“Speak­ing of lies: I’ve com­pletely lost count of how many lies Romney/​Ryan have told now, it’s as nat­ural as breath­ing to them. How on earth are the polls fairly close to tied, with a team like that?”

If it weren’t for believing lies by a significant portion of the population, few men would ever get laid!

I think Biden won the debate. By a fair distance. However, I don’t actually think Ryan did that badly. But then, in the previous debate, I thought Obama did fine and that Romney might be hit in the press the next day for a string of lies, so what do I know.…

Speaking of lies: I’ve completely lost count of how many lies Romney/Ryan have told now, it’s as natural as breathing to them. How on earth are the polls fairly close to tied, with a team like that?! I can’t imagine a political leader in the UK being appointed to dogcatcher with such a record.

I would expect Biden’s forcefulness and spirit to offend the right — and it did. He had passion on his side as well as fact and logic and humor and history. Particularly in the area of foreign affairs, I almost felt sorry for how far Ryan was out of his depth — except that Ryan is trying to become the Vice President of the United States. That makes me feel offended that a major party would nominate someone so clearly unqualified for the position, and do it twice in a row.

So I wonder what sort of pair they’ll nominate in 2016 to continue the trend — maybe a Santorum/Pawlenty ticket?

Right up to #158. Then with #159, BLAM!

Self fulfilling prophesy.

I understand your point.

While it is true that topic drift is a way of life in an online discussion (and there is no way to avoid it), that differs from intentional deflection. No one’s perfect, and if I ever engage in deflection, I don’t mind having that pointed out. I also don’t mind someone reiterating a point they wanted to make, but which got lost in a given shuffle. So let me encourage you to stress whatever points you make that seem to go unanswered.

As for context — yes, it matters, and when a quote is intentionally removed from context in order to make it appear to say something other than what it says, honesty requires looking at the whole. If you see a comment (from, for instance, Scott Brown, or anyone else) that someone quotes in a way that warps the meaning, I encourage you to do what you can to correct the false presentation.

In the current conversation, for instance, you are stressing the need to take the statements and arguments of each of us in the larger context of what it does to our online interactions and conversations. That’s a legitimate and important point to make, and I acknowledge that you are correct in making it. Similarly, the comments of any public figure should also be taken in the full context they were intended — which is why when someone is misquoted, then if I’m aware of the larger meaning, I tend to make a point out of it similar to the point you are making now.

Obama wasn’t pre­pared for the con­tin­gency that Mit­tles would fire­hose bull­shit

I’ve noticed this is similar to rgbact’s technique. When a conversation has reached the point where Republican dishonesty or hypocrisy has been revealed in all its indefensible mendacity, rg tends to product a firehose series of half-true (or less) deflections unrelated to the actual topic. An excellent example of Gish Gallop.