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Comment on Why don't politicians during a hearing let the person they are questioning actually answer questions and speak?

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DarkMayhemXIII@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

should have simple, factual answers but the other party refuses and instead uses a lot of words to dance around giving a direct answer.

Yes, but some questions aren’t simple “yes or no” questions. For example, one Republican asked, “Do you support it being legal to abort an unborn child up to the moment of birth?” That’s not really a yes-or-no question, and I think it’s a poorly framed one.

Even where abortion is legal, there are generally legal limits, often somewhere between 4 and 24 weeks, depending on the jurisdiction. If a woman chooses to continue the pregnancy, she’s not going to reach her due date and suddenly decide, for absolutely no reason, “I’m going to have an abortion.” If she decided she didn’t want to raise the baby, she would give birth and place the child for adoption. The only situations where an abortion that late in a pregnancy occurs are severe medical emergencies, where doctors are trying to save the mother’s life or address a catastrophic pregnancy complication.

So, that question is, in my opinion, misleading and doesn’t have a simple “yes or no” answer. If you watch the hearing, the witness starts to answer the question, and then the politician interrupts them. How can you know what their answer was if they aren’t allowed to finish?

The mature thing to do in a conversation is to let someone answer the question. If they dance around the answer, then say, “Okay, I hear you, but you didn’t actually answer my question, so let me ask it again.” But if I start to answer and only get half a word out before you interrupt me, that’s not how you have a conversation. They don’t even have time to dodge the question.

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SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They also have a limited amount of time to make their point, so some of them choose to do it in rude and cruel ways… mostly Republicans.

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- bluGill@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  If you think it is mostly republicans then you are not honest in your evaluation of who is doing what why. Confront your bias.
  
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  - theparadox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    “No Republicans are acting in good faith” doesn’t mean “only Republicans aren’t acting in good faith”.
    
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    bluGill@fedia.io ⁨58⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Fair enough, but the other comments reveal many people who think the democrats do act in good faith the majority of the time. That is also implied by the accusation of republicans, instead of politicians.
    
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  - SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m not exactly a Democrat cheerleader, but I’ve seen way more reasonable questions from Democrats in the House and Senate and shutting down unreasonable answers from Republicans and corporations. If they’re not letting Republicans answer, it’s because the answers are clearly not in good faith.
    
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  - Rhaedas@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It's all Republicans, and some Democrats. Oh, and some Republicans that call themselves and even ran as Democrats. Which should be illegal and prosecutable as election fraud.
    
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Steve@communick.news ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
You seem to think these are interviews or conversations intended to foster understanding. They aren’t.

“Do you support it being legal to abort an unborn child up to the moment of birth?” That’s not really a yes-or-no question

You’re right, it’s not. It’s a trick question. The senator wants a “yes” or “no” that can be used in a good clip or sound byte. Any more complicated answer is useless to them. Since they aren’t interested in a real informative answer they just steamroll on to the next potently clip-able question, because they only have a couple min for their turn to ask questions.

On the other side, sometimes it’s the one answering who’s being disingenuous. They can give a long rambling response meant to run out the clock, rather than honestly answer. In that case the senator asking questions might want to move on because they recognize a non-answer, and again only have a couple min for their questions.

The primary problem in both cases is the time limit of the questioning. It’s the very reason most of these senate testimony hearings are such a farce. A real hearing can take days or weeks to interview a single person. But that’s too much to ask of congress apparently.

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