So there’s a LIVE debate tonight between Matt Binder of the Majority Report with Sam Seder and a fellow you may have heard of by the name of Paul Elam. Since Elam evidently refused to debate on the Majority Report — for some reason he doesn’t like to debate people when he doesn’t control the venue — Matt Binder agreed to debate on A Voice for Men, with Dean Esmay as the, ahem, neutral moderator. It’s at 6 PM Eastern.
I expect some shenanigans.
Here’s the video that inspired Elam’s debate challenge:
Here’s Matt’s video accepting the challenge:
Check out Matt’s other videos on Men’s Rightsers and our dear friend Stefan Molyneux.
2 minute closers. I have to run soon.
Paul: Binder has been steered into bigotry, but I don’t hate him.
I’m out.
The moderate asked Matt to send him information about stop and frisk. This pretty much sums up the MRA.
I listened to most of Elam’s first three minutes and that was enough for me. I was afraid Elam was going to throw homelessness, suicide, male victims of abuse and all the other broad topics AVfM feigns interest in when they want to see reasonable. I doubt Binder knows much about homelessness, so even though Paul doesn’t either, he could have stunned Binder by throwing bunch of their skeletal MRA statistical talking points at him.
Luckily for Binder and us, Elam wanted to discuss the topics closest to his heart, his right to act like an asshole and endlessly fight over perceived slights from his critics. If Elam had any sense he’s disown “bash a bitch month” but, no, he doubles down on it for the umpteenth time and brings up that shitty Jezebel article which he inexplicably thinks is some grand “gotcha” that destroys feminism. He then rails about the several embarrassing anecdotes about shitty things said at the conference and instead of quickly dismissing them, he wants to discuss at length how fascist his critics are because they point out their rape jokes. He also lists all the FeMRAs, as if they’re names are talismans that will somehow protect him from his own idiocy. Paul’s lack of self-awareness was always his most endearing quality. Never change buddy.
I’m sure people more dedicated than me will sick with this nonsense, but I’m off to see Rifftrax’s live Sharknado movie broadcast. Later my fellow Mammothteers.
It’s done. Paul spent most of his time attacking Matt and feminism. Matt devoted his final segments talking about men’s issues and speaking directly to MRAs. He told them their leadership has failed them for not tackling serious issues like stop and frisk, prison conditions, and war.
I’m pleased with Matt’s performance. He was well-prepared and spoke mostly off-the-cuff, looking right into the camera. Elam had a prepared script that he read from so there was no eye contact. As a result, his speeches were more polished but Matt was more real and very passionate.
@Abacus Toms
That’s mind-boggling. I live in Canada and I’m aware of it. WTF, Dean?
https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/487370844080185344
Embarrasing.
Meanwhile, the commenters on youtube are declaring victory for Paul.
So Esmay’s neutrality lasted -30 seconds? That’s a pretty good record for AVfM, actually.
Well, looks to me like Binder kicked ass; how do you feel about the debate, David?
@Auntie Alias.
I don’t live in the US either. That is why that part jumped out at me. I can’t imagine how anyone with an internet connection, cable tv or satellite tv missed knowing about stop and frisk in NYC.
A lovely bit of misandry in the comments.
I was concerned about this debate because perhaps it would give AVFM more attention. But now that I have seen it I think there is value in Paul Elam debating a person with normal mainstream reactions, not just because Elam is seen as very odd, but too because when he deviates from his script he says things revealing his true opinions and these can be studied later.
I tried to watch some of it, but even before I turned the sound on I couldn’t handle Elam. He was looking straight at me with those wide, angry eyes and I was afraid he was going to steal my soul.
But it’s feminists who are always insulting men’s masculinity.
I’m more a lurker than commenter to this site. But, I had to take the time to watch the debate given my very limited (and more than a little strange) first interaction with Paul Elam (years before he launched his misogyny site).
I was very impressed with Matt Binder. He was almost complete extemporaneous, which tells me he understands what he’s talking about. Paul Elam sounded like a robot reading his statements which were nothing more than his hate diatribe. I think he wanted to sound like an intellectual, when really, he spent his “debate” (was there even one? I didn’t see it if there was) spewing ad hominem blather.
I also thought Matt Binder was quite shrewd by addressing the MRAs directly. And my favorite moment of the “debate” was when Matt Binder read a quote by an MRA, and Paul Elam couldn’t distinguish between the MRA and the psycho dude Eliot Rodgers.
Debate definitely went to Matt Binder in my view. But then, I’m completely biased. I can’t stand Paul Elam.
Just finished watching–had to make dinner.
Did Elam SERIOUSLY just read from pre-prepared statements? Really? For real?
Matt isn’t the best at off-the-cuff speaking, but he surely held his own and, I think, wins purely on the fact that he didn’t just read off a page.
Anyone can read off a page. I am so blown away by that, I don’t even know what to say.
Oh aye. That commenter must’ve been a feminist spy then.
I had it open in a tab that I hid away so I just had the audio. The few times I took a peek, Paul was doing that whole Michele Bachmann stare-of-intensity at me. Scary.
Can you tell us any more about this?
So I missed it, and just clicked the link in the OP to see if AVfM had it up. I didn’t get that far as YouTube embeds break their site layout. Their web designer didn’t include code to auto-scale video, when there’s a damn JS script for that that you can find in 5 min of googling (ok, more than one, and more than a few ways to do it, why? Because it’s a problem every web designer knows about, or so I thought until five minutes ago!)
Why are MRAs completely incapable of design even when it’s something painfully generic?
@cloudiah……I don’t know how to quote comments here. Sorry. I “met” Paul Elam a number of years ago on a writing site. I forget the name of it, but it was/is a reputable gathering place for writers and aspiring writers.
Paul was a member there and he and I struck up a conversation. Somewhere during the conversation, I mentioned I was getting a divorce. I made a few, very benign, and certainly nothing revealing, comments about the state of my relationship with my now ex-husband.
He launched into me with a venom that took my breath away. It was seriously waaaaaaaay out in left field. It was shocking to me that he would presume to know ANYTHING about a person who had said so little beyond….”I’m getting a divorce and my ex-husband is an asshole.” Much less, the conclusions that he drew about me (with great authority, I might add)…..someone he couldn’t even see, let alone really know anything about.
I came back to the site a few more times and he warmed up to me a bit more, but after that very strange encounter, I never wanted anything else to do with the psycho. I learned about his “Happy Misogynist” site and checked that out a time or too, but never saw anything reasonable. Just an angry, scary dude.
I’ve observed him from a far since then. He’s evolved into a dangerous man in my opinion. But, his hate was brewing a long time ago.
The video is on AVFM on the page David linked to above.
Wow, AVFM just posted an article about having 10 million views.
It’s almost as if Elam insisted on holding this debate in his space so they could get more page views.
Such activism. Much impartial. Very truth. Wow.
I’m watching the video now. Well, I made it twelve minutes in. I gave up when Paul “responded” to Matt’s argument by robotically reading a prepared statement about how many women are involved in AVFM. Paul, that’s not how you debate someone. You’re supposed to respond to what they actually say, not to what you imagined they might say when you were writing up your notes. I’ll give it another go later.
While there is a female presence in the AVfM family, that’s clearly intentional and done to create the image of being woman-friendly. They choose a bunch of GWWs and JBs and whoever that typphoid fever lady is to be part of their public face, not because women are a big part of their following.
Now look at those attending their events and posting on their website: doods. Women are disproportionately represented within their “leadership” when compared to women who actually consider AVfM worthwhile.