Quotes About Debate

Americans never would alter the way entitlement programs are funded or education administered without serious study and widespread debate.

Immigration is the most difficult issue I've ever dealt with, and I've dealt with some tough issues: drones, gays in the military, WikiLeaks, Guantanamo. But immigration is hardest because there are so few people willing to talk and build consensus. Everybody's firmly made up their mind. It's a polarized issue.

Consider this: alms aside, Wikipedia is fueled by competitive pedantry and emo-ness. How great is that?

The place where we don't agree is on whether there should be some restraint on insurance companies and whether they should be allowed to run wild. We believe there should be some restraint; some on the other side don't think so.

Obama gave temporary amnesty to well over 1 million illegal immigrants, and Romney said nothing.

To wear stays forces you into the elegant, balletic posture of a Georgian minuet-dancer. As with the tight-lacing, there is still great debate about whether stay-wearing, which began in adolescence, actually changed the shape of the skeleton, or was just a cosmetic, temporary, alteration.

It's tempting to engage in anti-gun polemics and hope that popular opinion will dramatically shift, but it is also likely a mistake. The smarter course for those who want stronger federal gun-control laws anytime soon is legislative stewardship and compromise.

It's tempting to dismiss the debate about the National Security Agency spying on Americans as a technical conflict about procedural rights.

Births to illegal immigrants now account for nearly one out of every ten births in the United States.

The Lord gave us Ten Commandments, but the bill before the House today gives us 39.

A rattlesnake loose in the living room tends to end all discussion of animal rights.

You could say that any book that takes a position is not fair, unless you keep saying, 'On the one hand, on the other...' and take a great deal of trouble to present both sides. That kind of journalism tends not to be very interesting.

We listened to Donald Trump speak at the debate about 'Stop and Frisk.' I don't think it's a good way to go through life. I don't think that's going to solve any of our problems. It's actually going to make racial tension a whole lot worse, and it's going to make us feel like we're singled out.

'Negative liberty' is a political science term meaning a liberty from government action. It is not a liberty to anything - like the liberty to meaningfully contribute to public debate or to have ample spaces for speech.

CO2 is not a pollutant in any normal definition of the term.

I can see both sides of term limits, and I think, in different positions, term limits make more sense than in some others.

The question now afloat in the world respecting 'things as they are' is the most interesting that can be presented to the human mind. While one party pleads for reformation and change, the other extols in the warmest terms the existing constitution of society.

Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of 'spirituality' or 'mysticism' to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception. I have argued elsewhere that this is a problem - because millions of people have had experiences for which 'spiritual' and 'mystical' seem the only terms available.

I loved that these two guys argued with each other as if movies actually mattered. Nobody I knew talked about movies that way, but Siskel and Ebert took each movie as it came and talked about whether it was a success on its own terms.

The plight of the terrified Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border to escape violence and poverty in their homelands has launched a passionate and often bitter debate in Washington.

Nothing compares to being in a room full of politicians screaming abuse at each other all night. It's hilarious but also a bit terrifying.

I think that we have strayed into very dangerous territory where people are not allowed to express a negative opinion.

I have been defending Israel's right to exist, and to defend itself against terrorism, for many years-on college campuses, in television appearances and in debate.

I think the debate in our society now is that people have to agree on zero-tolerance to terrorism.