Weekly Gas

Now that control of the Senate has been retained by the Democrats (albeit barely), some post-mortem notes on the 2022 mid-term elections. 1. Even if the GOP takes the House — which it probably will although at this point it may be by as little as a seat or two — this was a shockingly poor showing by the Republicans generally. I was mildly depressed through the run-up to Election Day because I…

I was a high school and college debater.  Lincoln-Douglas, parli, humorous interpretation, extemp.  I was on one of the top teams in the country.  (I was not one of the top debaters personally, I was just okay, but just-okay at a high level.  If you get me.)  I’ve got trophies in being an “um, actually” dude.

And this is why I don’t believe in the power of debate for settling serious issues.  Because teams alternate positions over the course of a tournament, but teams with better preparation and training tend to win no matter which position they take.  The whole sport wouldn’t work if the morally right side of an issue was always the one with the strongest arguments.

(In fact, being personally invested in the rightness of your argument is sometimes a detriment, because you can get flustered and emotional while the other guy is projecting nothing but calm confidence.)

I learned to speak passionately about why the US needs to retain nuclear supremacy for world peace, and also to speak passionately about why the US needs to lead the world in nuclear disarmament.  I can’t say “I can convince you of both,” because your own preconceptions are such a huge factor, but if you agree to be an impartial judge, I can absolutely convince you of both.  The “but in the end the truth wins out” factor is so much smaller than you’d like to think.

 This isn’t to say you shouldn’t ever engage in debate.  If you think you can win, go in and kick some ass.  It’s a valid way to present and defend your beliefs.  But don’t trust debate as a truth-finding process.  Don’t leave human welfare up to “whoever wins the debate.”  Don’t get sucked into believing debate is somehow a morally superior tactic to deplatforming or protest.  There’s so much style and technique involved in debate, it’s little better than saying “we’ll agree the truth is on the side of whoever wins this arm-wrestling match.”

Look. People might not like what I’m about to say. Political takes are black and white these days and I still believe in nuance. I don’t think drastic intervention is the right answer. My penis may be stuck in a colander due to an unfortunate pasta-draining accident, but I’m also a centrist. We exist.

Do I want to not have my penis stuck in a colander? Sure. Do I believe in taking the right steps towards not having the colander around my penis? Of course I do. But I don’t think removing my penis would solve any problems. Maybe the colander would be off of my penis, but it would be somewhere else. Maybe the pasta water would stain a priceless signed Larry Bird basketball jersey. Maybe it would fall on the floor and a bunch of kids would slip on it and fall into a fast-moving river. That’s why the only safe thing to do is to keep it just as it is, stuck on my penis.

I like to see both sides of every story. I feel like my penis is stuck in the colander, but maybe the colander feels like my penis is stuck in it. Look. I am a simple person and I only believe in a few things. I want to solve the penis-colander thing rationally. I like when my politicians compromise. I don’t like murders but love guns. Climate change can be fixed by giving the rich air conditioners. People of Color are allowed to go to Disneyland. Women with short hair should – and let me shout this for the people in the back – also get to go to the doctor. Replace all icecaps with Amazon storefront bookstores. All I want is moderateness, in all facets of society, but especially the with the whole thing where my penis is one of the tiny little holes that you’re supposed to use to drain the water from a nice freshly al dente boiled pot of ravioli.

I’m never going to get my penis out of the colander by unilaterally taking it out. I am only going to get the penis out through compromise, by which the colander will free itself out from around my penis. I believe that reaching across the aisle is the only way to go forward with what I am now referring to as the “colander problem.” Arguing is never going to allow me to be able to wear a pair of pants in time to attend my niece’s christening. It just won’t.

We must work together to find a common ground. I mustn’t villainize the colander. This is how colanders get radicalized. It’s easy to blame the whole situation on the colander, but what about my penis, which I was trying to place gently in the colander so I could pretend that it was wearing a big metal hat like they wear in the army? Calling the colander “the thing my penis is stuck in” is too reductive. Colanders are people too. The only difference between me and the colander is that I am the person that has my penis in the colander. Other than that, we are exactly the same.

I’m always skeptical of any purported “science” about colanders, or penises. I like to keep a cool, rational head, even when my penis is stuck in a colander and I have a big job interview coming up this week and I’m going to have to wear clown pants from a circus costume because they’re the only pants big enough to put the colander in. But even I know that there’s a lot of false information out there about when penises get stuck in colanders. What’s next, if you try to tell people how to take their penis out of a colander? Take out their teeth from their mouth? You put a tax on petting dogs? Ban on teeth? It’s a slippery slope, much like the literal slope I have just slipped down because I was so front-heavy with the colander that is stuck on my penis. Now my penis is stuck in a colander and some mud.

I am certainly not promoting compromise on social issues about the colander. It absolutely pains me to see colanders getting stuck on the penises of LGBTQ+, for example. But, semi-related, I just wish they could call it a different thing. Maybe for gay people, it’s not called “penis stuck in a colander.” It’s called something like “the beef-dilemma.” Just something to differentiate it from when straight people get their penises stuck in a colander. “Penis stuck in a colander” to me is a very traditional method by which a man gets his straight penis stuck in a straight colander. I’m a traditionalist. No – I’m a centrist.