How to Lose a Debate in 45 Minutes: Paul Elam fumbles his debate with Matt Binder
So, that happened.
The debate between Matt Binder (from the Majority Report) and Paul Elam (from A Pile of Money for Paul Elam) went off yesterday. I can’t say it went off without a hitch, because it was actually quite hitch-full. Indeed, it was kind of a disaster — at least for one Paul Elam.
Paul’s the one who wanted the debate. He chose the topic, he chose the format, he controlled the venue. And he lost the debate rather spectacularly, grimly reading a succession of prepared statements while Binder shot down his arguments with common-sensical one-lines and raised issues that Elam didn’t or couldn’t address.
Binder rattled Elam early by presenting him with an unattributed quote that sounded virtually identical to Elliot Rodger’s misogynistic rants and which Elam dismissed as something that no MRA would ever say; Binder then revealed that it was a quote from Stefan Molyneux, the MRA “philosopher” who was one of the featured speakers at AVFM’s recent conference. (Indeed, it was a quote that I highlighted in my first Misogyny Theater videos on Mr. M.)
Then, after Elam read off a list of all the various women who have associated themselves in some way with AVFM, Binder knocked the wind out of him by asking, quite simply, so what?
The most surreal moment, in a debate full of surreal moments, came 39 minutes into the debate. Binder had spent much of his previous two segments discussing an assortment of issues that the Men’s Rights movement largely ignores, even though they primarily affect men, and men of color in particular — from stop and frisk policies in major cities to the deaths of American soldiers in wars overseas.
But instead of answering Binder’s question –why hasn’t the Men’s Rights movement actually tried to do something about these problems? — Elam instead read his prepared “closing statement,” responding not to anything Binder had argued but to the arguments Elam, writing the statement before the debate, had assumed he would make.
And so, after hearing Binder passionately argue that the MRM needs to fight for the rights of men in prison and for the lives of men sent to fight and possibly die in wars, we heard Elam beating away on a straw man, declaring — after calling him a bigot — that Binder
has been led to believe, quite falsely, that gender justice mandates the summary rejection of all men’s problems in favor of a view that can only see men as the problem.
The debate, such as it was, lurched to its conclusion in an assortment of miscues and technical glitches a few minutes later. Dean Esmay, the incompetent and often ineffectual “moderator” of the debate, rocking back and forth on his chair in a darkened room, eyes mostly closed, plaintively asked Binder to send him “that particular story” on stop and frisk in New York city that Binder had referred to earlier in the debate. Esmay, defensive and exasperated, explained that
we are an all-volunteer organization and we don’t see every story. I’d like to see that story from Matt, please do send it to me.
Binder, incredulous, pointed out that stop and frisk has been in the headlines for years, as Esmay, visible in a small box at the bottom of the screen, rubbed his head as though he were developing a migraine. Esmay repeated his request, saying that
we cover a lot of stories; I’m just asking for you to send me that.
There were then a few uncomfortable moments as Esmay and Elam tried to figure out how to close down the Google Hangout that was hosting the debate.
Esmay: “Are we off?”
Binder: “Still says ‘live’ for me.”
Esmay: “Paul?”
Elam: “Yeah, I’m still having problem with the button.”
Esmay laughs.
Elam: “Isn’t that wonderful?”
Long silence. Esmay rocks back and forth on his chair.
Esmay: “Just close the window.”
A few moments later, he did.
I think we may need to have another AVFM graphics contest, incorporating what I think should be AVFM’s new slogans:
“I’m still having problem with the button.”
“We are an all-volunteer organization and we don’t see every story.”
A Voice for Men is clearly not ready for its closeup.
Posted on July 11, 2014, in a voice for men, misogyny, MRA, paul elam, straw feminists and tagged a voice for men, anti-feminism, antifeminism, men's rights, misogyny, MRA. Bookmark the permalink. 649 Comments.
Or its wide-shot. Or its audio-only recording. Or its transcript. Or its cave-wall paintings.
Bahahahaha!!! Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.
I thought MB would be terrible, but he turned out to be pretty good. Elam was ridiculous even by Elam standards, which is saying a lot.
Elam: “How come feminazis get all teh fundings and coverage and monies and attenshuns?”
Matt: “What are you doing about the issues that affect men?”
Elam: “I am unprepared for your off-the-cuff accusations and misandry! Gynocracy! Gynocracy! *pulls church bells*”
Thanks to Dave for the recap and to all who commented during and after the proceedings. I’ve only skimmed the video myself–had other things on my plate, for one thing, but mostly it was just *so* difficult to watch for reasons clearly laid out above. The disconnect and lack of actual communication and give-and-take…wow. I’d have expected more ire and vitriol, but that would have required considerably more in-the-moment engagement on the part of the first part.
*party of the first part.
I have to say, I never watch MRA videos, but this one was worth it. Binder was pretty good — not perfect, by any means, just pretty good. And he annihilated Elam.
At this point, I think my cats could probably debate Elam into a corner.
Dean Esmay totally missed Interviewing 101: KNOW THE NAME OF YOUR INTERVIEWEE
Oh my god this was even a bigger trainwreck than I was expecting. I was expecting Elam to make an idiot of himself, just not to this extent. God bless.
“Esmay: ‘Are we off?’
Binder: ‘Still says ‘live’ for me.’
Esmay: ‘Paul?’
Elam: ‘Yeah, I’m still having problem with the button.’
Esmay laughs.
Elam: ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’
Long silence. Esmay rocks back and forth on his chair.
Esmay: ‘Just close the window.’”
These are the same guys who are always making fun of women* for not being at the forefront of technology. Can you imagine the fullness of their tergiversations** if something similar or comparable had happened at a site like this one and if they’d been alert enough to notice? Endless wallpaper would have ensued, wallpaper scrawled over with scribblings about how dudes are fearless astronauts hobbled by women from the cave days and about how women don’t properly contribute to civilization and about how female materialism holds male transcendency at bay.*** (And after that the real silliness would start.)
*as best they can, which is not very well
**if you read enough of their stuff you start to sound like them; sorry
***but only if they didn’t get sidetracked by a passing marmot and forget to go after the wonted mammoth
Just loading the AVFM page on my phone, the front page stories break down like this:
Promotion/Fundraising: 3 articles
Men’s Issues: 9 articles
Attacking Feminists/Critics: 18 articles
“We don’t see every story, but when we do see stories, most of them aren’t actually about Men’s Issues.”
@bekabot
Techincal tests previous to going live are MISANDRY!!!!
The thing that really struck me was the fact that Esmay was wearing a shirt with visible stains. If they’re trying to be taken as a serious, professional movement, shouldn’t the second in command at least wear a clean shirt for public appearances?
Luzbeltix, I suspect he did that on purpose. Either as a gotcha revenge for Binder mispronouncing people’s names, or as a subtle way to put Binder in his place.
“We are an all-volunteer organization and we don’t see every story.”
I’m pretty sure taking people’s donation money to pay yourself doesn’t actually count as volunteering.
@Sarah
I hadn’t thought about it, but it makes sense as well. On the other hand, Esmay did seem a bit apologetic for mispronouncing it.
Oh, the inscrutable mysteries of A Pile of Money for Paul Elam!
I’m wondering how apmfpe (a Pile of Money for Paul Elam – I love it!) will try to skew this into a win for themselves. You know they’ll try, and many of their followers will sadly probably believe them
I’ll guess that AVfM will say Binder played “out of context” gotcha, with the quotation. that he “quote-mined, and misrepresented” Bash -a-b!t@# Month”, and, “failed to actually address any of the points Paul raised”, as such he lost terribly.
And something which has been all over the news, and was a pivotal issue in the New York Mayoral campaign… not important, because it only affects some men in one part of the country (and they are either thugs, or manginae).
I loved Binder’s ‘so what’ to all the women listed as supporting them. It’s such a regular argument…..no, I’m going to say ‘argument’ to any women’s rights issue, ‘but MY (always ‘my’), wife, girlfriend, female pet tarantula, doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with….. (insert example of out and out sexism).
What amuses me is that some of the commentariat at A Vund fur elaM, actually predicted what Binder would do, and Elam wasn’t prepared.
At the same time, they also said in advance that Elam couldn’t lose (which,I will note we didn’t say. We said we were afraid Binder wouldn’t do his homework, and so be buried with specious stats, and credulous claims).
*unless it is a news story covering #ICMI24$$!, in which case we see evey story and proceed to launch specific attack articles and doxxing campaigns based on those stories.
Watermelon Sugar: But those are IMPORTANT! If AVfM is made to look bad, the entirety of The Most Important Human Rights Movement of the Twenty-first Century could be derailed!!!!!
That’s a lot more important than stifling the civil rights of some PoC in New York City!
From the PE standpoint he can never, ever lose because he can always just scream, “Misandry!” or “Matriarchy!” even in the face of facts (such as that men still hold the majority of influential government positions). Is there really any point in debating someone whose response to everything is that he is the only one who sees “the truth?”
After filtering through a little over a year and a half of this blog and related links, sites, materials, etc, I can only come to the conclusion that it’s a fool’s errand to engage with people who willfully ignore the world as it is in favor of nursing some perceived injustice to themselves.
That said, I stay for the mocking and kitties. :)
“The thing that really struck me was the fact that Esmay was wearing a shirt with visible stains.”
Yep. That, Elam’s decorating (either his website is no indication of his design skills, or the woman who somehow tolerates him did that decor), and Binder’s apparent dorm room (or maybe not, looked like one, and I kept expecting a cat to wander in). “I can’t be arsed to put on a clean shirt”, “my decorating makes me look way more put together than I am”, and “yeah, I’m a college student, but I have a cool mic”…appearance alone I guess could go to Elam, if you were somehow viewing the video on AVfM and didn’t notice that there’s no way that the person who signed off on that website’s design did the table behind Elam’s desk.
Honestly, I was more distracted by wondering how his GF had talked him into letting her decorate than I was interested in Elam’s monologuing. Cuz sure, some men can handle design just fine, but none of them are MRAs.
Binder was in the studio for the podcast. It looks like a lot of radio-stations I’ve been in, esp. those which are also filmed. It’s, “edgey” or something.
Elam has had that background for as long as I can remember.
Not even a joke, but is esmay ok? Like seriously? He looked pained all the way through and at the end how he desperately sucked at his e-cig(?) Or was it faux-weariness at the terribleness of feminists?
Maybe he was sat in the dark because he heard our mocking of his absurd curtains from that other thread. I want to laugh but he just doesn’t look happy or well…
Also clearly elam just wrote a blog post in retaliation to Binder then got in a pickle when he accepted the mighty debate challenge so just used his pre-prepared post but in debate format. Thoroughly embarrassing.
@pecunium–
OH DUH, how silly of me. Journalists directly quoting speakers from the Conference to End All Conferences hosted by The Smartest, Most Activist-est Man Alive and questioning the validity of those quotes is dangerous. Silly me!
I am also trying desperately not to make a sexual joke out of Elam having trouble with the button.
@daintydougal
I, too, wondered about Esmay’s health.
Pecunium — that would at least explain the lack of cat! As for Elam, that’s almost weirder, I can almost see him going “yeah whatever dear”, but the idea that he either approves of design that doesn’t suck, tolerates it enough not to clutter it (that room is infinitely cleaner than I’d expect), or, fuck, may actually have put that together himself?! Now my head hurts!
You notice his bookshelf? (Of course you did, what am I saying?) It’s like that whole room is a prop. (Versus Binder’s, which was a prop, but looks like a lived in dorm room.)
Daintydougal — while I was questioning that myself, his reaction to Binder attempting to explain about stop & frisk makes me think he was just massively annoyed.
And my mother just bailed on watching it, she says she’ll do so after dinner. She’s going to kill me once she’s actually watching it!
I wish I could volunteer for $80,000 a year.
@Sarah
YES. He could have made it even better with his extra long tie.
As usual, Paul Elam (or should that be E-lamb) sounded like a Brezhnev-era apparatchik giving the party line. Dean ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ Esmey should give up with the sun-bed, or at least get his blood pressure checked. He must be learning the Quran too, that is what the rocking backwards and forwards was all about.
E-lamb was destroyed when he failed to tell the difference between the quotes of a nut case and Stefan Molyneux – in fact, both quotes are from utter nut-cases. Binder should have ended the so called debate right there, everything after was superfluous with Elam resorting to the ‘you are a fascist’ rhetoric when he himself is a practising fascist. Pot calling kettle black eh?
E-lamb thanked his supporters by a) not bothering to memorise his lines and b) his hands shaking uncontrollably whilst holding his notes. That’s what $84k gets you, a poor value for money excuse for a leader.
A half-decent Billy Connolly lookalike Elam is, but that’s about it.
Binder did correctly point out how most MRAs don’t want to know about the real issues facing men, and also how they shy away from any good news. I experienced such things whilst running MGTOW Forums, when there was something good to report no-one commented, no-one wanted to know. Most of them thrived on hate, an unhealthy interest in rape articles and lived for the feud.
Binder should have asked Elam: “what will you do when Feminism is banned?”. Answer would probably have been: “seeing as I’m useless, have no skills, no pension and can only function as a shit-stirrer, I will probably become one of the many drunks one notices sleeping rough in a major City”.
All the best,
Nacho Vidal
P.S. MGTOW Forums will be returning in the near future.
God that justification for laughing at the guy’s son potentially being raped is horrible. It makes no sense.
Seriously? He never heard of “stop and frisk”? I live out in the boonies and I’ve heard of stop and frisk. It’s not just “a” story — it’s a longstanding, ongoing issue that dates back to the Guiliani administration for crying out loud!
Way to be — what — 12 years behind!
Oh dear, Dean’s shirt.
Maybe his long tie from earlier was covering up a stain.
Doing laundry is misandry!
Clarence Darrow made stained shirts work but Dean Esmay is no Clarence Darrow.
@Sarah
I guess this red pill tee was cleaner than his beloved FTSU one.
Loved the decor in Esmay’s man-cave: Early Blair Witch Project.
He looks like a kidnapping victim in a ransom video.
Whoops, I just realized you were discussing Esmay’s shirt. I do think the decision to wear a red pill tee shirt is worse than having shirt stains. Does AVfM sell red pill memorabilia or is that just a shout out to his TeRPer brethren? A good look either way Paul.
Paul fucking Elam saying “but if we don’t get past this, this base juvenile demonisation of people for not falling in our camp… [solutions can't be found to things like rape and IPV].”
LOL
And then in the closing arguments, he sneers at Matt’s youth. Stay classy Paul.
The problem here is that Elam and his pals are living in their own reality. They only see what they want to see and only hear what they want to hear, and everything they see and hear is ‘proof’ that they’re either right, or they’re being persecuted. When someone punctures the bubble for a moment, they can’t cope.
It’s next to impossible to have rational conversations with people caught up in cult-like thinking. That’s why relatives go to extremes like kidnapping loved ones and putting them through brutal deprogramming.
MRAs don’t know what to do with themselves without the flame throwing, misogynistic one-liners designed for a laugh. Elam & Company are out of their league. Between the pathetic conference and this, it’s pretty obvious they don’t know how to do much.
Can you just imagine the name-calling if Binder had been a woman showing him up so badly?
Mean-spirited, misogynistic loudmouth ==/== intelligent, knows-the-facts debater.
May gods bless you, Matt Binder.
@bodycrimes
I couldn’t agree more. I think what people were seeing in terms of Esmay’s health is anxiety. Like you mentioned, when a little reality sinks in, people like them usually can’t deal.
Zero results on AVFM for “Stop and Frisk” *about* Stop and Frisk btw.
Judgeybitch has her post about the debate titled “watch paul elam school some little punk who didn’t like the men’s conference” LOL. (i think it was posted before the debate but still hilarious)
Oh, The Judgy One. I have a stony, hardened place in my heart for her. I love that she was offered up for debate by Paul. I hate to say it, but I think she would have done a much better job, even if every other word was “whore” or “slut.”
Is it bad that I miss her trolling here? I would love to ask her about her Conference to End All Conference’s closing statement about how doxxing is super legit.
Seeing how Elam spun a poorly attended/organised conference into ‘the most successful event in history EVER’ to his readers,I’m curious to see how he will deal with this over the next few days.
I really can’t see how he can make himself look good here,even to the suckers who lap up his every word without question. I’m going to enjoy watching him try though.
a ‘suggested by paul elam’ ad popped up on my screen when hit play-i almost pissed myself laughing…
My mother finds Elam creepy and wants to know what’s up with Binder’s hair and why Esmay is rocking himself to sleep. I had to pause periodically for background, hinge like Molyneux’s potential socking, all of which made her eyes go a’rolling. She even agreed with Binder at points, and agreed with me that Elam was arguing with the feminists in his head (“well, at least he was arguing with someone”)
Mission “turn my pro-life mother into a feminist” is going well!
YES!!! ToR is giving me an IP that I can watch QI from! /random
@watermelonsugar
yeah she probably would of done better, but then again i think anyone would of done better than paul.
My best approximation of The Judgiest debating:
You’re an attention whore! Men do all the work and women are not essential! I am a PhD/PhD candidate/putting my PhD on hold so I know all things, you little whore! Here, look at this random picture of a scantily-clad woman. It proved feminism is wrong, didn’t it? Is feminism even happening? #NoMra #IMIC #seemslegit!
At least Her Judginess is off-the-cuff (to an embarrassing fault) and wouldn’t read off a handful of stapled, shaking pages.
@Watermelonsuger
I always enjoy when AVfMers blather on about their website as a resource when the information on actual issues they provide is sparse, copied wholesale from other web sources, often error-ridden and incompetently analyzed.
Dean Esmay @DeanEsmay
@kimoco @ego_deaf @MattBinder We MADE that wiki, and those are references to HUNDREDS of studies. How closed-minded are you?
https://mobile.twitter.com/deanesmay/status/487377147603210240
Here’s a link to AVfM Domestic Violence wiki that Deano is trumpeting:
http://reference.avoiceformen.com/wiki/Domestic_violence_(primary)
There’s almost no analysis, just a few paragraphs with this less than stellar intro:
The annotated bibliography with “hundreds of studies” has this intro:
Basically they’re copying wholesale, with permission and a link, the working annotated bibliography of a college professor. That’s the entirety of their “research” on their DV wiki, but Binder is apparently not respectful enough of their role as an men’s advocacy group because he’s not thunderstruck by their amazing wiki.
The trouble with debates is that, while they seem like a relatively clear-cut competition, there’s nothing preventing everyone from declaring their side the winner. Even if there’s judging and a formal winner, anyone can just go “Those judges don’t know what they’re talking about, so-and-so was much more convincing.”
QI is all kinds of awesome. The Future and K-People are my favorite episodes.
The Girls and Boys episode made me sad, though, because they decided to trot out every stupid evo-psych argument in the world. Up to and including the pink berries in the forest one.
I was really happy that he brought up the whole feminists are addressing men’s issues, because it’s so incredibly against the fantasy world MRA’s live in. I mean, it makes sense, feminism is a huge and diverse movement and some of its members have the resources and know-how to address a whole lot of different things. Sometimes these things end up being men’s issues too…
It’s really sad, how little we hear from the MRA’s on what their actual real life contribution to their chosen issues are. Honestly, it’s made me want to move and DO something.
I’ve always toyed with the idea of donating to http://www.puppiesbehindbars.com… I think I’m gonna go ahead and do it!
I’m so heartbroken that JudgyB hasn’t said a peep about the debate on twitter. It’s so uncool to disappoint your fans like this Janet.
Nope, not even this display of her ever delightful wit can cheer me up.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JudgyBitch1
At least she is using “ICMI” now. During most of the High Holy ICMI, she botched the tag.
I think she touched on it a little yesterday? I stopped reading when she said this (removing other users names):
It’s funny JB has “the radical notion that women are adults” as a tagline on her blog but acts pretty childish herself. Not setting a very good example lol.
Maybe he will do a write up about how he totally won the debate so there’s no need for anyone to watch the video. I mean Elam really is bad in it. I can’t believe that even his most loyal fans,while cheering loudly on the outside every time he speaks,won’t be squirming with embarrassment at least a little bit on the inside.
Mind you there does seem to be no limit to their gullibility.
I think that when it comes to AVFM and AVFM-affiliated “staff,” it is safe to assume they actually mean the opposite of their taking point.
“I challenge you to a debate!” = *reads almost exclusively from pre-written monologues*
“We care about men!” = *laughs at prison rape jokes and doesn’t know about major issues facing men*
“We don’t hate women!” = JudgyBitch and Paulie joking about harassment and rape of THIER OWN CONFERENCE SPEAKERS on twitter right now
I wouldn’t count on it.
So much facepalm.
So upshot is Pauly tried his hand at Matt debating, but didn’t really have a grip on things and ended up in a sticky situation.
@VSir Bodsworth Ruggleby III – It took me a moment, but I see what you did there.
Yeah your right. After all these are people that give money to Elam, even though he insults them while demanding it.