Do you know people on the Right who are tolerant of people who are for gay marriage and are pro-choice? I actually do, plenty of them. When there is a disagreement, I see way more people on the Right... more often willing to agree to disagree rather than to de-friend or to smear.
I'm an Obama supporter, no question. But it doesn't mean there's nothing to learn from the other side.
I have been inspired by the way that Ken Clarke has navigated parliament. I am actively looking across the House for people I really respect and warm to and can learn things from.
While people can differ on the issues, no one should seek to discourage freedom of speech.
I think we can get respect for Parliament back providing governments and oppositions are frank.
And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don't just try to shut them up.
I think that it's important to make criticisms of the government as a whole and criticisms of the policies, but to do so in a way that you can invite the individuals who maybe were on the opposition before, or who voted for somebody whom you are in disagreement with... that you open the door for a conversation with those people.
It's a sad indication of where Washington has come, where policy differences almost necessarily become questions of integrity. I came to Washington in the late '70s, and people had the ability in the past to have intense policy differences but didn't feel the need to question the other person's character.
This is a duty now. Pick up the phone and call me, particularly when your ideas differ from mine.
The people currently in charge have forgotten the first principle of an open society, namely that we may be wrong and that there has to be free discussion. That it's possible to be opposed to the policies without being unpatriotic.
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.
One of the things I realised as I learned to manage a rehearsal room is that the best idea always has to win, and it doesn't matter where the idea comes from.
I have no problem with people challenging my views and my positions. I want to be clear that I'm not asking anybody to stop challenging me. But I will not accept being called an anti-Semite.
One of the most powerful lessons I learned is when you make an argument in a film, you have to make sure both characters are right.
I'm not saying that President Obama should be exempt from criticism, nor do I believe it is some act of racial treason for a black person to hold our president accountable for his actions.
Of course there are always exceptions, but opinions are not to be feared.
I'm pro-WWE, but also I maintain my independence and speak my true thoughts, never bashing the product. But yes, I can be critical. I've earned the right to be critical.
My own ideals for the university are those of a genuine democracy and serious scholarship. These two, indeed, seem to go together.
Progressive culture’s substitution of nastiness for persuasion and argument has robbed America of the incisive commentary of which intelligent progressives would otherwise be capable. Progressives got addicted to the power of cancel culture — their seemingly invincible H-bomb — and when it stopped working they just didn’t know what else to do, because they had forgotten everything they used to do in the time before Twitter.
The world I want to live in is a world where everybody is a bit more uncertain about their arguments and is a bit more open to other people's arguments. I think that we can engage ideas without ad hominem attacks.
Negative personal attacks have no place in public life and serve to erode public confidence in our basic institutions of government.
I think one of the things that we are facing right now is that we've stopped listening to each other in our politics.
Filling a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court is a solemn process for our nation, and I hope Senate consideration of Judge Barrett will not descend into the dishonorable spectacle that Americans witnessed during the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
I'm not going to get down in the gutter with DeSantis and Trump - there's enough of that going on.
Not everything is about causing controversy. That would be a very boring way to go.
