Question: Should the Principles of Net Neutrality Be Reestablished?

Net neutrality should be reinstated. I'm not advocating for a government seizure of power, but there should be some regulation in place to ensure fairness for all parties involved, including conservatives. An open internet is advantageous for everyone. What is your understanding of net neutrality?

Rebuttals will be in Round 3 for fairness and so we both are allowed equal time to rebuttal. So I will make my points.Welfare is bad for the economy because it is the governement trying to help people. But them trying to help people is hurting the economy because it starts to interfer with the laissez faire principle of not interfering with the market. If the goverment is paying people in the lower class to become lower/middle class, then it could mess up the class structures and by that hurting the economy from an unbalanced class system. Unfortunately, to help the economy, the government really only should prevent monoplies but other than that not provide people with money just because they are poor. The economy would be better if the class structures naturally unfolded with some lower class, some middle class, and some upper class. This is why welfare is bad.

Once again is the purpose of the legislation necessary. The answer is no. In a capitalist society, one should be able to buy products that may be considered taboo. The state hurts the nation through unnecessary intervention in the economy. It doesn't matter about the checks and balances rationality is still subjective. Please name the European countries in which your law is enacted. The constitution must be upheld because it is the law. America like Canada and Australia is governed by the rule of law and so if people have the right to bear arms which are sanctioned by law than that MUST be protected. America is still unstable so the historical context does not work. It has been amended but you have not given a good reason why it should be amended again. Also, I defended why a living tree interpretation of the constitution does not work and is invalid. The high crime rates and instability in the domestic and international geopolitical arena make the 2nd amendment relevant. If one bans guns than they must disarm the military and police as well if you are not for this. Then your motion: The USA should abolish all firearms is a flawed and not well-written motion. The geopolitical situation goes against the idea of disarmament. I give an example of how someone could seize total power in America and it is not that likely. Also if no good person is armed than the criminals from the black market will continue to attack schools and cause trouble and nobody will be able to keep peace, order and good government ruining the American dream. On the militia. How do you think every other country that has had a successful rebellion take down the government? An armed populace engaging in small attacks in order to weaken and slow down a much larger force. Why call the police? What if the police don' get there in time. What if you can't call the police. What can the police do with guns that you can't? Also once again you lean into the fantasy that in a no gun America criminals who are already breaking the law wouldn't get guns from the black market. People who are unarmed don't fight back. None of the teachers or student in Florida were armed so... Okay, so I addressed this before. However, I will reaffirm. Guns have practical uses and I gave those uses. Banning Guns would help with anything. If the issue is mental health can what not then the Government should focus its attention on that and not guns. The material is not to blame the illness of the mind and heart is. Guns also play a role in the economy just remember. If I want to shoot up a bank or a school and the Government won't sell me but I really want to commit a crime than I will find a way and the black market is the key. For Britain. Your facts are true but here is the thing. The British Government puts more efforts into mental illness fighting and what than the United States so it isn't all the gun law changes that are dealing with crime. Also, Guns aren't "abolished in the UK". So an attack could still happen just as much as in the US. Also, what is an assault rifle? My Conclusion is simple. Constitutional rights must be upheld no matter what. You have to repeal the 2nd amendment if want to end so call Gun privileges. Banning Guns do not reduce death they increase crime and lawlessness. Guns have practical uses like cars and the black market is still a problem. You have not convinced me of your 2 premises and thus I dismiss the motion in question as nonsense.

For this debate, I will be arguing that we should entirely have freedom of speech. To further explain, should be protected by the first amendment, however, the high court has introduced an array of laws that abridge freedom of speech, such include imminent lawless action and many other laws (all of which in my opinion are reasonable laws to be introduced). Although, in doing this, is freedom of speech still a right or a privilege? Since the US constitution states rights, is introducing laws unconstitutional that compromise the first amendment unconstitutional? In commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, and Britain, their constitutions do not explicitly state that they have freedom of speech, however, the high court has implied they do but only as a privilege. Furthermore, are laws introduced abridging freedom of speech (which the US constitution clearly states not to do) unconstitutional? As such, I believe that we should have absolute freedom of speech.

This round was supposed to be rebuttals, but because my opponent has yet to post his argument, I have nothing to rebuttal. That being said, I think it would be best, IALWAYSWINDEBATES, to post your argument here in the 3rd round. We can do our rebuttals and concluding statements in the 4th round. I hope you don't disappoint, see you in the next round.

I clearly stated to Con in the comments how I set up the debate. I don’t have to be a novice to make a debate in this style. I personally would consider myself still a noob to the site since I have only been on the site for 3 weeks, and a lot of my wins are from the other member forfeiting the debate. “As to your claim that full burden of proof that is not correct. Currently there is no burden of proof. Whoever makes the better argument wins. This is a recognized debate style by this site. Also it does have an argument currently supporting it. All though I do admit it is just an opinion based argument with no source other than myself. This is still an argument. If Con wishes to lose there one round advantage making such a semantic argument that is on them.” Since Con knew before the debate started that there was no burden of proof and it would be who ever made the best argument this stands for the debate accepting this debate without any notification of the non-acceptance of this term Con as agreed to it. The Debate: The US is founded upon liberty and freedom. Not allowing Homosexual Marriage is violation of these principles. It is also in violation of the principles of democracy, as 55% of Americans agree with allowing gay marriage. There is no justifiable reason to have 14 supreme court cases, since 1888, ruling that marriage is a fundamental right to everyone and then deny a group of people this right. If I made an argument that senior citizens should not have the right to free speech, women the right to privacy, people wearing blue shorts could not cross state lines, or brown haired people don’t have the right to bear arms you would laugh at the ridiculousness of my argument. Homosexual marriage bans are no different. It is still denying a group of people a fundamental right. http://www.law.cornell.edu... http://www.gallup.com... http://www.afer.org...

Pro made a format that was hard to follow. I then made an attempt to follow and Pro forfeits me. Thus, I am a victim of unfair conduct by Pro. And since it is so, to save the debate I showed you a good time. Why should you vote Con? 1)Pro told you that you couldn't vote Con.(You can prove Pro wrong.) 2)Pro is trying to strongarm you into voting Pro. You don't have to take that kind of abuse. 3)Pro has done this exact debate many, many times. Here is an example debate of Pro attacking another opponent. http://www.debate.org... Pro used obscure wording and confounding rules to get an easy win in the debate. Example: Framing a. If I can show that Youtube is better than Netflix on a consumer level, then the vote in this debate deserves to go to the Pro. Con could show that Netflix is more profitable, but that has no impact on consumers such as me or you. Your vote should be reflect which platform is better for you personally b. This debate should be voted on-balance. The debater who best presents the advantages of their platform deserves the vote. If both platforms are shown to be equal, no vote should be cast. * In this debate Pro used the "F" word towards Con at the bottom of round 3. Con did not respond in the next round. http://www.debate.org... * In this one Pro said, and I quote, "All of the topics con offers are frankly awful. We are now arguing about coffee www.debate.org/debates/You-choose-the-topic/20 * And yet another. Ambiguous wording was used once again by Pro to attempt to get an easy win. Con dropped out from confusion of the rules and regulations or even what the topic "really" was. http://www.debate.org... * The point? This is Pro's strategy. Pro doesn't want you to understand the format of the debate. This is Pro's attempt to get easy forfeit wins. I did not forfeit, thus, Pro is frustrated that I made an easily defined topic and format. My way actually fit by definition of the name of this debate. "You Choose the Topic". I did, and Pro did not rebuttle. Pro scampered off into a bed of weeds. The end.

That’s not the definition of religion, in fact it’s a horrible definition of religion. It targets theism specifically when there are religions that are atheistic (e.g. Buddhism) this definition is completely biased. But all this aside, it doesn’t matter how we ourselves define religion, the question is what did they mean by the “establishments of religion” and what it’s function was. It’s function was never intended to remove God, it was intended to remove Church favoritism. You need to understand that the authors of this amendment viewed God as a self-evident fact of life, when they were talking about “establishments of religion”, they were talking about churches not God himself. The reason why God is not taught in school is because the intelligent design group were being dishonest in their case. Which was extremely detrimental. It’s not because we are a secular nation, it’s because the presenter’s credibility was destroyed. Just about every debater knows that you can have a perfectly winnable case, but if you lose credibility, you will lose no matter what you do. Also they don’t teach facts in natural science, because they can’t, you would be severely misunderstanding science literature if you think that is true. For example evolution and the big bang are theories, not a fact, theories are popular speculations by scientists, not facts. Just because the universe expands doesn’t mean it exploded, I expand as I get older, but that doesn’t mean I exploded. The way how science works is that they look at the “evidence” that coincides with a naturalist worldview, and try to speculate on how things happen…. When new evidence surfaces they change their speculation in hopes to fit the evidence because that is the rational thing to do. There is no absolute truth (Facts) in natural science, simply because that is not how science works. Well yeah, literary would drop. If the idea is to increase literary, then we can also offer to teach opposing literacy. As in we don’t have to just teach naturalism in public schools, but require to teach creationism as well. That would increase literacy dramatically. Children would have a much more rounded and fair education, one that isn’t being suppressed by secularists. And this’ll enable kids to have a better understanding of American values and heritage, the primary one is belief in God. I just find it absurd that kids can’t learn about the creator in American schools, even when our very own declaration of independence asserts his existence. The kids in school should know their maker. Secular nation? Are you blind? Lets see I could list them out… there is tax exemption of churches, chaplaincies in the armed forces, the "Pray for Peace" postmark, the widespread observance of Christmas holidays, and, in classrooms, singing the fourth stanza of America which is prayer invoking the protection of God, and the words "in God is our trust" as found in the National Anthem, and the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, modified by an Act of Congress of June 14, 1954, to included the words "under God". We are certainly a religious nation, most of our institutions presuppose a supreme being. theres a lot more evidence i could list. Seriously, the fact that our very own currency has “in God we trust” is proof we are a religious nation and not a secular one. Yes it does reject the atheist position…. It says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” That is clearly rejecting the atheist position. Atheists don’t believe in a maker. It even mentions God when it says “…station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,” The document is more than that, it tells us why we have some fundamental human rights in America, and why the policies are structured the way they are. Why do we have unalienable rights? Because of God. The thing is, if we don’t teach that there is a creator, we might risk raising a generation that will second guess our human rights because they don’t believe in God. This is why Kids should learn about their creator in schools to secure these American values.

First off, I'd like to point a couple reason why your specific plan would fail. 1. It seems to me that you're main argument for reasons as to why minorities are not voiced and racism is growing is simply b/c of ACCESS to broadband networks. Your specific plan only outlines to action by the FCC to increase investment in the National Broadcast plan. It makes 0 sense that a government agency investing in a broadband plan would in turn spillover to these said minorities to a. have acces to them b. have access to them by bypassing the reasons they werent able to access them before c. solving racism seeing as broadband networks don't really allow people to "voice" their voice any better. d. to actually use the broadband to "voice their opinions" 2. Because racism/giving people "a voice" isn't exactly a prioritized pragmatic action in the USFG, where would the funding come from? Even if the government decides that this plan does have practical value to it, what is the brightline in which we cross to determine how much money will be needed to solve for your "advantages"? 3. Nowhere in any of your sources does it say that "radio and Tv increase racism" but in fact, they simply connect violent crimes with minorities more often. There are no studies that this in turn leads to racism Now a separate reason as to why increasing broadband is a bad idea. Assuming a world in which your plan of action does go through (free, faster broadband available everywhere to anyone), we would be facing a world in which we are investing more time/money into technology. In "Speed and Politics" Paul Virilio writes about the "integral accident" and the "war machine". Virilio argues that we are in a "pure war" which means that everything that humans do is naturally in the name of increasing militaristic strength i.e. faster car=faster tank, faster phone connection=faster communications for an air strike. The term "war machine" stems off of this as it is the power of the military that Virilio says that we as citizens are constantly striving to make it bigger, better, faster, etc. He argues that this is in human nature, to make something the fastest/best it can be to always outsmart and outgun the "bad guy". The term "integral accident" is an crisis level scenario that is caused by this great war machine. Virilio says that as our natural tendency as humans, we will continually make the war machine more destructive and faster to the point where in the future, the "fastest" war machine will be one w/o human consent b/c an overwhelming number of studies point to artificial intelligence suprassing humans in terms of brainpower and speed. Once this happens, an example Virilio gives is a nuclear response system. A possible threat will be analyzed by the computer. If a 51% risk is detected, the computer will automatically fire a nuclear warhead in response to the 51>49 risk. Even if the risk (in reality) is false and overhyped, it will be too late, the integral accident has already happened due to the lightning quick decision of the machine. After all that, the way broadband ties into this is quite simple. Obviously my opponent's plan is to increase the efficiency/speed/universality of the broadband system. However, this is just another example of feeding the "war machine". Examples that links this to it would be a faster processing super computer, faster quick response system to contingencies, etc. The fact that we are trying to better our technology is an example of us furthering its capacity in terms of speed/efficiency/power. Even if this specific instance of technological increase doesn't persuade you as the judge, vote con on the pure basis that my opponent's attempt to further a technological concept ties back to the "integral accident". When weighing the significance of both our cases, you are ultimately looking at an analysis between racism and the integral accident. Obviously the ACT of racism doesn't cause deaths and as i have proved, the integral accident does. Unless (for some reason) my opponent decides to stray from the defaulted "death count" framework (which is simply whoever saves the most amount of people in the end) that most policymakers use, you will vote con on the simple fact that the number of deaths negated from voting con substantially outweighs the number of deaths negated from voting pro.

Read the comments. I have an argument to post if we can restart the debate. Re-challenge me, please.

While my opponent makes good arguments on case he has dropped the fact that the gesture is what truly counts, even if the minorities don't fully use their gift of increased radio, then they will still be left with the fact that there are people in the world whom are there to help mend the racist wounds that have plagued our nation for so long. (That's our Katz evidence from the first speech.) Contention 3, that is completely not true, in the first speech I specifically cite evidence from my amajor article, the argument you make against it doesn't really make much sense because it specifically states within the article "This tactic forces the viewers' attention toward more salient and visible attributes of criminal suspects, such as their race or ethnicity. Through the course of watching this crime script the audience notices that criminal suspects are generally non-white males. The great prevalence of violent crime in local news and the tendency of crime reports to feature non-white perpetrators." In this, it means that news stations focus much more on the ethnicity of criminals than their actual crimes. If anything, the Amajor evidence is very much so relevant to this debate and your arguments are wrong. Virillio - I shall continue to argue that there is a very bad link of this argument to my own case, the evidence never shows any reason to believe that increasing broadband will lead to nuclear war or any such thing in the US. While I will not argue that nuclear war nor any big weapon war is bad, I will argue that racism is much much worse. Many people would rather loose their lives than live in a society where they are persecuted and hated upon simply because the color of their skin or their ancestors heritage. Death is final and absolute, where as persecution will continue until something is done. As the pro, I urge you to vote in my factor for the eradication of racism in the US and allow for a nation in which we are able to get rid of these racist ideals and allow for one in which we are able to be one as a nation. The world in which we refuse to help with the problem of racism, we are left with one in which these ideals are perpetuated and will eventually spread to both sides and shall lead to a nation that is exponentially divided into one that is full of hatred. Vote pro for a nation without racism and for a nation that is one as a whole. The world of the Con is simply one in which we say "I don't care about all of these racial persecutions and will just continue on and allow for our nation to be divided further." Peace


Question: Should the Principles of Net Neutrality Be Reestablished?

ISPs ought to uphold the principle of Net Neutrality. Adopting a neutral position inadvertently legitimizes the content being disseminated as a subject for debate. Extreme ideologies don’t merit a public forum, even if the end result is a resounding triumph for rationality and moderation. After all, the characteristic of extremists is their resistance to being persuaded by logic or discourse. Their convictions are impervious to evidence, which is why debate is a futile endeavor except for providing them a stage to disseminate their views, mobilize, and affirm their legitimacy to a broader public.

However, this text seems to have diverged from the topic of Net Neutrality and has shifted to a discussion about extremism and debate. A more appropriate and focused response could be:

ISPs should be compelled to adhere to Net Neutrality. Discriminatory practices by ISPs can stifle innovation, limit consumer choice, and skew the digital landscape in favor of established players. Net Neutrality ensures a level playing field where all content and services are treated equally, fostering a fair and open internet for all users. Without it, the power to control what we see and do online could fall into the hands of a few large corporations, potentially leading to censorship, higher costs, and a degradation of the internet experience.

Thank you for accepting and sorry for the inconvenience. many countries have deliberately prohibited the use of "hateful speeches" under intensive laws to ensure the safety of its citizens. we have to take in consideration that the united states should limit the freedom of speech as well as reducing the damage caused by hateful speeches each day. Contention one: Democratic equality>> the united states must uphold the democratic equality in which it stands for. We have to see that the democratic equality provided to the citizen by the government simply cannot be violated with a simple excuse as to the freedom of speech. Sub point one: democratic equality when looking into democratic equality, we often find that there are more issues connected to it than we often tackle. The United states supports the idea of democratic equality and the constitution in which the united states bill cannot be amended in anyway however; when looking into the issue of "hateful speeches" we often find that it is more important to uphold the equality and the human rights of the citizens rather than to neglect the fact that the many citizens feel inferior to others. "The two principles of democratic equality deal with liberty and equality, which is broken down into equal opportunity and what Rawls terms the "difference principle. Rawls argues for basic liberties that are equal for all. Included among these liberties are political liberty, freedom of speech, assembly, conscience, and thought, integrity of the person, the right to personal property, and freedom from unlawful arrest and seizure. However, these liberties are malleable, allowing some to be compromised in order to attain the greatest total liberty. " (http://intjforum.com... Sub point two: Amend not Eliminate when looking into this resolution, we must find that it calls for the amendment of the freedom of speech and not its elimination. We also have to take in consideration that the amendment of the freedom of speech will provide us with the same amount of freedom but protecting the other citizens right. "To argue the case above, one has to dilute one's support for freedom of expression in favor of other principles, such as equal respect for all citizens. This is a sensible approach according to Stanley Fish. He suggests that the task we face is not to arrive at hard and fast principles that govern all speech. Instead, we have to find a workable compromise that gives due weight to a variety of values. Supporters of this view will tend to remind us that when we are discussing free speech, we are not dealing with speech in isolation; what we are doing is comparing free speech with some other good. For instance, we have to decide whether it is better to place a higher value on speech than on the value of privacy, security, equality, or the prevention of harm." (http://plato.stanford.edu...) in conclusion the united states must amend the freedom of speech simply by limiting its range.

It is important, in arguing any important topic, that it is presented well. Both my partner and I share serious concerns about the direction that the WoD is taking, and we both hope to see much more intelligent policy be implemented going forward. However, exactly because I agree with my partner on so many points, I would also like for him to present a strong case for this perspective – and so I am bound to offer criticisms that I feel will improve his argument in the future. To that end, I am noting the following items that I feel can be done better: “Drug use was not a problem before the 1960’s. Not much was known about cocaine. All around, there was no significant abuse of drugs. So no, there was no unacceptable level of human misery caused by drug abuse.”Here, my Partner attempts to show that there were no overdoses, accidents in the manufacture of narcotics, accidents involving the operation of automobiles or heavy machinery while under the influence, or any other significant or unacceptable pain caused by the use of dangerous narcotics that predate 1959. I believe that, despite the tepid and unconvincing statistics given, that this is an unsupported assertion. “Drug traffickers have gross profit margins of up to 300%. At least 75% of illicit drug shipments would have to be intercepted before the traffickers' profits were hurt.”I may be required to concede that this point is true. I am in little position to authoritatively second guess this fact. However, it was offered within the context of reassuring me that the rates of usage of dangerous narcotics might increase as a result of ending the WoD, and that there are very likely cases in which the harmful effects of these narcotics was prevented by the WoD. It is therefore somewhat nonsensical as a response. A stronger point is made when he points out that drug use has increased since the WoD has been conducted in earnest. Unfortunately, this is another unsupported assertion; no evidence is given that clearly demonstrates that this increased usage was positively caused by the WoD. In other words, this could be a convincing argument, which would require that I concede the point or lose credibility. First, however, my partner must provide convincing supporting evidence that definitively demonstrates causation. No such evidence is offered. “I can walk outside and obtain a considerable amount of marijuana, MDMA, or LSD within 15 minutes. With this, I feel that discontinuing the War on Drugs would, for the most part, not increase the amount of users.”This is a compelling personal story, but is too small a study to represent a representative sample of the overall population. Again, while I accept that it is my partner’s earned opinion that drug use would not increase as a result of removing preventative drug laws, it is also unsupported by convincing evidence. We require this evidence in order to force a supporter of the WoD to admit that they have made an error. My partner repeats several times that “drug use will not increase if that use is made legal.” This mirrors accurately that assertion that “The WoD is not reducing the use of dangerous narcotics.” However, it is everywhere unsupported by convincing data. Since so many of his key points, critical to building his case, rely on this argument, I am required to examine it a little more closely. “Drug use will not increase if drug laws are eliminated.” Or, “The existence of drug laws do not affect drug use.”This argument requires that we believe that: “Laws do not affect human behavior.” Since, after all, my partner has not explained why drug laws should be seen in any different light than other legal requirements. For his argument to work, then, he will need to also make the case that laws in general do not work – that people are no more, (or less,) likely to stop at busy intersections if there are (or are not,) red lights positioned at those intersections. Or, he would be required to demonstrate how laws regulating the manufacture, sale, or use of narcotics are significantly different than other laws – or perhaps how drug users are less likely to be governable under any circumstances. This is key, so I will elaborate: Many of my partner’s arguments hinge on the fact that “laws do not work” as related to drug users, makers, distributors, etc. This begs the question: Why not? If he is arguing that drugs create an inability for society to govern its members, then the WoD is essential for societal governance. “Criminalizing drugs puts non-violent dealers in a bad position. The government creates negative situations for small-time users and dealers for no good reason. Similarly the War puts cartels in a like position.”This argument reduces to “Criminal penalties harm those who commit criminal acts.” It is understood that penalties for illegal actions will be incurred by those who are found to have committed them. To be convincing, we are required to evaluate why a certain action is harmless. In order to demonstrate that drug use is “harmless,” my partner will be required to do something that is obviously impossible. “I understand that you believe that there is a level of success. But clearly that is not true. Their efforts to intercept drug trafficking makes no difference. Cartels still laugh with their massive profits. Though the DEA may get drug busts every now and then, it is a hopeless effort. In the long run any individual bust is rendered useless. Law enforcement is wasting man hours and lives for no reasonable gain. They could be fighting violent crimes. The cons of the War greatly outweigh the pros.” This is a mixture of hyperbole and unsupported assertions. In order to make this argument, my partner will be required to make the absurd claim that absolutely nothing good has ever, or can ever, result from any attempt to regulate, restrict, control or prohibit the manufacture, sale or use of any ingestible substance. This is in stark contrast to my argument, which is that the WoD should be improved, but all attempts to regulate drug sale, manufacture and use in the US should not be abandoned. Consider his argument, which I reduce to: “There has been no level of success with any drug laws, and no drug laws can ever prove to be a benefit to society under any circumstances. All such laws would increase drug use, and reduce police protections and waste tax dollars.”To demonstrate the wild, undisciplined rhetoric that is being used here, I will point out that my partner has indicated that there has been no level of success in the WoD (“I understand that you believe that there is a level of success. But clearly that is not true. Their efforts to intercept drug trafficking makes no difference.”) Then later, he points out that, “The cons of the War greatly outweigh the pros.” Clearly, if there are any ‘Pros’ at all, then his earlier statement must be untrue. This is evidence of hyperbole, in my opinion. My partner also points out that the penalties for minor drug offenses are too severe, and that these limit the earning potential of persons thereby convicted. Here, he is exactly correct – and he makes a somewhat convincing case for why we should modify our laws that criminalize less dangerous intoxicants. I would like to see him elaborate on this point, as I feel that it is his only strong defense. These rebuttals can be summarized as follows: 1. Laws cannot govern drug users2. The WoD cannot reduce drug use Both of these statements are unsupported by any evidence, and actually argue in favor of the WoD: if “laws cannot govern drug abusers,” then preventing that abuse from occurring in the first place is essential for societal governance. Therefore, good governance requires that we support the modification of the WoD, but not it's complete abandonment. Therefore, the WoD cannot be considered a "failure."

"Well we should be able to change the constitution because it is out dated" Just because a law is old does not mean it has to change. The 10 commandments had the commandment, "Thou shall not steal". This is an old law. Should it be replaced? No. Laws should not be judged on the basis of their age."Still back to the topic I was talking about, would you like it if a bunch of people were protesting right in front of your house at midnight" With very few exceptions, this does not happen. If protestors happen to march by your house, they won't just stay there. They will march forward, unless your unlucky enough to live near the white house."Would you like a bunch of boycotters in a library" What's wrong with Boycotting? Boycotting simply means that you don't buy the product or service of a company because you don't like their product. An example is with Chick Fill A. Mny people boycotted Chick Fill A stuff because they didn't like the views of the owner. While I aggree wit the owner's views on that issue, opponents should have the right to not buy Chick Fill A products because of this.While there should be limitations for protesting such as no rioting, vandalism, or violent behavior, people should be allowed to boycott on private property, people can protest any hour of the day that they want, if it's at night, then nearby residents probably wouldn't hear it due to them being asleep, and even then, it would just be a temporary noise that residents would tolterate and then they would enjoy the sleep afterwards. People shouldn't protest for things that already have, but they nonetheless still should have the right to. People also have right to protest about things that don't make sense. You shouldn't need permission from the government to protest peacefully.

You say that we have been unable to regulate businesses in the real world, so why try in the digital? In reality, the two are not parallel. I do indeed realize that advertising is part of the business, and the advantage gained therefrom is exactly what logically follows for having been the first to market. Economic growth is hindered when the rewards for success do not necessarily follow from the success itself, for example, legal smothering, or in this case, the imposition of unreasonable fees to get into an online market. Something like advertising does follow from the success itself, since it is directly related to the product and does not try to seek its own in extracompetitive methods by altering the playing field itself.

Its not completely clear what my opponent is arguing for but I will attempt to interpret his argument as best I can. Please correct me if I am wrong, but the resolution appears to be something along the lines of "Online Poker websites need to be monitored and regulated by law". It is not clear to me what those regulations should be exactly. I hope pro will address this in more detail next round. His main example is that of a website enticing people to play, and moving games along more quickly, by increasing the proportion of so called "monster hands" that occur during play. I fail to see how such an action would break any laws, however. In the same way that real casinos feature players who allegedly won thousands of dollars (even though the majority of players never win nearly that much), online poker sites dangle the possibility of winning big money in front of players hoping to entice them to play more. Unless they are forcing people to play against their will, or explicitly lying to players about the probabilities of winning, they have committed no crime and need not be regulated. Its well known by most people that casinos, including online casinos, skew all the games to their favor; if they did not do so, they would not make a profit and would be closed down. To fault a poker site for ensuring its profits is to destroy the ability of anyone to successfully run an online poker site, thus directly going against your objectives as a poker fan. The other issue I have with Pro's argument is that he doesn't consider the practicality of what he is arguing at all. Laws against fraud already exist; if an online poker site cheats its customers in the aforementioned ways, they can already be prosecuted- whoever runs the site and in their own country. Additional laws specific to online poker are not needed. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to establish jurisdiction online. If the website server is based in one country, the owner in another, and the players in a third, fourth, and fifth countries, what governing body has the authority to prosecute any of them for anything? Inconsistent regulations between countries would make it extremely difficult for anyone to be prosecuted; the only way for a government to regulate such a thing would be censorship- banning of the sites it finds distasteful. This would be an extremely politically unpopular move and is unlikely to be supported by anyone. Indeed, though online poker is illegal in the US, many Americans are still able to play online. [1] Unless my opponent can provide a clearer case as to which regulations he advocates, and how they can be reasonably implemented, he has failed to support her assertions. I look forward to his thoughts on the matter. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org...

I agree with you 100% just like Brown vs Board of Education this is "separate but equal".

"This would not happen. The buisnesses would problably agree on a price that is higher than the one we currently have then they would keep it in that general area. Another reason that the price would go up is that the buisness would need to make a proft. " (business and profit are spelled wrong) The buisnesses would not want to raises prices because they would loose customers to the internet. The electronical part of communication is already growing exponentially. My opponent has also failed to recognize my proposal that perhaps the government put a price cap on it so that we wouldn't be charged an insane amount to send a letter. "This is absolutly bogus. Rather than the quality of the U. S. postal service that we currently have, if privitized the quality would go down for a number of reasons. 1)the buisnessees would have to cover costs by cutting down on quality. 2)the system would not be held up by government spending. " (buisnessees? ) I think that my opponent absolutely fails to realize what competition does. If the quality went down the (once again) the companies would lose customers to electronics. This would result in even a greater loss of money if they even lose money, and on the reverse of this if they had a better quality they could charge alittle more and nobody would care because the quality would increase. "Also, what would happen to all the current U. S. postal employees? They would be fired which would add to an already troubled economy. What would happen to the buildings and the trucks and the tools? They would rot away into nothing. The moeny we already put into them would be wasted. " This is a very easy fix. Auction off the goods and work ot a deal to transfer the employees. "I will offer a final reason as to why we should keep the U. S. postal service. Interaction with other countries. Our postal service official delivers and recieves mail from other countries. The postal service is so entertwined with our interactions with other countries that to privitize it would be repugnant because it would require foriwghn countires to use a privite buisness rather than government buisness. " The actual mail the the U. S. government would send would still be official. I doubt another county would care who delivers it as long as it gets delivered appropriately. In conclusion the U. S. postal service should be sold because it would have many benefits. It would save the U. S. government money. Actually if the U. S. government taxed it alittle it in money from that industry. Also it would increase the quality of the mail service as well as help to further stimulate a wounded economy.

I feel I own the right to privacy and I feel everyone does. My name is Ben by the way, second, I challenge you to tell my one benefit that the NSA has gotten out of spying on us. See that the NSA is the Government a d the government is owned by the people of the United States I have a right to tell them not look at my stuff. The NSA I feel is an illegal part of our government right now. Again I challenge you to find a terrorist attack that has been stopped by the NSA since 2001 when the patriot act was enacted. Spying to me is censorship, you shouldn't be prosecuted on what you do on the internet. The internet is a free library available to the most common man for free. It is a world wide library of information. Do you get prosecuted for checking books out of the library , no! Do you accept my challenge?

That’s not the definition of religion, in fact it’s a horrible definition of religion. It targets theism specifically when there are religions that are atheistic (e.g. Buddhism) this definition is completely biased. But all this aside, it doesn’t matter how we ourselves define religion, the question is what did they mean by the “establishments of religion” and what it’s function was. It’s function was never intended to remove God, it was intended to remove Church favoritism. You need to understand that the authors of this amendment viewed God as a self-evident fact of life, when they were talking about “establishments of religion”, they were talking about churches not God himself. The reason why God is not taught in school is because the intelligent design group were being dishonest in their case. Which was extremely detrimental. It’s not because we are a secular nation, it’s because the presenter’s credibility was destroyed. Just about every debater knows that you can have a perfectly winnable case, but if you lose credibility, you will lose no matter what you do. Also they don’t teach facts in natural science, because they can’t, you would be severely misunderstanding science literature if you think that is true. For example evolution and the big bang are theories, not a fact, theories are popular speculations by scientists, not facts. Just because the universe expands doesn’t mean it exploded, I expand as I get older, but that doesn’t mean I exploded. The way how science works is that they look at the “evidence” that coincides with a naturalist worldview, and try to speculate on how things happen…. When new evidence surfaces they change their speculation in hopes to fit the evidence because that is the rational thing to do. There is no absolute truth (Facts) in natural science, simply because that is not how science works. Well yeah, literary would drop. If the idea is to increase literary, then we can also offer to teach opposing literacy. As in we don’t have to just teach naturalism in public schools, but require to teach creationism as well. That would increase literacy dramatically. Children would have a much more rounded and fair education, one that isn’t being suppressed by secularists. And this’ll enable kids to have a better understanding of American values and heritage, the primary one is belief in God. I just find it absurd that kids can’t learn about the creator in American schools, even when our very own declaration of independence asserts his existence. The kids in school should know their maker. Secular nation? Are you blind? Lets see I could list them out… there is tax exemption of churches, chaplaincies in the armed forces, the "Pray for Peace" postmark, the widespread observance of Christmas holidays, and, in classrooms, singing the fourth stanza of America which is prayer invoking the protection of God, and the words "in God is our trust" as found in the National Anthem, and the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, modified by an Act of Congress of June 14, 1954, to included the words "under God". We are certainly a religious nation, most of our institutions presuppose a supreme being. theres a lot more evidence i could list. Seriously, the fact that our very own currency has “in God we trust” is proof we are a religious nation and not a secular one. Yes it does reject the atheist position…. It says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” That is clearly rejecting the atheist position. Atheists don’t believe in a maker. It even mentions God when it says “…station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,” The document is more than that, it tells us why we have some fundamental human rights in America, and why the policies are structured the way they are. Why do we have unalienable rights? Because of God. The thing is, if we don’t teach that there is a creator, we might risk raising a generation that will second guess our human rights because they don’t believe in God. This is why Kids should learn about their creator in schools to secure these American values.

I'll be your "Huckleberry". You're argument is flawed. And your topic, "The United States government should stay out of my online poker business", is completely short-sighted. My goal is, at the end of this debate, that you, and the judges, will agree with my contentions. I believe this first round is for salutations, so. .. "Greetings. .. .now, bring it on" Thanks for instigating the debate.


Question: Should the Principles of Net Neutrality Be Reinstated?

The Repeal of Net Neutrality: A Necessary Move for Economic Growth and Innovation

Recently, the FCC made the decision to repeal net neutrality, a move that I fully endorse. My support for this decision is rooted in the belief that repealing net neutrality will eliminate unnecessary regulations on ISPs, allowing for economic growth in this sector. Moreover, many concerns raised by net neutrality advocates are either unrealistic or devoid of economic substance.

Firstly, getting rid of net neutrality will remove a series of harmful regulations on ISPs, enabling the free market to take charge of the internet as it should. Under Title II, also known as net neutrality, ISPs must submit any new technology or business model ideas to the FCC. This regulation stifles innovation and harms the internet economy. Additionally, the FCC has the power to partially regulate the capital investment of existing companies and decide which companies can enter the ISP market. This means that the "monopoly" problem often cited by opponents of the repeal is more likely to occur under net neutrality due to the business-stifling regulations that block potential new ISPs from entering the market.

Repealing net neutrality will eliminate these harmful restrictions, fostering innovation, investment, and entry into the ISP market. It will also trigger those who favor excessive government regulation. Other regulations that will be abolished under this repeal include the prohibition of paid priority, which allows ISPs to pay for faster data transmission. Smaller ISPs used to benefit from paid priority, but net neutrality prevented it, leaving them at a disadvantage in the marketplace.

Secondly, the concerns of net neutrality advocates are often unrealistic. The two main concerns are that ISPs will make users pay for access to certain websites or block access to certain websites or throttle speeds. However, these claims lack economic sense. If an ISP charged exorbitant prices for access to certain sites, people would switch to another ISP with better prices due to the principle of competition. The argument that some people only have access to one ISP, giving them a monopoly, is also false. Another ISP could enter the area offering better prices, leading to lower prices for consumers.

In conclusion, repealing net neutrality will remove harmful regulations on ISPs, fostering innovation, investment, and entry into the ISP market. It will also eliminate unrealistic concerns raised by net neutrality advocates. The repeal of net neutrality is a necessary move for economic growth and innovation in the ISP sector.

We can argue both. I ask my opponent to slow down with this debate (putting out his argument within the last day)as I don't have Internet connection and will try to respond as fast as possible.

i believe that this is my final rebuttal, so i will present conclusion and voter issues if the opponent wants to do the same. i have infact through out this whole case been trying to say that the jury should judge the law as well as the facts when a case is nullified all cahrges are dropped, like aquit or cleared..you cant nullify someone and still punish them.....besides that goes against your whole argument. "this is not neccessarily harmful." oh no not harmful when people are killed i have only one voter issue and that is that my opponent hasnt proven jury nullification to be a good thing. i feel as though i have proven jury nullification to be a harm to society and to be unjust so i ask everyone to vote negated, thank you

i invite anybody who is for the NSA spying to debate me on this topic. round 2 will be opening statements and round 3-4 will be rebuttal and round 5 will be closing arguments. alot of people here do voting based on grammer but this is the internet so im not going to use proper grammer and i ask, please dont vote based on grammer and stuff like that.

Due to unforseen circumstances I will not be able to continue this debate. When im off restriction i hope we may resume. I should be able to re do this debate in 10 days. I hope we may continue tyhis once my restriction is lifted

It is a disappointment that Mr. Douglas did not make his initial arguments. If Mr. Douglas wishes to continue the debate, he may ONLY publish his arguments in this round, and not provide both arguments and a rebuttle as this would be unfair to myself.I continue to hold my three arguments, and look forward to my opponents arguments on this issue.

Oh, right. I forgot about that rule. I suppose we can redo it.

You are only repeating yourself and adding few arguments to your old arguments. round one: you say it brings prosperity and allow people to work at home (with no sources to prove it what-so-ever), I rebut with cyber-bullying and stalker/sexual predators round two: you say educated people can navigate it safely and it brings people together, as shown by debate. org, I rebut with trolls and spammers and possibility of children being affected, and hoaxes on the internet, showing the websites' untrustworthynessround three: you say the internet gives off information (which I already stated! ) and people can differentiate the trustworthy and biased articles. (Then why are the tips there for how to tell if a website is trustworthy or not? If people can differentiate, then there is no need for such articles! ) You continue stating "help bring people together". .. again? And then you say. .. "it brings the world together. .. ." You stated that twice. Just saying! Ok, so now, my final argument. Con has merely one source on his side (unless counting debate. org), so I will win sources wise. Conduct, maybe Con win, since he has "THANK YOU" in all caps. Spelling. .. .not sure, possibly tie. .. And finally, Convincing arguments. Well, I have to say, con did quite a nice job attempting to counter all my negatives effects of the internet. Because I do not want to lose the argument conduct-wise by bringing up a new point in my conclusion, I shall sum up everything I said in the previous rounds. The internet is not always credible, as people can post whatever they want, even if it's a lie. (One great example being the "fact" above. :P)The internet has cyber-bullying and predators, both which are very hard to stop. The internet has bad suggestive effect on children with its trolls and spammers. Children can also be effected by video games. (according to a newspaper article,a student was found dead in front of the computer for being to addicted to playing games) . http://content.time.com...The internet can invade your privacy (with cyber-bullying and the news) In conclusion, the internet brings more harm than good. It is because of the ever-changing nature of the internet that it harms many people.

Welcome. I do not think there should be restrictions on Guns. Now, let me make a clear point here. I'm talking about guns, not deadly weapons ex. Nuclear Bombs or Missiles. I believe that the gun control in the US is unnecessary and nonproductive. I am glad to find someone to debate me over this topic in which I feel very strongly about, and welcome you and you're beliefs honorably. So, here we go. Gun control and laws are wrong.

You are just restating something you already said, and, was rebutted. I am still awaiting your rebuttals.

I recommend you post your argument accordingly and try to get your point across because there is only a small amount of people who favor your side with little to no supporting details. I will forfeit this round to five you a little "catch back". As I did before but I seriously recommend a post soon.


Question: Should the Principle of Net Neutrality Be Reestablished?

The USFG should not restore Net Neutrality.

However, let's delve into the discussion. In this conclusive round, I will provide a final critique of Pro's arguments, tying up loose ends and clarifying points I've made. I'll also aim to persuade the audience to vote for Con over Pro. Pro focuses heavily on the FCC and criticizes it on principles and concepts, which need clarification. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a principle is "a general idea of plan, though details are unestablished," and a concept is "an abstract idea." Pro argues we should focus on current net neutrality proposals, but this misses the point of debating principles or concepts, where details are abstract or not established. Pro's rebuttal is irrelevant; by focusing on current legislation, he undermines the purpose of debating principles or concepts.

I gave a hypothetical scenario where Pro's freedom of speech argument is nullified, showing the FCC can regulate ISPs transparently and democratically. Pro questions this scenario's feasibility but misses the point; it's far-fetched to show Pro's argument doesn't apply in all scenarios, and we can't reject net neutrality as a principle or concept. Pro compares TVs and radios with the Internet, but misses the point of my argument about information transfer. Pro concedes to only making a comparison with China, leaving him with no argument and failing to clarify his position. Pro assumes the FCC is against freedom of speech, but falls short of showing a net benefit without net neutrality, focusing too narrowly on specific legislation rather than net neutrality as a principle or concept.

Pro hasn't addressed the moral philosophy aspect, instead pushing for a debate on the descriptive statement. Pro appeals to common business practice, but this doesn't logically lead to the conclusion that prices should vary. We have no compelling reason for ISPs to price content differently based on bandwidth needs. Pro dropped his argument about empirical evidence showing negative effects of regulation in Europe on innovation and consumer access, and didn't refute evidence showing net neutrality benefits innovation.

Pro concedes that an ISP's pricing plan is dependant on its actions, but argues network congestion is more likely solved without net neutrality. This premise is unjustified and false, as McKay's observation shows network congestion is also due to the ISP's data transmission method. With net neutrality, ISPs have an incentive to upgrade their systems to deal with congestion. Conversely, without net neutrality, they have no incentive to upgrade.

In conclusion, Pro hasn't fulfilled his burden of proof, and all his arguments fail. I've refuted Pro

In this speech I will be focusing on rebuttal, for surprisingly little of my first speech's constructive has been directly challenged. When I put the question to my opponent, what harm he thinks my model will bring, he told you it would be harder for cyberbullies to get jobs. He claims that ruining a person's life, self-esteem, power and ultimately job prospects, is correctly remedied by teaching people not to cyberbully. How many of us have been told in church to treat others as we want to be treated? How few of us do? My opponent responds to none of my analysis as to why a legal threat is needed for education to work. Besides, if harder work prospects for bullies is the worst thing that can come of this model, then that's a good thing too. It is good for employers, who know that some people are more prone to injure others. It is good for the victims because it gives them a sense of justice, which your counter-model does not provide. And it is good for the bullies themselves, as an effective deterrent from doing the crime again. My opponent makes a superficial case for why education prevents further harm in addition. It doesn't matter whether it does or doesn't, my opponent still needs to knock down my model before he can build up his. He later adds that it is unfair to criminalize something for adults and not for kids. I would gladly answer this question fully, but the chair has foolishly barred me from making any argument pertaining to adults. I also challenge the very question as it goes against the spirit of the motion and is therefore a squirreled point. I think it is fair to say this, however: if a blanket ban were to be imposed it would be optimal, but any effort to eradicate this nuisance must surely be better than none. Hate speech in the workplace is actually banned in most jurisdictions, unless it can be proven to be true. A similar sort of thing can be imposed for the cyberworld. Problem solved. Then my opponent talks about legal effectiveness and the Long Island example. In Long Island there was an 11% decline. This means that while previously (my estimate, based on the US-wide proportion) 5% of children felt threatened, now 4.45% felt threatened. Even with this totally unacceptably small drop, there are problems with these figures. Teens are less likely to report cyberbullying if they have been given a large-scale educational program telling them that it is not OK to cyberbully, because it gives them the impression that it is taboo within society and thus that people don't do it. Therefore when somebody does do it to them they do not identify it correctly and therefore do not report it. If cyberbullying really WAS taboo within society, as would be the case under a hybrid model (education and legal change), then this would not be the case. If cyberbullying was just made illegal, that fact in and of itself would educate people, especially if ratified by international convention, through the process I discussed earlier. That 45 states had no results is a lie - as it was not done as part of a study, we have no reliable statistics on whether or not it had an impact or how great this impact was. I tend to suspect it was somewhat higher than the Long Island case, but that is just my opinion against yours so the point is moot at best. Next my opponent says difficulty in conviction means that conviction is a waste of time. Great, so I guess we should abolish all trials with low conviction rates. Starting, as I alluded to, with rape. If we keep rape, you have nothing against cyberbullies. To this my opponent later stated that in rape, the intention and knowledge of harm is always crystal clear. In fact, this is a lie. Most of the time there are significant complications - in New Zealand, I know for instance that over three quarters of all rape trials concern rape where at least one party was drunk. It is also usually very hard to prove that the victim did not intend to consent, which of course must all be shown beyond reasonable doubt. It must be remembered that in criminal cases, if something is in doubt, it must work in favor of the defendant. He also claims that a bully's motivations are unclear, before going on to tell us exactly what a bully's motivations are. Either he lied to the house with his statements of a bully's motivations, or his judgment that a bully's motivations are unclear has shifted. Then my opponent tells you he agrees with all of my principles. Yay! Finally, my opponent conceeds that education, in many cases, does not work. He claimed this was because of the joy of suffering and lack of accountability to victims. These are exactly the problems that my model remedies. With a legal avenue for resolving these problems, you give the bullies pain to counteract their joy in others suffering, and hold them accountable for their actions. Answering my questions thus is almost the only substantive material my opponent added to his table of arguments. The other thing he said was that he supports the current laws banning some cyberbullying. While opposed to a blanket ban on cyberbullying, he admits the present legislation is good and working, but anything more is "our liberties. " Last time I checked, there was no freedom to cyberbully in the law. I have already debunked his reference to the first amendment, so I'd like my opponent, as one of his questions, to name and ask me to read a statute, case or declaration that proclaims the legality of cyberbullying and is in force today. He won't, because there isn't one. This debate is all about how to resolve the problem of cyberbullying. I have shown how all the key stakeholders are better off with a ban, why a ban is more effective than education alone and exactly how a ban would work. All my opponent has really said is that education might work too. I agree. But that does nothing to attack the motion, and neither is it mutually exclusive with my model - voters can agree with both of us and the motion would still fall to my side of the house, despite the fact that your model is so weak that it ignores more than half of the stakeholders and is ineffective in and of itself. Primarily, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is about fixing a menace on our world. You have two options - apply a band aid of education to the root of the issue, or do something more to heal it. Law is not all about penalizing, it is about healing too. Let us do something together to save our most vulnerable.

sorry for my writing and grammar mistakes, though your example with people buying the Miami heat and the bobcat is true in basketball but not in the real world since about 90% of the people don't look at the quality but by the looks and the price. this happens with cars as well as stores like walmart. Walmart destroyed its competitors by making the price go down so much that people had to buy from them not the local stores. though there were only a couple that stay on their level like publix. Also when I said it would turn out to be a mess I meant that there would not be a standard. this happens with apple and Microsoft. even with only two companies there is such a difference that it takes years to make a game that works both on windows and Macs, just think of how it would be if there were about 30. this is like railroads back in the day when there were hundreds of companies and each company had its own railroad size and you would have to wait very long before you could move again, this changed when there was one standard only one software would stop the waiting for software to be translated from windows to Mac. also I would like to bring up the idea that Monopolies such as standard oil really built America and made it the best country in the world. if their was no Vanderbilt and his companies did not exist America would be a 3rd level country. he made trade easier and changed America in a good way not in a bad way like most Monopolies do. also i will have to thankyou and this has tought me a lot about history and Monopolies. to tell you the truth i thought that monopolies were bad but i wanted to learn more so i made a debate. I am very thankfull to you that you kept up with the debate and gave a good Argument.

I will not have time to post a full round, seeing as I had school and then when I got home my Internet wasn't working, leaving me with only thirty minutes. opponents arguments: "Such a blanket punishment is decidedly unfair, because it punishes the lightest offenders as strictly as the highest ones. Since punishment should be fair (i.e. it should fit the crime), these registries should be discontinued." I agree with you, it is unfair that sexual offender is such a blanket term, but registries should not be discontinued. If you pee in public, you risk being caught and labeled as a sexual offender. Well, use your brain and DONT do pee in public. There are gas stations, parks, restaurants, etc. that someone could stop at and use the bathroom. There is no need to go in public. "Sex offenders shy away from seeking therapist help, because they fear being revealed and put on the list permanently." They may shy away from seeking therapist help, but if they (or the family) knows what's best, they will seek help, no matter what. And if they are sexual offenders, they need to be put on the list anyways to warn the surrounding area. "Rehabilitation builds the future; punishment gets stuck in the past and neglects today and tomorrow." punishment and rehabilitation should go hand in hand. They should put a sex offender on the list until they have been rehabilitated, and then they can be taken off the list. I know this is not the case, so they should be punished. Punishment will show them what happens when they do something like that. would you rather punish the person that hurt the child or punish the child? because not punishing the offender is the same thing as punishing the child. That is not fair that the child went through the pain. "Such dehumanization is the cause of much social evil: racism flourished because blacks were dehumanized; Nazism grew through the dehumanization of Jews. I ask the reader to affirm that all humans are equal, that offenders are human and deserve our concern... that, in the words of Martin Luther King, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." so you are comparing people who hurt other people to Jews and blacks? Sex offenders deserve this, The Jews and blacks didn't. Gossip is not all the time true, so if we don't have a registry, who will know what is true and what is a lie? my arguments: sorry its not alot, again, I didn't have the time. 1) sex offender registries may stop future sex offenders from committing their crime. They will not want to be put on the list, so they will simply seek help. 2) you cant just simply stop registries. There would be to many parents who would have a problem and complain. And what would you tell them the reason that you stopped them was? Because it hurt the sex offenders feelings? Boo Hoo. There are kids out there who will never get there virginity or trust in other people back because of what these sick people did. The websites will be posted in the comments section, I am really pushing it for time right now. Thanks. And just answer this: If a sex offender were living by you, would you want to know?

1. Under LD debate rules, the definitions have to be made at the outset. However, this is not a debate under LD rules. For a debate.org debate to be made under LD rules, the proponent has to declare that unambiguously in the challenge. That was not done in this case. There are also LD rules pertaining to officially declaring and challenging values and value criteria. Those rules do not apply either. It is free form debate, the intellectual equivalent of a cage match. However, there is no escape from semantics, logic, and verification of facts. Those are inherent to debate. 2. I don't have a problem with Con's definitions as far as they go. The meaning of "democratic" is separately contested below. I also dispute Con's definition of "felony." Note that we are only dealing with convicted felons. Felons who haven't been convicted retain the right to vote. 3. I reject Con's thesis that the preï¿½minent value at issue is or ought to be democracy. The value at issue is and ought to be good government. If democracy were the preï¿½minent value, then the Founders would have specified a democracy in the Constitution rather than a republic. Moreover, if democracy were the most important thing, then non-citizens and even small children would be afforded the right to vote. We have a republic, and we restrict voting in the interests of good government. All democratic governments do the same, all in the interests of good government. 4. I challenge Con to say whether or not he favors extending the vote in all elections to non-citizens and small children? If he does not, then I challenge him to explain the principle at work that he uses to override the extension of democracy. 5. Con asserts, "Clearly there exists no standing relationship between disenfranchising and a criminal act." This assertion is false, because there is clear data that convicted felons are likely to continue exercising poor judgment by continuing to commit criminal acts. The primary interest of career criminals when voting is to undermine the justice system, and therefore that is good reason to withhold voting rights. It is true that some convicted felons will reform and vote according to the general interests of American society. It is also true that some non-citizens and some under-age citizens will exercise the judgment to vote along with the general interests of American society as a whole. The exclusion of those classes of voters is based upon the considerable probability that they will not. The case is as strong or stronger that a convicted felon will not vote with the interests of society considered in the way that non-felons will consider them. Felons can be relied upon to vote overwhelmingly to undermine the justice system. 6. Con rebuts "the thing is the resolution states democratic society. it does not state one certain democratic society such as the U.S. so this argument can be dropped." So can a society be "democratic" without being a strict democracy in which everyone votes and every law is put to a direct vote of the people? The definition of "democratic" is http://www.answers.com... 1. Of, characterized by, or advocating democracy: democratic government; a democratic union. 2. Of or for the people in general; popular: a democratic movement; democratic art forms. 3. Believing in or practicing social equality: "a proper democratic scorn for bloated dukes and lords" (George du Maurier). A government need not be a strict democracy, as Con supposes, to be characterized by democracy. None of the definitions support Con's strict definition. Moreover, if Con's definition were accepted, then people would truthfully say things like, "There are no democratic governments anywhere in the world." The opposite is quite clear, people recognize that many governments are characterized by democracy without being the strict democracies that Con supposes. 7. Con asks, "If it [is] said all men were created equal then why are felons disenfranchised?" The short answer is that they may have been created equal, but felons went astray after their creation, and their demonstrated lack of judgment resulted in their disenfranchisement. The long answer is that the quoted "created equal" is in the Declaration of Independence, which is not a governing document. Clarification of the implications of "created equal" lies in the Constitution. The Constitution establishes the classes under which discrimination under law is prohibited, and there is nothing that prohibits discrimination for felony conviction. If the Constitution prohibited discrimination for felony conviction, then felons could not be imprisoned. None of the other protected classes (race, religion, ethnicity) can be imprisoned solely for being a member of the class. 8. Con asks, "what is the difference between felons and citizens, aren't the both citizens?" They are both citizens, but so are small children. Citizenship alone provides no guarantee of a right to vote. 9. Con claims, "my oppent [opponent] states that 'Convicted felons are an identifiable target for politicians', this argument cant be upheld or proven true, because there is no evidence to prove this claim." It is fair in a debate to call upon the common sense of the audience (or judges). The assertion follows from (1) The main purpose of voting is that citizens may look out for their interests, (2) politicians appeal to the interests of citizens to get votes, (3) criminals have a strong interest in weakening the justice system, and therefore (4) politicians will target criminals with positions that favor weakening the justice system. There is supporting evidence from cases in Florida, cited, wherein Liberal politicians clearly believed they could win the criminal vote. 10. Con claims, "as we can clearly see if we vote for the PRO. we will be punishing criminals twice by taking away the right to vote and by making them serve a sentence." First, there is nothing wrong with punishing someone in two different ways. We punish many felons by both imprisoning them and later putting them on parole, and sometimes also making them register and wear a tracking device. Second, Con agreed that a purpose of imprisonment is not only punishment, but to prevent the criminal from doing further harm. Denying the vote is a proper and reasonable way to prevent the criminal from doing further harm by voting for candidates that promise to weaken the justice system. 11. Con asserts "he [Pro] states that letting felons vote will hurt our economy and justice system. this is not true because there are such felonies that are minor such as J-walking and repeated speeding." This is incorrect. There are three classes of crimes infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies. J-walking is an infraction. Repeated speeding is usually and infraction, but might rise to a misdemeanor depending upon the state and the circumstances. Felonies are only the most serious crimes. For example, felony drunk driving generally involves killing someone. A felony is "One of several grave crimes, such as murder, rape, or burglary, punishable by a more stringent sentence than that given for a misdemeanor." http://www.answers.com... Summary Con's rebuttal is an artificial construct that supposes that democracy is a supreme value that ought to trump good government. There is ample evidence that virtually no one believes that have more democracy leads to better government. To the contrary, the Founders preferred a republic, and minors and non-citizens are not allowed to vote -- all in the interests of good government. Felons have proved poor judgment and so the interests of good government should prevail. The resolution is affirmed.

I would first like to congratulate my opponent on finding the most biased sources possible to support his claim. If his argument rests on the claims of the NSA and FBI, it is a house of cards that can be blown apart by the most cursory examination into the trustworthiness of his sources. If, however, the affirmative has other evidence, I encourage him to present it all at once rather than bit by bit, so that we may spend as much time as possible discussing the full affirmative argument. I see no need to devise arguments of my own at this time; the burden of proof is on the affirmative, and the burden of proof will not be satisfied with such laughably untrustworthy sources.

Con basically has 2 arguments: 1) Stop the virus makers 2) Anti-virus protection should be "free" on the internet First, obviously if people knew who were responsible for creating the viruses, they would be punished. At attempt to inhibit them includes incorporating penalties such as a sentencing for up to ten years in federal prison as well as paying a fine if they are caught [1]. Second, anti-virus programs work because there are employees (techies) at various companies who work to stay up to date with the latest internet trends and problems. These people are paid handsomely for their expertise. Since the internet is not nationalized, who do you suppose would pay for the techies who help keep our computers safe? You can't expect the owner of every single website or domain to be able to protect everyone. The system we have now allows people the freedom to choose whether or not they want to purchase protection or accept the risk of being affected. Products like McAfee, Norton, etc. compete for your business and pay their employees by us purchasing their products. I fail to see how a better system would work, and Pro hasn't explained how it would be feasible for the internet to be "automatically protected." So until then... Also, I'm pretty sure that my opponent's stance in this debate is not that people should opt NOT to buy protection. Obviously protection is important and I would advocate buying it even though we have to pay for it. If my opponent objects, I'll address it in the next round. For now I'll send the debate back their way -- good luck. [1] http://www.fmew.com...

So, this is a redo of our debate due to the fact Con was unable to post his argument. Rules and format are the same, so opening arguments will be posted in the second round.

I debated against him a little while ago (. http://www.debate.org...), so now I'm here for the rematch! In my opening speech I will outline the problem we are facing, and my model. Then I will address some of my opponent's advance criticisms of this model, and present two firm principles that present a clear conclusion: That cyberbullying should be a criminal offense. Cyberbullying is the act of bullying somebody in cyberspace [1], usually through text messaging or the internet. Bullying can be defined as the act of being cruel to others [2], and manifests itself in cyberspace in many ways [6]. It happens to people of all ages and races, and it's on the rise. More alarming is that kids are doing it more than adults, so when these kids grow up, unless something is done soon, we will probably see the prevalence of cyberbullying increasing. Almost half of all US kids have been bullied while online [3]. That's not something that is OK, for a number of reasons. First, it harms the victim. In my native New Zealand, three teenagers recently committed suicide due to text-message abuse. Aside from physical harms to the victim, there are social and emotional harms that must be considered. As with any bullying incident people still feel emotionally scarred for years to come [4], made far worse by the face that they often do not know for certain the people who cause the harm (43% of the time according to one Canadian study [3]). Often the bullying is one of the tools of choice for sexual predators too [5]. Second, it harms the person committing the cyber bullying. It gives them the idea that they can exploit people freely, as they got away with in a cyber setting. Unfortunately this is not the case, and soon they will find themselves in trouble with the law anyway. It is better to learn from a small crime than from a big one, because after committing a more minor offence such as harassment one does not feel as "trapped" within a life of crime. Third, it also has far-reaching effects on the victim's family, friends and community, as they feel vulnerable to the cyber threat and victimized along with the victim. My model to overcome this problem is simple. An immediate, outright, international ban on cyberbullying by means of a convention. This will tackle the main reasons why people cyberbully. When people know the consequences and learn to respect others, cyberbullying incidents go down [7]. While the problem might not be totally solvable, at least having the threat is bad enough. Having an international law is a significant threat, and it teaches the main body of cybercriminals - children - that what they are doing is not OK. What I don't mean to do is set up a false dichotomy. Any prevention would be desirable, it is only that an international ban would be the most desirable because it would tell adult cyberbullies that they cannot simply hire somebody in another country to do the dirty work for them. But what my opponent must rationalize, and what I believe he has failed to do, is why cyberbullying should not be banned, should not be an element of our social contract and therefore should be legitimized, despite the clear harms I have shown. My opponent told you three things. First he said that conviction would be difficult. Well, maybe. Let's look at another crime where you often don't know your attacker and is hard to prove intent beyond doubt, among other challenges - rape. In the USA, the rape conviction rate is only about 12% according to a 1990 study [9]. Does this mean we should decriminalize rape as a futile exercise? Of course not, that's just silly. And by the way, all of the points about the first amendment are lies. Freedom of speech is regularly curtailed if it is hate speech, and the best lawyers agree there is no constitutional right to cyberbully [8]. Second he said that it does not remedy the harm. Well, does it ever? If I murder somebody and get shipped off to jail for life, how does that make it any better for the family of the person I killed? The point is that when people do something wrong, society is obliged to impose some form of penalty upon them for the wrong they have done. I can demonstrate that taking one life is an equivalent harm to the loss of my own life (in jail). In the same way, the harm done by cyberbullying can be remedied. He said that education does remedy the wrong. So apparently if I murder somebody then the wrong will be remedied if somebody tells me "don't do that again! " No, it won't. The harm will be removed only when I have paid the price for my crime. The same is true for any crime, including cyberbullying. Third he said that the current laws are adequate. At this point he appears to be supporting the current laws of the USA, which ban cyberbullying [8]. Great, so therefore my opponent accepts that the ban on cyberbullying is a good thing and, as a general rule, we should ban cyberbullying. I am glad my opponent agrees! But none of that is what this debate is about. The two principles I said that I would bring to this debate are freedom from fear and innocence without guilty proof. A recent report showed that 5% of American kids are scared for their safety after cyberbullying [3]. Millions of kids are scared, in fear, because of cyberbullying. If 5% of American kids had become scared for their safety in the real world, they would have long past measures to counteract the problem. However, people think that if it happens in the virtual world it must be OK. It is not OK. Virtual gambling is as much a crime as real world gambling, so why can the same principle not be applied when people's whole mentalities are at stake? We pay our governments millions to protect us from external and internal threats to our safety - through the police and defense force - and here my opponent suggests we should ignore a significant segment of the population because the medium through which this fear is propagated is not on his select list. Second, cyberbullying makes it too easy to victimize people without guilty proof. I could post on my opponent's wall right now ("you're a _____! ") and he'd be instantly victimized. The trouble is, I don't have any positive proof of anything about my opponent. If we assume innocence without guilty proof, a good portion of the cyberbullying would not happen. Cyberbullying is wrong. I'm proud to oppose, and I'd be proud to have your vote to win this motion for the victims and all affected. I await my opponent's first crossfire anxiously. [1] - . http://en.wiktionary.org... [2] - . http://en.wiktionary.org... [3] - . http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] - . http://www.stopcyberbullying.org... [5] - . http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] - . http://www.stopcyberbullying.org... [7] - . http://www.stopcyberbullying.org... [8] - . http://www.cyberbully.org... [9] - . http://webcache.googleusercontent.com...

My opponent ignored the fallacious reasoning I presented was just a restatement of his own to show it was a weak argument. I will respond to his points and then provide more reasons to support my policy. 1 Several legal experts believe it would not be a violation of constitutional rights. I agree with their reading of the law, and there are good reasons to leave this question to the discretion of the people. I think the phrasing that the founding fathers "respected all faiths" is misleading. If read a certain way, one might think they admired all the faiths, which I seriously doubt. There"s a clear difference between allowing people religious freedom and completely ignoring religion as a factor with immigration policy. Regardless of your opinion of the Muslim religion, it goes against common sense to ignore a person"s beliefs when determining their right to enter the country. Once again my opponent gives a slippery slope argument by an analogy to Germany under Hitler. Just because something has happened before does not make it inevitable to happen in the future. The context is clearly different here on all sides of the issue. My opponent tries to muddy the water with a common tactic of the left when it comes to discussing anything related to Trump: associate him with Hitler and the Nazis. Not only are we talking about completely different circumstances, but his example referred to completely different actions: Arresting, deporting, or sending people off to be murdered at death camps are obviously different than simply putting a halt on immigration. Here it seems you are relying more on emotion than facts and reasoning. As I stated in the last round, the slippery slope you imagined where the U.S. starts banning Hindus, Buddhists, and agnostics are all different issues and I will not be addressing them here other than to say today they seem ludicrous. It isn"t surprising a study from a university in blue California blames Trump for an increase in hate crime. Even the study you quoted points to another factor that could explain the increase in hate crime: Terrorist attacks across the world. I don"t deny this is something that can occur where a religious group declares themselves the enemy of a nation, people, ideology, etc. It"s easy to see how this can become a problem for others who might be innocent but who seem associated with them. My goal is to reduce crime, not increase it. For this point, the relevant question becomes: Would the ban prevent more crimes than it would cause? It is difficult to say, but a closer look at the data is needed to weigh the costs versus the benefits. From stats I"ve seen, the number of alleged hate crimes against Muslims in 2015 was 257. Going from that number, it would be useful to know the types of crime committed. My opponent assume basing the ban on geography will avoid this problem. That seems unlikely, especially considering 9 out of the 13 danger countries he listed had populations of 90%+ Muslim. People committing hate crimes probably weren"t asking which country their victims came from. With my opponent"s reasoning, country specific bans would lead to increased crimes against people who were, or appeared to be from, those countries. And since in most of the countries they were almost entirely Muslim, I expect the number of hate crimes caused by either his plan or mine would be nearly the same. 2 My statements were based on the sources I cited. I simply haven"t seen polls of Muslims from those countries, but my opponent tries to spin that to suggest I am ignoring data that "would reflect poorly on my policy". Making that claim suggests that my opponent has seen polling data from Muslims in those countries. If that"s true, he should cite it. Otherwise, he is making claims based on nothing but his own opinion and assumptions while trying to pass them off as verified facts. There are stats from other countries that are also worrying. This includes polls in the US, France, Spain, Germany, England, and others. And yes, even in Denmark where a 2015 study found that 77% of Muslims believe the Quran"s instructions should be "fully applied" and only 53% thought that Danish law should be based on the constitution instead of the Quran. I plan to go into the statistics a bit more in the last round of the debate. My opponent suggests that my policy could cause 2% of the world"s Muslims to become terrorists. This number and consideration seems to be pulled from nothing but his own guess. If this guess is accurate, it would indeed be a disaster to be sure. I really think that would be a fact that reflects worse on those 2% of Muslims than on the actual policy, but that would be little comfort if suddenly 32 million people became extremists. What if those 2% of Muslims felt as strongly about preventing the legalization of gay marriage? Or about Christians having equal rights? Or about a cartoonist drawing their prophet? Those might be a stretch. However, the Muslim population is so large, as soon as you pick a % and say x action will cause them to become terrorists, it is a disaster. The conclusion of my my opponent puts people on the verge of becoming violent psychopaths in charge of our government. Worse still, it forces us to open our country to them. It is a difficult issue to address, though my opponent"s policy likely suffers the same problems. He argues that most of the potential extremists are from dangerous countries he listed, yet imagines that banning a bunch of almost entirely Muslim countries won"t be seen as the West vs Islam to those hypothetical people on the fence. 5 A person trying to actively hide their religion might be difficult to catch. Perhaps a lie detector test, or using other forms of evidence. But this criticism applies to your counterplan: What if they lie about their country of origin/have a fake passport or no passport? You take all reasonable steps to enforce it, and accept that no policy is likely to be flawless. 6 My opponent makes a number of far-reaching suggestions of concessions that will be required to implement a ban on Muslim immigration. I"m not going to address each individual scenario since my opponent has just held up a conspiracy theory as his proof that his conclusions are true. Once again you"ve stated a problem that most likely applies to both plans, though I don"t believe Trump will be forced to concede a war (or multiple wars) to implement either policy. To say I agreed with "many of your points" would be better phrased as: I acknowledged potential costs of the policy based on facts and reasonable expectations. Both policies, as I have shown, share similar problems. Hopefully, the viewers recognize this and use facts and sound guide their judgment.

Thank you, Con. First, Con argues that original intent isn't the best way to interpret the Constitution. Con believes in nonoriginalism, where the focus is placed on the principles, rather than the specific intent, of the framers. I would argue that originalism is in fact the only "fair" way to interpret the constitution under the American system of government. Suppose that a judge has no consistent method of interpretation. He or she just gets some emotional feeling about who should win or lose and then interprets the Constitution to guide the decision toward that outcome. This (lack of) method would be obviously unjust. Keeping that in mind, let's consider how a "living constitution," "progressive justice," or other nonoriginal method of interpretation would work. What is meant is not that we should amend the Constitution; obviously Article V, as my opponent pointed out, allows for that. Neither does nonoriginalism mean that we should apply the original words to new fact patterns. Instead, what is usually meant is that we should apply the original words to create entirely new principles of constitutional law. Under the American system of government, democracy is held in high esteem. Some argue that originalism places too much emphasis on the past and too little emphasis on progress and the present. But, although it would truly be undemocratic to have a law that could never be changed, that is obviously not the case with our Constitution. The 14th Amendment was put in place to do just that: override portions of the constitution that were now deemed intolerable. The true conflict is not between past and present. The real issue is: Should today's judges be allowed to change the law written by yesterday's legislators? After all, judges are not allowed, under the Constitution, to change it or to make laws. Their sole duty, as regards judicial review, is that of interpretation. If they use nonoriginalism, deciding not based upon original intent but upon what they think should and should not be the law, then they are usurping their position. Concerning Brown v. Board of Education, this is from the decision: "[D]oes segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. ... "Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system." ... We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment." The judges did not make up their own meaning. The framers of the 14th Amendment intended blacks and whites to have equal protection, and the judges realized allowing segregation was affecting "colored" children negatively, leading to a system that was far from "equal." This case is miles away from Roe. Anyway, if Brown has no Constitutional basis (which is not the case) then that is another issue for another debate. Con says: "As a result, new questions constantly arise over how to apply the Constitution in new contexts. Originalism doesn't help solve these questions because its "original intent" doesn't speak to them." So instead our judges should make up a new meaning that does "speak to them"? They should ignore the original meaning and fabricate one more relevant? Such a system would clearly be unjust, placing a vast amount of power in the hands of nine appointed -not elected- judges who will occupy their positions until death. The framers of the Constitution would be most indignant to realize that such an unjust position was given so much backing, that so many educated Americans would advocate allowing judges to decide their own meanings. EVEN WITH ORIGINAL INTENT: Con argues that implied rights can be included in the Constitution. I would agree that that is possible. Now, to Con's reasons why the right to abortion might be an implied right: Common law made abortion a crime after quickening but not before. What does common law have to do with anything? The only relevant period is that surrounding the drafting and ratification of the 14th Amendment. Common law had many far weirder and unjust practices harkening back to medieval traditions. For example, all men 14 and over had to be trained in using the longbow, under common law. https://www.rocketlawyer.com... The idea of "quickening" being the time when the baby's soul comes into existence was the cause of that particular weird law, and I am sure there were plenty of sexist common laws. Plainly put, common law is to the Constitution as a flashlight is to a lighthouse. Besides, arguing that the 14th Amendment makes abortion a liberty after quickening but not before is a dramatic case of nonoriginalist interpretation, as I can hardly think the composers put that much thought into it without making their intentions clearer. The main focus at the time was on segregation, not abortion. Pro didn't provide proof the actual adopters did not intend a right to abortion. The legislatures that passed the 14th Amendment, as I pointed out earlier, in most cases had already or would pass anti-abortion laws. As a result, I hardly think abortion even entered their minds. The AMA's testimony is good evidence that the scientific world regarded the fetus to be a person who should be protected. Abortion laws were to protect women from botched abortions. A little thought debunks this one. Self-abortion is much more dangerous than abortion done by a doctor. As botched abortions are even more common when done by the woman herself than when done by an untrained doctor, it seems improbable this was the case, given the AMA's lobbying and the medical push for protection of the fetus. More likely, perhaps, is the theory that the legislators' main goal was to combat doctors specializing and charging for abortions. This is not indicative of a carelessness about self-abortion but rather of a tight focus upon the illegality of the commercialization of abortion. I have seen no sources backing up Con's claim, so I cannot be sure about the exact reasoning. Original intent is the only just, democratic, and constitutional means to interpret the constitution. Under original intent, there is no constitutional basis for Roe v. Wade's preclusion of state prohibition of even 1st-trimester abortions, and absolutely no basis for the "right to abortion."