Bachmann challenged by a 16 year old girl

Apparently a high-school student from New Jersey called Amy challenged Minnesota Congresswoman and possible future presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann to a debate. (Courtesy to Proph, blogger at Collapse.) Bachmann smartly left the challenge unacknowledged, as it was nothing but a catch-22 for her. This was Amy's open letter:

My name is Amy Myers. I am a Cherry Hill, New Jersey sophomore attending Cherry Hill High School East. As a typical high school student, I have found quite a few of your statements regarding The Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted. The frequency and scope of these comments prompted me to write this letter.

Though I am not in your home district, or even your home state, you are a United States Representative of some prominence who is subject to national media coverage. News outlets and websites across this country profile your causes and viewpoints on a regular basis. As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere. Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole.

Rep. Bachmann, the frequent inability you have shown to accurately and factually present even the most basic information about the United States led me to submit the follow challenge, pitting my public education against your advanced legal education:

I, Amy Myers, do hereby challenge Representative Michele Bachmann to a Public Forum Debate and/or Fact Test on The Constitution of the United States, United States History and United States Civics.

Hopefully, we will be able to meet for such an event, as it would prove to be enlightening.

I admire this type of thing, but one must realize that this letter was never meant to put her at the podium to debate; there is no possible way the congresswoman would have accepted the challenge because it poses an inherent lose-lose situation. The letter was merely designed to get her name out there and to fuel a restless intellectual ego. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I being a practitioner of such an action myself.

However, I find myself wondering what type of untenable beliefs she holds. I made a brief skim through her blog, and could find nothing except that she seems to be an enthusiastic activist for public school funding, and you all know my opinion on the matter. Hence, I responded thusly:

Amy, you appear to be a remarkably intelligent and mature person given your juvenile age. I was intrigued because I also am a high-school student that has a personal blog. I heard about your debate challenge to Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, and how you believe that she is a public embarrassment to your collective gender. Now then, I don't hold an opinion on the congresswoman as I don't really know much about her, except to say that I am generally skeptical of women politicians as even the most staunch freedom-loving ones tend to crumble under political pressure and exhibit fascistic tendencies. So, my question for you: what are your political beliefs? Most people would assume you are a left-winger given that you have attacked politicians on the Right, but one can never no for sure.

With respect, EB

If I had to make a guess, I would assume she is a typical government-expansion proponent who is nonetheless under the illusion that she is a supporter of human liberty and the founding principles of America, given that she attacked Bachmann, who under my scanty impression is more conservative than most Washington-tards, instead of other female and absolutely moronic democratic politicians that have done a far better job to "help to serve an injustice [to]...women everywhere."

But one must always operate under as little ignorance as possible. Lets see if she responds. We all know what happened to the last woman who I engaged in a discourse with.

UPDATE: let this be an apt lesson that one should know as much about the subject matter as possible before commenting or writing emails to interlocutors about it. Apparently she wrote to the Minnesotan because she was incorrect about basic historical facts such as where the battle for Lexington took place... so it is somewhat unlikely - but not entirely impossible - that ideology had anything to do with it. Also, I somewhat misdiagnosed her motivation as what prompted the debate challenge was a desire to prove to her classmates that she wasn't just like an ordinary female politician by running for class president. So we'll see how this turns out. I'm just glad I demonstrated some discretion by refraining from saying some of the things that popped up in my head while writing the letter.