Well, howdy there internet people, it's Bow again. So today we are going to talk about civil dialogue

because I got two questions in the last week that are very different, but they kind of have the same answer.

One was from somebody else on YouTube,

and it was basically, hey, how do you deal with criticism and engage people who are criticizing

you in civil dialogue when they don't seem to want it?

And the other was from somebody on Twitter.

Is it possible to maintain civil dialogue with a friend, Baptist minister,

who told me I would be judged for my vote for my candidate because my candidate supports choice.

For me, there's kind of a three-step screening process to this.

First, is the person entitled to dialogue?

Stop there first, okay? Forget about the civil part. Are they entitled to dialogue?

Did they come in good faith?

Or are they just there to criticize and stir up drama and get clicks on YouTube or to assert

their moral authority in real life.

Is it dialogue that's owed? If it's just some random person on YouTube you don't know and doesn't impact you,

they're not owed anything.

If it's your friend who happens to be a Baptist minister, well maybe yeah okay. The next part is

are they owed civil dialogue because that's something entirely different.

Not all ideas are owed civil dialogue.

I can sit down and talk about immigration policy,

something that is near and dear to my heart all day

civilly, until one of the arguments becomes this group of people is somehow lesser, well then they're not entitled to civil dialogue anymore.

...