I presage this post with some disclaimers for the inept.

I am not proposing rules for discussion. I am not proposing
what I will be saying as a serious idea to be implemented.
The following text is intended as a mental exercise, to
provoke thought. I do not expect it to provoke thought in
all readers; thus there is no need to respond saying "Well 
it didn't make me think".

---

Wouldn't it be nice to have Judges to preside over discussions?
So that, when your debating partner makes an inappropriately
extended analogy, instead of branching off into a whole new
argument about whether the analogy is inappropriate, you
could just call "Objection! Inappropriate analogy!" and the
Judge would yay or nay your objection; the analogy to be
struck from the record, if the objection isn't overruled.

"Objection! The opposition is ignoring what I said, and
arguing with what he wants me to have said."

"Objection! The opposition has flagrantly ignored the 
question yet pretended to answer."

"Objection! The opposition is clearly an idiot." "Overruled
- his idiocy is evidently not clear to him."

The failure of this idea is that having your every remark
struck from the record would still be no dissuasion from
making more useless remarks, hoping that eventually your
opponent tires of objecting (as we all do eventually) and
then you can believe you have won.

The obvious reparation to this flaw is to accompany
successful objections with electric shocks, or blows to
the head, of the arguer who is failing to argue
coherently. Shocks and blows of increasing magnitude.
Thus, the person who argues least usefully would be the
one to give up the argument.

This would remove the need for ad-hominem argument - instead
of calling the person an idiot when they give a stupid
argument, you can cause them to be smacked in the head. Who
wouldn't gladly take that opportunity? This would be much
better than the current situation where the usual behaviour
is to smack one's own head in disbelief of the sheer
stupidity of one's opponent.

--RavenBlack                       http://www.ravenblack.net/
Handprint-headed. Guaranteed.