Listening to the Republicans talking trash at the last debate made me wonder why countries do things to get a result that is a action they wouldn’t do. Wow, is that clumsy-ly said, what I mean is almost everybody wants to bomb ISIS in an effort to beat them and it’s not just the Republican either. Obama is bombing ISIS on the theory that it will, atleast, degrade them and Hillary wants more bombing. Why do they – we – think that bombing ISIS will get them to do anything except dig in? Is there anybody who thinks we would quit our attacks on ISIS if they blew up another World Trade Center? I doubt it, most Americans think it would make us more resolute. So why don’t we think the same thing will happen with ISIS?

A disclaimer here, I didn’t see the entire Republican debate and part of what I didn’t see is the Trump quote I am going to reference. I saw it, out of context on a MSNBC program. When asked about what he would do in Syria – or maybe the Middle East in general – Trump shook his head and said that it was a mess, saying something like “We shouldn’t have ever gone into Iraq and we shouldn’t there now. It’s just a mess. We’ve spent hundreds of millions that could have been used on infrastructure and schools.” That’s a much more sensible statement than anything I’ve heard out of Hillary.

And that brings up the second question, why are people, not just Republicans but Democrats and Liberals, so attached to ad hominem criticism. Why do we criticize an idea with the argument that it is bad because Trump, for instance, said it, rather than discussing the idea itself. People on the left, friends, columnists, anybody on the left sending a political email, are disdainful of something that Trump said, not because of the idea, the idea is never really considered, Trump said it, so it must be ridicules and bad. A big part of our collective won’t even listen to Berni’s ideas. He is a socialist, or a cranky old man, or not going to win anyway, so don’t listen to what he has to say.

If we don’t listen to their ideas, how do we know ours are better?