Question:
Lack of difference encourages Punch and Judy politics

The public “are totally turned off by a style of politics which seems to rely on the levels of club house theatrical abuse that you can throw across at each other in parliament and across the airwaves.” [1] This style is necessary to extentuate the small areas where there are differences between the parties. Introduce real differences on the big issues of government, particularly the economy and society, then such minor point scoring fades into insignificance.

[1] Wintor, Patrick, ‘Corbyn: it’s time for a new kind of politics’, The Guardian, 12 September 2015

“I'm fed up with the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster, the name calling, backbiting, point scoring, finger pointing.” Not Jeremy Corbyn, David Cameron in 2005 when he became opposition leader. [1] Every new opposition party leader starts out saying they want to change Westminster’s style of politics; Miliband was the same. Yet they get sucked in all the same. The robust Punch and Judy style is part and parcel of British politics having happened during periods where the parties were ideologically far apart in the past; there were comnplaints about jeering and interuptions in the 1970s. [2]

[1] Cameron, David, ‘Leadership acceptance speech, BritishPoliticalSpeech.org, 2005, http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=315

[2] Parkinson, Justin, ‘Is Prime Minister’s Questions really getting worse?’, BBC News, 18 February 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26239991

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Because mandatory voting means that no large campaign funds are needed to goad voters to the polls, the role of money in politics will decrease. Compulsory voting will reduce spending such as campaign spending on voter turnout. It can also lead to a reduction in the incentive for negative advertising “as there is little to be gained from tactics aimed purely at persuading opposition voters to stay at home” 1.

States that sanction fines usually sanction a very low fine, which even the poorest members can afford. Besides, government like the British seem to manage speeding fines just fine, there is no reason to think they wouldn’t be able to manage non-voting fines. However, other measures such as disenfranchisement (Belgium) and denial of public services (Peru, Greece) can be used, which don’t incur a cost for the individual.

1 Electoral Reform Society

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
The Labour party is deprived of talent on the front bench

Numerous former front benchers and government ministers under the last Labour government will not serve in a Corbyn shadow cabinet. Most obviously two of the four leadership contenders; Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper. [1] This deprives the party of experienced parliamentarians who know government and what it takes to win elections.

[1] Wintour, Patrick, and Watt, Nicholas, ‘Labour frontbenchers rule out serving in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet’, The Guardian, 12 September 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/12/labour-frontbenchers-rule-out-serving-in-jeremy-corbyn-shadow-cabinet

Far from depriving the Labour Party of talent he has been drawing new talent into the party. Labour gained 15,000 members in the three days since Jeremy Corbyn’s victory on top of those who signed up during the leadership campaign. [1] Ultimately it is the membership and its size and diversity that provides the talent of the future, not an elite clique of individuals at the top.

[1] Withnall, Adam, ‘More than 15,000 join Labour party as full members in wake of Jeremy Corbyn victory’, The Independent, 13 September 2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-more-than-15000-join-labour-party-as-full-members-in-wake-of-islington-mps-victory-10498813.html

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Because mandatory voting means that no large campaign funds are needed to goad voters to the polls, the role of money in politics will decrease. Compulsory voting will reduce spending such as campaign spending on voter turnout. It can also lead to a reduction in the incentive for negative advertising “as there is little to be gained from tactics aimed purely at persuading opposition voters to stay at home” 1.

States that sanction fines usually sanction a very low fine, which even the poorest members can afford. Besides, government like the British seem to manage speeding fines just fine, there is no reason to think they wouldn’t be able to manage non-voting fines. However, other measures such as disenfranchisement (Belgium) and denial of public services (Peru, Greece) can be used, which don’t incur a cost for the individual.

1 Electoral Reform Society

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
A shift to the left means labour is no longer a party of government

A shift to the left means that Labour is no longer a real contender for government. This is not only bad for Labour but bad for the country as a whole. Voters need to have a choice between parties that stand a realistic chance of getting into power to have a real choice. By moving away from the centre where most of the votes are labour is no longer a serious contender. In the UK it is already the case that the average voter for a party holds more centrist, or moderate, policy positions than the party they vote for. [1]

[1] Voters’ Policy Preferences Much More Centrist than those of Political Parties, Compass, June 2015, http://home.kieskompas.nl/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/UK-Landscape-proximity.pdf

The biggest news of the last few years in politics has been the fragmentation of the electorate; the increase in voting for the Scottish National Party, Greens, and UK Independence Party. It can no longer be certain that Labour will pick up most votes by staying close to the centre ground. In all but the very safest seats there are more non-voters than there are people who vote for the winning party. It was notable that many of the safest seats in the country, held by Labour in 2010, were toppled by the SNP in 2015 including Glasgow North East that had an almost 16,000 majority in 2010 fell to the SNP with a majority of over 7,000. [1]

[1] Glasgow North East (UK Parliament constituency), Wikipedia, last checked 16 September 2015

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Because mandatory voting means that no large campaign funds are needed to goad voters to the polls, the role of money in politics will decrease. Compulsory voting will reduce spending such as campaign spending on voter turnout. It can also lead to a reduction in the incentive for negative advertising “as there is little to be gained from tactics aimed purely at persuading opposition voters to stay at home” 1.

States that sanction fines usually sanction a very low fine, which even the poorest members can afford. Besides, government like the British seem to manage speeding fines just fine, there is no reason to think they wouldn’t be able to manage non-voting fines. However, other measures such as disenfranchisement (Belgium) and denial of public services (Peru, Greece) can be used, which don’t incur a cost for the individual.

1 Electoral Reform Society

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Going left is step back not a step forward

Labour has tried left wing politics in the past – in the 1980s – in what was described by Gerald Kaufman, himself in the shadow cabinet at the time, as “the longest suicide note in history”. [1] Going leftwards means moving back to these policies rather than carving out new progressive policies that can energise and excite. Why should Labour be backing coal rather than renewables? Should Labour not be looking to give more power to the people rather than brining it back to the state through nationalisation?

[1] Clarck, Neil, ‘Not so suicidal after all’, The Guardian, 10 June 2008, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jun/10/labour.margaretthatcher

Corbyn is not tied to the past and his agenda is not going to simply be a rehash of Michael Foot’s manifesto in 1983. The policies Corbyn is advocating now would not have been considered particularly left wing in 1983 and most are not particularly radical even now. Policies like rent controls, peoples’ QE, and renationalising the railways may be statist but are potentially popular solutions to issues that concern voters; the cost of housing, that QE benefited the banks and no one else, and that commuting is cramped and costly.

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Because mandatory voting means that no large campaign funds are needed to goad voters to the polls, the role of money in politics will decrease. Compulsory voting will reduce spending such as campaign spending on voter turnout. It can also lead to a reduction in the incentive for negative advertising “as there is little to be gained from tactics aimed purely at persuading opposition voters to stay at home” 1.

States that sanction fines usually sanction a very low fine, which even the poorest members can afford. Besides, government like the British seem to manage speeding fines just fine, there is no reason to think they wouldn’t be able to manage non-voting fines. However, other measures such as disenfranchisement (Belgium) and denial of public services (Peru, Greece) can be used, which don’t incur a cost for the individual.

1 Electoral Reform Society

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Protection of Minors

We need to protect minors (those under the age of majority) from exposure to obscene, offensive or potentially damaging materials. While this would be a restriction on the freedom of speech it should be something that the government is responsible for and we would all agree needs some kind of restriction or regulation.

Arguments that invoke censorship of materials for minors are just that - arguments for the censorship of materials for minors. They do not concede the general principal that censorship is good because until the age of majority the state has a duty to respect (and to take limited measures to ensure others respect) the parental responsibility of those bringing up children.

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

Corbyn is not tied to the past and his agenda is not going to simply be a rehash of Michael Foot’s manifesto in 1983. The policies Corbyn is advocating now would not have been considered particularly left wing in 1983 and most are not particularly radical even now. Policies like rent controls, peoples’ QE, and renationalising the railways may be statist but are potentially popular solutions to issues that concern voters; the cost of housing, that QE benefited the banks and no one else, and that commuting is cramped and costly.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

It is false that there is a lack of choice now. There are plenty of other parties that voters could vote for if they believe the main two parties do not provide them with the choice they want. On the right there is UKIP and on the left the Greens and also other much smaller more extreme parties standing pain a few constituencies. If there were sufficient numbers who want to vote for a more left wing agenda then the Greens would be doing much better than they are – they currently only have one seat.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
It may be necessary in the interests of national security

The Government must protect its citizens from foreign enemies and internal enemies - thus freedom of speech can be acceptably curtailed during times of war in order to prevent propaganda and spying which might undermine the national interest. This has happened in almost all states during times of war, during the second world war the United States even had a government department dedicated to it; The Office of Censorship. [1]

[1] Hanyok, Robert J., ‘Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and The American Press and Radio in World War II’, Studies in Intelligence, Vol 46, No. 3,

The ends do not justify the means. The government may well wish to suppress publication of information that would be prejudicial to its success in the next elections or its war campaign, but it’s in the public interest to know about their dirty dealings or illegal activities.

Moreover secrecy in the name of security often leads to injustice; the rendition of British residents and secret evidence given at control order hearings are but a couple of examples.

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

Corbyn is not tied to the past and his agenda is not going to simply be a rehash of Michael Foot’s manifesto in 1983. The policies Corbyn is advocating now would not have been considered particularly left wing in 1983 and most are not particularly radical even now. Policies like rent controls, peoples’ QE, and renationalising the railways may be statist but are potentially popular solutions to issues that concern voters; the cost of housing, that QE benefited the banks and no one else, and that commuting is cramped and costly.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

It is false that there is a lack of choice now. There are plenty of other parties that voters could vote for if they believe the main two parties do not provide them with the choice they want. On the right there is UKIP and on the left the Greens and also other much smaller more extreme parties standing pain a few constituencies. If there were sufficient numbers who want to vote for a more left wing agenda then the Greens would be doing much better than they are – they currently only have one seat.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." [1] Shouting fire in a crowded cinema when there is no fire, and you know it, is wrong because doing so creates a clear and present danger of harm to others.

Likewise, in the US (and many other countries) there is no protection for ‘false commercial speech’ (i.e. misrepresentation) and the contents of adverts can be regulated in order to ensure that they are truthful and do not deceive consumers. [2] On that basis, restrictions can be placed on how tobacco products may be advertised, and people may be prevented from promoting illegal and fraudulent tax advice.

[1] U.S. Supreme Court, Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 1919,

[2] U.S. Supreme Court, Lorillard Tobacco Co v Reilly, AG of Massachusetts, 533 U.S. 525, 200

The argument leads to a slippery slope. It is one thing to regulate speech on matters that are objectively verifiable, quite another to restrict the permissible scope of opinion and expression. Even then, the state should be extremely cautious about declaring a state of objective fact. People taking advice on matters such as tax always take the risk that that advice may turn out to be bad, the amount of risk a person is willing to take is entirely a matter of personal responsibility and not a matter that the government should intervene in.

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

Corbyn is not tied to the past and his agenda is not going to simply be a rehash of Michael Foot’s manifesto in 1983. The policies Corbyn is advocating now would not have been considered particularly left wing in 1983 and most are not particularly radical even now. Policies like rent controls, peoples’ QE, and renationalising the railways may be statist but are potentially popular solutions to issues that concern voters; the cost of housing, that QE benefited the banks and no one else, and that commuting is cramped and costly.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

It is false that there is a lack of choice now. There are plenty of other parties that voters could vote for if they believe the main two parties do not provide them with the choice they want. On the right there is UKIP and on the left the Greens and also other much smaller more extreme parties standing pain a few constituencies. If there were sufficient numbers who want to vote for a more left wing agenda then the Greens would be doing much better than they are – they currently only have one seat.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Holocaust Denial

Speech acts lead to physical acts. Thus pornography, hate speech and political polemic are causally linked to rape, hate crimes, and insurrection.

Both scientific creationism and Holocaust denial have serious, and dangerous, hidden agendas. Deniers of the Nanjing Massacre believe that the Japanese did nothing wrong in the Second World War and continue to claim that it was a war of liberation against western colonialism - feeding Japanese militarism today. Holocaust deniers, in claiming that a Jewish conspiracy is responsible for the widespread belief that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, are closely allied to anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism. We should not allow such views the legitimacy which being debated gives them.

Society is self-regulating. The link between speech acts and physical acts is a false one - people who commit hate crimes are likely to have read hate speech, people who commit sex crimes are likely to have watched pornography but not necessarily the other way around. Viewers of pornography and readers of hate speech are therefore not incited to commit anything they otherwise would not do.

If the advocates of these views have hidden agendas, all the more reason to expose them in public. The fact that Holocaust denial leads to neo-Nazism will, for most people, be one more compelling argument against it; creationism’s necessarily literalistic approach to scripture can easily be shown to be ridiculous. Again, the truth has nothing to fear, and the evil implications of falsehood should not be covered up by refusing to engage with it.

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

Corbyn is not tied to the past and his agenda is not going to simply be a rehash of Michael Foot’s manifesto in 1983. The policies Corbyn is advocating now would not have been considered particularly left wing in 1983 and most are not particularly radical even now. Policies like rent controls, peoples’ QE, and renationalising the railways may be statist but are potentially popular solutions to issues that concern voters; the cost of housing, that QE benefited the banks and no one else, and that commuting is cramped and costly.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

It is false that there is a lack of choice now. There are plenty of other parties that voters could vote for if they believe the main two parties do not provide them with the choice they want. On the right there is UKIP and on the left the Greens and also other much smaller more extreme parties standing pain a few constituencies. If there were sufficient numbers who want to vote for a more left wing agenda then the Greens would be doing much better than they are – they currently only have one seat.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Individual Liberty outweighs any potential harms

Whatever the potential harms that may arise from unrestrained free speech; they pale in comparison to the harm that arises from banning an individual from freely expressing his own mind.

It is a matter of the upmost individual liberty that one’s thoughts and feelings are one’s own, and that individuals are free to express those thoughts and feelings openly. A prohibition on this liberty is a harm of incalculable value – it strikes right to the core of what it means to be in individual person.

Liberty is an intangible right – restrictions on liberty can be equally intangible and entirely transitory based on the circumstances.

What we know though is that real harm is derived from defaming an individual’s reputation, broadcasting racist abuse and shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre. It is wrong to ignore real, tangible harm in favour of preventing fanciful and intangible harms.

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

Corbyn is not tied to the past and his agenda is not going to simply be a rehash of Michael Foot’s manifesto in 1983. The policies Corbyn is advocating now would not have been considered particularly left wing in 1983 and most are not particularly radical even now. Policies like rent controls, peoples’ QE, and renationalising the railways may be statist but are potentially popular solutions to issues that concern voters; the cost of housing, that QE benefited the banks and no one else, and that commuting is cramped and costly.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

It is false that there is a lack of choice now. There are plenty of other parties that voters could vote for if they believe the main two parties do not provide them with the choice they want. On the right there is UKIP and on the left the Greens and also other much smaller more extreme parties standing pain a few constituencies. If there were sufficient numbers who want to vote for a more left wing agenda then the Greens would be doing much better than they are – they currently only have one seat.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Free speech allows challenges to orthodox beliefs

Free speech is not merely a ‘nice thing to have’, it is a mechanism which brings real, tangible benefits to society by allowing people to challenge orthodoxy. States that do not allow orthodox beliefs to be challenged stagnate and decline.

Reducing restrictions on free speech to ‘special exceptions’ frustrates the whole point because it is precisely those special exceptions where established truth needs to be challenged. This is not restricted to matters of pure opinion – the modern scientific process relies upon professionals being able to vehemently disagree on matters of crucial fact. “Real science depends for its progress on continual challenges to the current state of always-imperfect knowledge.” [1]

[1] Sarewitz, Daniel, ‘The voice of science: let’s agree to disagree’, Nature, Vol 487, No.7, 5 October 2011,

Society is entitled to define itself on certain issues – otherwise what does it stand for? Community is only possible among like-minded individuals. It is likewise entitled to tell those who refuse to accept the consensus on those issues to ‘lump it or leave it’.

It is also absurd to suggest that all challenges to orthodoxy are legitimate. Denial of atrocities is usually a mask for racial intolerance. Denial of established scientific truths in the public world is not usually about progress but rather about ignoring the evidence to promote theologically based worldviews. Society has a vested interest in suppressing those movements.

The benefits obtained from compulsory voting cannot be gained from any of the strategies mentioned by the opposition. Compulsory voting can enhance a sense of community, as everyone is in it together. This can be especially helpful in bringing new people in to community life. It also forces the silent majority to think about elections which safeguards from extremism.

The procedural justice of free exchange is important, but is presumes that humans are born with equal talents and in equally enabling environments. This is obviously not true: people can be born to parents with high or low socio-economic status and the talents they are born with, like IQ, are normally distributed.

Suppose you’re born with high talents but to parents with a low socio-economic status. That means your parents do not have enough income to spend on your education: their money is all spent on the basic necessities like food and housing. Since you don’t get the education you need to further develop your talents, you will also likely remain stuck in the same socio-economic class, as will your children, and their children. At the same time, the children of rich parents get more opportunities: even when they’re moderately talented, their parents can invest in maximally developing their talents or even give them a large endowment to live from.

An example of this lack of ‘social mobility’ is the United States, where parental income is an important predictor of a child’s future (Upper Bound, 2010). This is not just a gross and unfair inequality: it is also an infringement upon the liberty of the individual, who, in a free market, is effectively and structurally constrained to develop his or her own talents.

There is no reason why, under this model, you could not retain suitable precautions to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

For example, you could continue the obligation for companies to sell the drug at cost (they would, naturally, continue to be incentivised by the huge profits they expect to make when the drug is licensed). Further, you could impose financial sanctions on companies that refused to take appropriate action towards completing testing.

First, this may well be overridden by the individual rights of present patients (see proposition arguments).

Second, the greater time taken to recruit is one that may be offset by greater numbers: whilst the trial will be of a lower quality (no control group, etc.) there will nevertheless be a greater number of people willing to take the drug (people who wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a trial, but are willing to try the new treatment). Consequently, it may well be possible to compensate for the other problems with the trial. Further, alternative trialling models can be employed, for example using patients who choose not to take the drug as the control group. Whilst you lose the benefit here of having a double-blind trial (as under the status quo), you gain in terms of the benefits to current patients.

Corbyn is not tied to the past and his agenda is not going to simply be a rehash of Michael Foot’s manifesto in 1983. The policies Corbyn is advocating now would not have been considered particularly left wing in 1983 and most are not particularly radical even now. Policies like rent controls, peoples’ QE, and renationalising the railways may be statist but are potentially popular solutions to issues that concern voters; the cost of housing, that QE benefited the banks and no one else, and that commuting is cramped and costly.

It’s not true that all markets naturally lead to a concentration of power. Whenever concentration of market power, even leading up to a monopoly, does happen, this is caused by the underlying cost structure of the industry, whereby a company experiences increasing returns to scale and relatively high fixed costs. This means it is most efficient for the first entrant in a market to become as big as possible, as fast as possible. An example of such a natural monopoly used to be the markets for utilities: when the distributing networks for water or energy weren’t built yet, the first company to expand would gain a natural monopoly.

Given that a natural monopoly is a consequence of the underlying cost structure of the industry, there is not much one can do to change it. Basically, one can choose between a private unregulated monopoly, private monopoly regulated by the state, and government monopoly (Capitalism and Freedom, 2002). Of these, the private monopoly is best. A government monopoly would not just be a monopoly, but would also have the force of law to back it – the result would be the most direct form of regulatory capture, where the business interest takes over the public interest of the government agency.

It is false that there is a lack of choice now. There are plenty of other parties that voters could vote for if they believe the main two parties do not provide them with the choice they want. On the right there is UKIP and on the left the Greens and also other much smaller more extreme parties standing pain a few constituencies. If there were sufficient numbers who want to vote for a more left wing agenda then the Greens would be doing much better than they are – they currently only have one seat.

The free market doesn’t invest in fundamental research this is research to understand fundamental principles as it does not have a commercial purpose and may never result in a commercial product, ultimately, fundamental research is the key enabler of innovation. Private companies don’t invest in fundamental research, because by its nature it is open ended and very expensive and as a result may never pay back the investment.

One example is the invention of the laser: the foundations were laid by theoretical physicists like Albert Einstein. This theoretical work wasn’t done with the purpose to invent something like a laser, but to probe deeper into the fundamentals of reality. The first actual existing lasers emerged only 40 years later, and only then did corporations begin to be interested. More examples are Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research lab, and CERN, the operator of the world’s largest particle accelerator. Between them, they serendipitously invented the key technologies of the internet, something that no one could have foreseen.

Governments have both the resources and the patience to invest in open-ended and long-term projects like this, whereas for corporations, this would have been too risky to be a sensible business decision.

As noted elsewhere, forced attendance would lead to increased political awareness, and an abstention option would offer a 'none of the above'/'I don't mind or care' choice instead of people spoiling the ballot.

Because the number of voters would increase, politicians would have to be active in engaging with the public and therefore become "more deserving of the public's trust".

Citizenship classes don't negate the need for compulsory voting but should be used in conjunction to compulsory voting.

If people are genuinely not interested in voting or politics, educating them in school would not change that fact. The education is likely to vary from school to school and is only likely to have an impact if the student likes the subject. Compulsory voting would force those parts of the population who are usually disinterested to voice some form of opinion- created a more balanced democracy.

Besides, who pays for the education? Taxpayers. Who often don't want to vote.

The case given is quite different. The parents directly acted to cause harm to their child, inflicting a series of violent beatings over a sustained period. Such a course of action is already illegal and they were rightly convicted and punished. In this instance, a course of action is being avoided with the best interest of the child uppermost in the minds of the parents.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim