Neville ChaimBerlin,
“By interesting, you mean conversations where both sides end up feeling deep-seated anger, but cover it up in the name of civility as is the custom in the phony world of intellectualism.”
Not every conversation is a debate. And the goal isn’t always to “win.”
“The way you’re looking at this would mean everyone taking a vow of silence for all eternity.”
You don’t seem to be finding me very silent 🙂
“This idea that you can word arguments in this magical, intellectual way that won’t offend anyone and will be healthy for for the world is a total myth that only exists in the upper tier of American society.”
There is way more to human interaction than the extremes of argument and silence. Not every conversation is persuasion-based, and even when attempting to persuade someone, argumentation is not necessarily needed or desirable.
“Most of us (deplorable rednecks who still know how to apply common sense) have gravitated towards the results-based approach like that of Trump (or Ocasio-Cortez on the inverse)”
My Southern bonafides may well exceed yours.
“and away from the pointless approach of Jeb Bush types that seems to be rooted in getting 90-year-olds to think, “hmm, he talks nice… What a nice young man he is…”
Jeb Bush got two terms as Florida governor, and his brother two terms as President. Not shabby for a pointless approach.
“You had to risk offending me just now by responding to my last comment, right? I could have gotten really upset at you for disagreeing and accusing me of a aveira, right? Does that mean you did an issur? No. There is not document or scripture that guarantees a human right to “not be offended.” That would cripple mankind.”
That’s a cop-out that would render the entire concept of onas devarim meaningless. We are not responsible for each and every feeling that someone may theoretically have in response to any statement, but it is forbidden by the Torah to say something intentionally designed or reasonably certain to hurt the feelings of another Jew.