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This is precisely why people actually go to great efforts to understand and explain what is going on in cases like this. See, for example, the major works of Wertheimer/Westen on consent to sexual relations. I have zero doubt that if you tried this gotcha on them, they would have an immediate thirty second response. I happen to disagree with some of their positions, generally, as I don't believe in a consent-only sexual ethic, but I have no doubt that they have thought about the issue in significant enough detail to be able to easily reply. I think it, frankly, is an indication that a person hasn't sufficiently thought through an issue if they get caught out this easily on it.
Of course, that shouldn't be surprising when it comes to political talking heads. The sheer range of issues they are setting themselves out to address means that they're almost certainly to get caught out sometimes. Think of this general discourse as watching top-tier chess tournaments. The participants may actually have thought about it far more than lay folks, but the game is so incredibly broad, you still regularly see folks just get totally caught out by some opening prep idea. Of course, when that happens and they get embarrassed publicly, they immediately go home and study it to make sure it doesn't happen again. Compare to academic types, who are more like what chess players could get away with in the pre-computer-prep era - the guy who played the same opening every time and just knew it better than you.
I think the lesson we should take often depends on which type of person it is, which type of game they're prepping for, and what the result looks like. Thinking of chess again, in the computer era, even a specialist in an opening can get absolutely wrecked if they get stung with dynamite novel computer prep. But we're not going to see them just get absolutely bamboozled by just some basic shit in an opening that we know they have to have realized was likely.
Rufo is 'prepped' for talking about Marcuse, modern discrimination law, etc. Jefferson is a not-insignificant sideline, but it's definitely a sideline. Iain Anderson? Dude got blown off the board by a beginner who learned like the most common first six moves of the Sicilian.
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