Much of our national debate proceeds as if China and America were locked in a zero-sum game in which one's loss is precisely the other's gain.
Throughout the early and mid-1990s, the Clinton administration debated the merits of paying for AIDS testing and counseling of vulnerable populations overseas.
I would never want to take TOMS or myself into an issues debate. That's not what we're about. We're about helping people.
What we have to do... is to find a way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities.
When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating. You disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation.
Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state.
I heard Dennis Kucinich say in a debate, 'When I'm president... and I just wanted to stop him and say, 'Dude.'
The extra curricular activity in which I was most engaged - debating - helped shape my interests in public policy.
Clemens, Seaver, Gibson, Maddux - I just don't see myself in that category. I'm flattered that maybe it's debatable at this point.
A little tough talk in the midst of a campaign or as part of a presidential debate cannot obscure a record of 30 years of being on the wrong side of defense issues.
I think film should raise questions, not give answers. I think film should challenge people to reflect, debate and get by themselves to the answer that fits them.
Media runs the world, and it all changed, I think, when the debate between Kennedy and Nixon happened, and first of all we saw them on television, and that changed everything.
And I'm sure after Facebook it will be the little cameras that we have implanted into the palms of our hands and we'll be debating whether we should get them, and then we'll all get them.
I've never seen a constructive Social Security debate that started with one side digging in, in one place and another side digging into another.
A debate has one purpose, one purpose only, and that is to facilitate the exchange of ideas directly between two candidates, and that's it.
I believe an invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates is similar to a draft notice - a civic responsibility.
Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in 'real' African culture, before it was tainted by the West, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed.
I do think that Social Security reform needs to be bipartisan, and we are going to have to reach that in this debate at some time before we can find really meaningful reform.
I was the candidate first time a Green or any progressive third party has ever been in a national televised debate. I was in five of them. And the response from the public was overwhelming.
So let me be clear, Collective bargaining isn't a right, it is an expensive entitlement. Once and for all, we are giving the taxpayers a voice in this debate. We put the power back in the hands of the people.
I find it unnecessary, useless and frankly a bit unnecessary to get into all sorts of debates over President Obama's religion or the authenticity of his birth. I know for some people that it is an obsession. It is not with me.
