I'd like to see debates that are grounded in fact but which do not rely on sources.
Debates on what is morally right, ethically acceptable, or ought to be legally permitted or restricted -- read: normative debates -- are the ones I'd be most interested in having, as well. The one caveat: all facts must be asserted in good faith (meaning, you can't make stuff up, but honest mistakes aren't penalized), and no sources.
The problem I see with most debates now is over-reliance on block quotes. When a debater is relying on block quotes, they're usually an untalented debater and a poor communicator almost without exception. So, rather than getting to the point they instead want to piece together a franken-case of mismatched and likely internally inconsistent parts of previously dissected writings from who knows where.
Block quotes are like pull-ups, for the "debater" who never made it past the debate-equivilent of toilet training. You're clever enough that you're not wetting yourself every single time you step up to have a debate, but you're not able to go without making a mess every now and then of someone else's ideas. Then, once you go through a case of block quotes, the judge (who is often as scatter-brained and inept as the untalented debater who never made it past the communicative equivalent of toilet training) doesn't know how to weigh arguments because there weren't arguments made... just a bunch of sound and fury.
Rebutting block quotes also takes too much time and character space. For a modestly competent debater to have to parse through the conventional block-quoted franken-case is a waste of time and energy, because the best that the un-toilet trained debater is going to be able to do in the third or fourth round is claim that their opponent "dropped" any one of their internally inconsistent points. So, then having wet himself the unhousebroken debater goes on to win a debate, judged by a fool as inept as he, without even realizing that he's wet himself before he even stood up to speak.
That. Nonsense. Won't. Do.
So, no sources. No block quotes. Just simple language.... by which I mean... something approximating an actual debate, rather than the illusion of a debate pieced together by fools no brighter than dark ships passing in the night.
Here are some potential topics:
1. The president should have to publicly disclose all business interests and publish tax returns.
2. An estate tax on assets taxed in life is morally wrong.
3. Homosexuality is morally acceptable.
4. Spanking as a form of parentally imposed discipline is morally acceptable in at least some circumstances.
5. The state can have no more rights than those of the individual.
6. Individual autonomy should take priority to the collective good.
7. Rousseau's conception of human nature is misguided.
8. Rousseau was a horrible person.
9. The so called "patriarchy" is a delusion of the postmodern left.
10. Gendered pronouns do not discriminate.
11. The progressive left's emphasis on identity politics has resulted in a net detriment to liberalism.
12. The evangelical right's emphasis on identity politics has resulted in a net detriment to conservatism.
13. No just government can criminalize homosexuality, or speech of any kind with regard to homosexuality.
The list is obviously not exclusive, but those would be great topics.
PM me if you are interested.
