An Actual Debate in Rhode Island; Two Sides and Everything
Ever go to some event in Rhode Island that was supposed to provide a balanced discussion between people of differing views? When I have, more often than not, it has seemed that the points I would have thought were obvious failed to be articulated. “Balanced” tends to be a lot like the “balance” in Rhode Island’s legislature — far left to center left (maybe hard center, on a good day).
This Saturday, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity will be presenting actual balance — meaning people who actually disagree on fundamental questions — with its first UnleashRI Debate at the University of Rhode Island:
- STEVE MOORE (Heritage Foundation, FOX News) vs. TOM SGOUROS (RI Policy Analyst)
- RICH BENJAMIN (Demos, MSNBC) vs. DON WATKINS (Ayn Rand Institute)
You can register here. It’d be great for this event to be a success for multiple reasons. The largest is simply that these big questions actually do matter, and the answers cannot simply be assumed by people who happened to win office amidst an apathetic electorate.
My favorite reason to want a big turnout is that the progressives in Rhode Island to whom we initially reached out, in order to ensure that the representation of their side actually was fair and compelling, actively worked to prevent the debate from happening. It’d be nice if the opposite of that behavior were actually rewarded in the Ocean State.