, and when their position doesn't hold up, switch to arguing the rules (usually ones they themselves create) instead of the facts.

The best example I've seen of this lately is a new DNC ad about President Obama's Czars. Released on the same day that Robert Gibbs maintained, with a straight face, that there are no Czars in the Obama administration, just "advisors" — contrary to his, the President's, and other Administration officials' repeated use of the term — it shows Glenn Beck railing against the Obama Administration's Czars by showing pictures of the Bush Administration's Czars.

This is a classic example of the Third Way I described above. When the charge is raised that the Obama Administration is circumventing the Constitution by creating a panoply of Czars, (a) deny they are Czars . . . just "special advisors" (as if the only issue is what they are called), and (b) say that "Bush had as many, if not more Czars anyway!" In doing this ignore the crux of the issue that is driving the debate. Unlike a "Czar" that oversees Hurricane Katrina operations, or helps to focus national Drug policy, many of Obama's Czars have authority equal to that of Cabinet secretaries. They control budgets in the billions of dollars, and are accountable to no one but the President. Moreover, instead of serving in discrete areas for limited amounts of time throughout a president's term of office, they've been put into virtually permanent positions right from the beginning of the Obama administration.

People can debate whether the Auto Recovery Czar (who is different from the Car Czar) is as powerful as the Climate Czar, who is responsible for developing greenhouse gas policies (which is different from the Energy and Environment Czar, who coordinates energy and environmental regulations policy), and so on, and so on.  But only someone who is dishonest in their analysis would suggest that these folks are essentially doing the same kind of thing — in quantity, and quality — as previous administrations' Czars.

If I take home a ream of paper from the office for my kid to draw pictures on, and Mary Beth in Accounting embezzles a million dollars from the company pension fund, we both technically are thieves. But only someone who is dishonest (or a fool) would argue that both actions are morally equivalent. The Patriot Act was not the same thing as the suspension of Habeas Corpus under Lincoln. Both are serious laws, though in entirely different ways. But if we can't agree that one actually stripped away Constitutional Rights of U.S. citizens while the other didn't actually do that, then there is no debate, just disagreement.

Disagreement is fine; I do it all the time when my wife and I discuss what movies to watch, restaurants to frequent, and other similar husband-wife exchanges. But what I don't do is equate eating Italian instead of Mexican with not eating at all, or forced starvation. Hyperbolic excesses of the type we've been treated to by both sides of the political aisle serve no purpose in a search for the Truth. They simply allow you to make a point on Monday that you don't necessarily need to support again on Tuesday, if you have another end in mind that you wish to reach. The ultimate upshot of all of this is to shred whatever credibility that person may have, as in the Patriot Act under Bush deliberately strips away our Constitutional protections, but the same Act continued under Obama is, well, probably not the best way to fight terrorism and at some point ought to modified.

The problem with everything I've said so far is that it's likely to fall on deaf ears for those who routinely, and egregiously, practice the Third Way. They have either deluded themselves into thinking that surface similarities are fundamental properties (Bush had Czars, Obama has Czars, it's all the same); or, they don't really care what the truth of the matter is, they just want to press their point-de-jour.    

The Tea Baggers, as they have been endearingly labeled, are charged with the latter in pressing the "Death Panel" issue. Their critics maintain that the massive legislation (or should I say, massive legislations, since there is no there there yet) don't mention this phrase, so it doesn't exist. The problem with this argument is that the word "privacy" does not appear in the Constitution, but the Left has no problem seeing it anyway, and making laws based upon it.

My take is somewhat less complicated. I'm old, but not stupid. If it's charged that a proposed piece of legislation will, say, allow illegal aliens to be covered the same way U.S. citizens are covered, I first look for that language in the bill. When I find that precisely the opposite exists — that illegals are expressly excluded —I'm heartened.  Heartened, but not satisfied, if other language exists that forbids anyone from checking on the legal status of an individual receiving these services. 

Like I said, I'm old, not stupid. A non-enforceable restriction is not a real restriction. My spidey-sense is further heightened when several amendments aimed at clarifying this issue are defeated (whether it's illegals, abortion, end of life care, etc.).  Assurances that the provision does/doesn't really exist mean little when attempts to clarify the matter are expressly rejected.  

This is how an issue is actually analyzed, and honestly debated. But it isn't what you see taking place in Washington or the mainstream media.  That's simply noise disguised as a reasoned approach to the issue. It's just a convenient way to cover up the Truth to pursue a hidden agenda, rather than lay the facts of the matter clearly on the table and reach a principled conclusion.

The sad fact is that, no matter how hard we strive, all of us will have a bit of the Third Way in our analysis. Preconceived notions about politics, a specific issue, or life in general will necessarily color our judgment. That's part of what it means to be a human being.

But acknowledging this doesn't mean we surrender any sense of honesty in debate just to bloviate about our favorite position. You don't argue about the existence of God by constantly referring to what particular religions say about God. The two issues are related, but not the same. You don't condemn a policy on Monday because it suits your need that day, only to support it on Tuesday because it suits your need that day. You don't abandon common sense because of a hyper-technical definition you've assigned to a matter, as if calling something "X" makes it "X."

Each of the examples above requires us to honestly lay out our fundamental preconceptions and assumptions in a clear, forthright manner. That's the missing piece.  People who refuse to address the fundamental issues associated with their position will never engage in honest debate. Doing this won't automatically produce agreement, but it will produce clarity. One might "honestly" believe that the fundamental issue about Czars isn't their authority and longevity under Obama vs. Bush, but rather the fact that both Bush and Obama had "Czars."

If so, let the stupidity of that position be on full parade.If the purpose of debate is to seek answers instead of bloviate, then the debate has served a genuine purpose by illustrating the utter vacuity of that line of thought.

If a line of reasoning doesn't pass the smell test, it deserves to be rejected. You get to this point by forcing each side to address, honestly and forthrightly, the underlying assumptions behind their positions. That's where the real debate should be taking place today, not on the surface features of a proposed policy. 

Understand what really motivates another person to hold their position, and you know everything you need to know to form a judgment.