The US should invade Africa
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Rules of the debate:
1: The BoP is shared
2: I waive the 1st round and my opponent waives the last round. Violation is a loss of conduct point.
Overall, Con far and away had superior arguments compared to Pro
1 - GDP - Pro argues that two former colonies have high GDP's, but Con points out that not only is Africa improving on its own, but a continent-wide war would damage America's GDP since Iraq managed to do that on its own. The 'trade deal' Pro pulls out of nowhere to try to justify the benefits is a complete fiction and would never in reality come to fruition.
2 - Human Rights - This is Pro's strongest argument he makes in the whole debate, but even then, Con points out that the US is hardly the beacon of supporting Human Rights. From then on the argument devolves into whether or not the US should be the world police, and how many would die in the initial invasion so the argument is effectively abandoned.
3 - Impractical - Con is correct that the US invading all of Africa is entirely impractical, and Pro's assertion that an invasion would be 'easy to win' is hilariously short-sighted given recent US performance in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc.... Con also points out how other nations outside of Africa would oppose our actions, making an invasion even more impractical, which ties into the foreign relations argument made later on.
4 - Cost - This is far and away the worst argument that Pro makes, where he claims the cost of invading a continent would be cheap because 'its easier to defeat a state than an idea.' This does not defeat the fact that the war would be incredibly costly regardless of whether its against states or widespread beliefs, and Pro points out that the US's high military spending does not equate to wars being easy to win.
Pro's more outlandish claims which desperately needed to be sourced to hold any weight were instead just left as unsubstantiated claims. Con used a wealth of examples and solid reasoning across the board to show why the US should not invade the entire African continent, and easily clinched arguments in the debate.
Nice to see more satire debates here (even as I suspect this debate was intended a certain different contender)... Bit of a weird setup, as normally pro would be the one to start things for an affirmative claim. I am not dismissing BoP rules, but negatives are a lot harder to prove, and ultimately don’t need to be proven until the positive is shown.
Gist:
A quote from each debater sums up a lot of it: “The invasion would be unwinnable and put the United States in a really bad spot.” Which is well exemplified by the example of Iraq “The Iraq war didn’t benefit the locals economically much. It was designed to fight terrorism. and created more terrorism when the US left.”
1. African Economy (pro, low significance)
Pro showed this was likely, and con showed that it is improving anyway. There are many horrors of warfare to be addressed, but this one benefit seems likely. So goes to pro, but isn’t a debate winning contention.
2. USA Economy and Cost (con, medium significance)
Con pre-refuted this area, but even if that were dismissed... Pro asserted in raw numbers what the result could be but did not verify why it would go exactly like this. Con countered with the damage it would do, using Iraq (rich with natural resources) as an example of how badly it could hurt us financially (further bolstered by the war on terror having cost us so much, for a much smaller and less diverse area than the proposed invasion).
3. Human Rights and Unjust (con)
Gay rights and such are apparently bad in Africa, but the proposal falls flat here as it can’t really be proven that we would be able to fix it even if we went in and killed untold millions of people. Con showed simple reason against declaring war on a people who have not wronged us; massive death toll (hundreds of thousands confirmed for smaller wars), for no guaranteed benefit to anyone (magically fixing everything was asserted, but not proven). Before con’s point about the logic of the rhetorical question “Should the US invade America?” pro had this about tied, but this set of replies showed the illogic of the attempted solution.
4. Practicality (con)
This ties in with other points, to show the massive cost. Pro tries to win this with “can handle the invasion if we were to cease to provide military aid in other places and focus on providing human rights and boosting the economy in Africa.” Which is a prime example of wishful thinking, as invading Africa would not guarantee these resources are suddenly free for such use. Plus pro outright admits that China and Russia would oppose us, and the wishful thinking that NATO would join us in World War 3 did not line up.
In the final round pro suggested some battle plans, but these were late, and still failed to prove that it’d be easy... Real war is not RTS games, having an expensive military, doesn’t mean the other side doesn’t have anyone who fights back (as suggested by their population, not to mention those who would oppose us).
5. International Relations (con, low significance)
That our allies did not stand with us for smaller invasions, implies we would have little support (this goes toward the practicality angle as well), and that the damage this would do us for any future endeavors (the impacts here were unclear, thus low significance... a case could have been made for bigger problems, but it wasn't really needed with all the other points).
That NATO and the UN are “Hypocrites,” doesn’t mean they would join us, even if their own mission statements would mean they should; it rather shows they are unlikely to as they are “Hypocrites.”
6. Alternative Plan (con)
“You have yet to suggest an alternative way to help the Africans out.” Not everything needs to be explicitly spelled out. Do Nothing is always the implied default, sure it does not result in the potential benefits but it avoids the guaranteed harms. Plus I am unclear where the obligation to sacrifice for the gain of others is stemming from. This connects to the moving goalpost of trying to redefine our invasion of Iraq, even when the agreed definitions made occupations and invasions synonymous.
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Arguments: con
See above review of key points. The only benefit which held up was the economy in Africa, but this was outweighed by the harm to the US economy; and then the rest of the key points favored con as well, leaving little doubt.
Spelling and Grammar: tied, but leaning con
A couple of things here (in general, use my guide: https://tiny.cc/DebateArt).
1. Not everything needs to be quoted; ideally just enough to remind people what section you’re referring to.
2. Pro gained an intrinsic advantage here by controlling the narrative with his headings, but even copy/pasting his headings with their formatting would have improved things. When I wanted to review part of con's case, I could find it right away, but it was needlessly hard for lining up pro's case to the areas of argument.
I don't even believe this position anymore. I do want to implement soft power in Africa once America's out of debt (should take 7 years under my current plan. I'm frequently updating it). Soft power meaning: We teach the locals in former British territory (and other territory that we can get) English and trade with them to get out of poverty. They can and should immigrate here, increasing this nation's population, but it would be up to them as by eliminating their relatively useless African languages, we eliminate their reason for war, which has killed so many soldiers on all sides of the conflict, and they end up uniting.
France is implementing soft power in it's former colonies. We should do the same to the British colonies.
double oopsie
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>Reported Vote: WalterPhoenix // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to con for arguments.
>Reason for Decision: Con really did a nice job convincing me that THESE ARE BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS.
>Reason for Mod Action: Reason for Mod Action: This vote is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
Saying that, the voter does not sufficiently assess arguments.
To award arguments, the voter must (1) survey the main arguments and counterarguments in the debate, (2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and (3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision.
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I've debated him on another topic and it was a massacre, which is why he trolls me in the comments section.
I was docked for points during the voting session because a random person made a silly comment, which award Alec points. I was already warned that people will do things like that just to get a win.
You two should debate this topic as a debate, rather than as comments here... Or heck, maybe a changed topic to Africa should invade the USA?
It's fairly clear that you don't know anything about this topic, especially by bringing up MOT Liberians.
It's kind of hard to take you serious.
Mot Liberians aren't former slave descendants.
Liberia was founded, established, colonized & controlled by US citizens.
Yes, you are 100% wrong yet again.
AHAHAHAHHAHAh brain cell lost from your response
They are the most similar to America, but I don't think we invaded Liberia. It would be like saying that Canada is similar to America, so we have invaded modern Canada. I'm not a history expert, so I might be wrong on this.
You were the one who said that America never invaded Africa and I easily proved you wrong by mentioning Liberia in which you later said that I was correct.
What you're saying & how you're acting is the epitome of madness.
??. Explain
What madness?
Stop da Madness.
why did you bring it up in the first place
As I said earlier, it was to prove a point, but it seems like you're the one who keeps bringing it up.
So stop bringing it up if you dont know what your talking about
To prove a point in which is I right. Other than issue, I can't speak for anything else about it.
Then why did you bring it up?
I don't know enough about Liberia to debate it.
I know people vote according to their biases to some extent so I knew that if the debate was rated, then I would probably lose. Invading Africa currently isn't popular.
It’s all good. The debate is unrated so I don’t care all that much. I hope I did a decent job here’s. If it was rated, I’d have gone a lot stronger
The Liberian point
What did I initiate? I didn't create this debate.
Your the one who iniatated it
If I appeared to roast the idea, it was a mistake. Sorry about that. I tried to rebuttal your arguments and this may have involved some copy and paste errors. I apologize or the confusion.
I can't speak on it. You probably know more about it than me.
So atleast make an argument
Posting comment to bump it to top.
There really isn't much to say about Liberia. I only know the basics.
Alec Vs Virtuoso
The fight of the century
Get Your Tickets NOW!!!
Instead of going Illll wait.......... Try and make an argument
Most people would agree that Fentanyl is a human right. It's ridding the region of reprobates which provides housing for people who don't have homes. I'm being honest because it serves a purpose that others can benefit from.
What kind of argument?
why dont you give an argument for Liberia?
Sorry about the all caps section. I didn't want to have to remove the text, so I left it as it was. This is not screaming.
It benefits the locals and America, and it spreads human rights to areas that need it. Besides, once ruled for 10 years or so, the Africans would benefit so much that they probably would be okay with US colonization.
I agree with you on many things but this is where you're wrong. Colonization is immoral, no matter what your intentions are. People have a right to self-determination, and an invasion stops them from exercising that right.
Colonization saves more lives long term in the form of human rights and less poverty, at least it would be under my plan.
Trump gave them funding eventually. I would have demanded some stuff in return, like PR becoming more assiliminated and a state once Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode island merged to become 1 state.
Oh course it was invaded so can you admit that I was right as usual?... Colonization has never been peaceful. You're acting as if America is doing someone a favor but have you taken a good look at America lately? If Africa closed its borders to all of the leeches, the world would literally collapse.
Treated comparably to Puerto Ricans? Yeah...left for dead and the hurricane is a true testament of how the US does business.
I should start a debate on "Invading Europe." It wouldn't make any sense because there's absolutely nothing in Europe worth having which is why you people have a topic about Invading Africa...……That'll probably fly over most people's head.
It was invaded. A New invasion would be nicer to the locals, not enslaving them but the colonies would be profitable by the US paying them $500 billion total in exchange for $800 Billion in natural resources. The US profits, the Africans profit. Win Win to me. The locals would get treated comparably to Puerto Ricans, who don't have a separatist majority on the island because they get treated that well.
I'm beginning to notice that some of you aren't too bright. The "supposed" high IQs are nowhere to be found..
You forgot to mention that Liberia was founded, established, colonized and controlled by the US.
Is that not invaded?
Liberia was a place that Americans sent some of their freed slaves to. As long as the locals don't get oppressed, the colonization would be something positive for both involved parties.
Any evidence why I don't understand the question?
Ill wait............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
You clearly don't understand the question, which is why you shouldn't cherry pick through the comments. In context to what Alec is saying...what is Liberia?
I'll wait...…………………..
"Liberia is a country in West Africa, bordering Sierra Leone, Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire. On the Atlantic coast, the capital city of Monrovia is home to the Liberia National Museum, with its exhibits on national culture and history. Around Monrovia are palm-lined beaches like Silver and CeCe. Along the coast, beach towns include the port of Buchanan, as well as laid-back Robertsport, known for its strong surf."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
You sound like a asshole teacher-ILL WAIT!!!
I'll just ask you one simple question; what is Liberia? I'll wait...………………………..
No you did not