If I agree that Snowden is a Libertarian coward and Greenwald is a cynical porn pushing tax evader..

[sibelian]

42. No, they won't.

They'll hint at the possibility that they'll agree with your positions at some point in time in the future by saying "good faith" sounding things like "I do agree that we need a robust debate" or "I think the issues need to be discussed" or things like that but that's just to keep your attention focussed on them. Then they slowly change the subject and spend your attention on labyrinths of tangentially related material or endless "what if??????" or "WE JUST DON'T KNOW" questions, painting the issue as a series of nebulous interdependent issues too complex to disentangle (this is very important when issues are big and simple, like surveillance) the idea of which being to get you to lose faith after having given it, feel fed up and then give up.

When those tactics don't work they attempt stonewalling or mobbing.

When THOSE tactics don't work they just resort to perpetual assertion and kind of hang in there.

Have a look at what position their responses leave you in if you want to communicate with them "symmetrically" in good faith. If it leaves you in a position that costs mental effort, wastes your time or forces you to present analyses of entirely simple ideas as if they're idiots, you can bet your last cent that your effort expended on doing so is what they need from you, not the content of what you post.

You'll notice that they always keep their word count slightly below that of their opponents. They aren't interested in presenting a position for discussion, but bait for an attention sink. What they want is to present YOU with a problem that you can't solve and get you to give up.