>Fascists don't give a shit that you think you owned them in a debate.
The fascist may not, but what about the audience?
> Even if there were some objective standard by which you can say you have bested someone with reason in an argument, does it matter when power can simply ignore it?
In order to gain power, you have to persuade people to follow you. Brute force is a hilariously inefficient way of doing that. Heck, even the ancient Athenians (i.e. Pericles, Demosthenes, etc) realized that it was far easier to persuade people with words than with fists.
>Liberals mocked Hitler constantly until the day he seized power.
And how did Hitler seize and consolidate his power? It certainly wasn't with brute force. It was with rhetoric. Even without understanding a single word of German, I can feel the force of Hitler's personality when I see footage of the Nuremberg rallies.
The fascist may not, but what about the audience?
> Even if there were some objective standard by which you can say you have bested someone with reason in an argument, does it matter when power can simply ignore it?
In order to gain power, you have to persuade people to follow you. Brute force is a hilariously inefficient way of doing that. Heck, even the ancient Athenians (i.e. Pericles, Demosthenes, etc) realized that it was far easier to persuade people with words than with fists.
>Liberals mocked Hitler constantly until the day he seized power.
And how did Hitler seize and consolidate his power? It certainly wasn't with brute force. It was with rhetoric. Even without understanding a single word of German, I can feel the force of Hitler's personality when I see footage of the Nuremberg rallies.