Instigator / Con
0
1650
rating
44
debates
77.27%
won
Topic
#1116

Border Wall

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Winner
0
4

After 4 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

Wylted
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
2
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Winner selection
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
4
1387
rating
34
debates
22.06%
won
Description

We will be arguing the effectiveness of the border wall. The person who makes the best arguments without sufficient rebuttals will win. I would like it to be based on that which is why there is only one criteria in this debate.

Border Wall: Proposed plan by Trump for a wall between the US and Mexico.

I am against the border wall if you wanted clarification on my position.

The burden of proof is shared.

hah Wylted won

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@Wylted

Have it open so if I don't accept someone else can. Don't really know too much about the electoral college to really give a go at it.

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@TheRealNihilist

I am pro on the electoral college. Most liberals decided to be con on it because they think they gain an advantage by getting rid of it.

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@Wylted

>>I am okay debating whether your vote on Pinkfreud's debate was a good vote

Don't want to.
What else do you want to debate if you don't want to debate the border wall again with you being the instigator?

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@Ramshutu

Thank you for taking the time to judge the debate.

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@TheRealNihilist

More like explain why the examples shown are not good representations of what a border wall would look like between the US and Mexico.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable for Trump to have sold this plan; and as such, I don’t have enough of a deviation from the resolution imo to warrant awarding on this ground.

I don’t think pro did a great job of selling the overall cost/benefit of the wall. There are definite benefits, as pro outlines and con doesn’t appear to challenge directly, and pro points out the cost is not prohibitive.

If this was a purely financial argument - were it not for the downplaying of cost by pro and the comparison of DHS budget, I would probably have given this as a draw, as there was enough mud on the stats, by bad links and the lack of general warrant for how much the illegal immigration problem would really be mitigated by a wall.

However given the potential human cost, and the potential reductions in harms pro raises, together with the apparently low costs that would likely not effect the overall budget - overall pro shows more impacts solved due to the wall.

Cons goal here should have been to quantify the problem being solved, to show the wall may not realistically solve much of that problem, or be too expensive for the benefit. There were many avenues here for con to attack, but imo, the argument was comprehensively weak by not forming a core thesis of why a wall is not worth it. Instead, the focus was mostly on how the case for the wall has potential been exaggerated, while con establishes this fairly reasonably - that’s not what the resolution is.

As a result of this: arguments have to go to pro.

The issue con has, it appears is that he’s arguing from the position that the problems aren’t severe enough to warrant such an extreme policy. Pro is pointing out (as he did with the volume of immigrants, drugs, etc), that the problems just need to be bad to warrant a wall. This is kind of how Con shoots himself in the foot; by arguing as if he just has to show Trump and others are exaggerating rather than to do the work to show the wall is unnecessary.

Pro completely undermines cons economic argument too - by arguing that competition for employees drives wages up (good), and that if filling jobs was necessary legal immigrants could be chosen.

Pros case feels pretty weak; all told. But cons rebuttal is just completely lacking here.

Cons approach appears to be primarily to claim wylted’s links all don’t work, or are invalid because they’re old. This was the majority of cases.

Con has to do more here, I’m sorry; but I found this woefully inadequate.

Many of pros examples are generally intuitive; meaning they seem pretty reasonable on their face; while you could haggle over whether exact amounts warrant a wall; just citing a bad source
And saying “nope”, imo isn’t enough for me; I need some clarification.

Don’t get me wrong, if this was a four point debate - I’d have possible awarded sources to con for pros terrible use of sources, but when they are used to support fairly reasonable sounding points, I need more from con.

On balance though, I can render a decision on this at this point:

Firstly, for the resolution; while pro defended trumps actual plan terribly; with an obtuse method of shoehorning his own plan into the debate - I don’t think this is so far outside the spirit of the resolution to count: the resolution is not whether Trump is a liar or a shitty president; but a wall on the southern border is worthwhile.

To start off with, the resolution is s bit of a mess: the title is pro/con border wall: the content claims its about the effectiveness; but pro does better in an overall framing of what the debate is - and I’m going to go with that as it appears the most sensible.

Both sides are pretty shirt and petulant throughout - as I can’t award Conduct for this debate, I’m just going tell you both to act more like grown ups.

It’s pros job in this debate to show me why the positive impacts of the wall outweigh the negative; and cons job to the opposite, saying that; con has a case to make too: and both sides need to convince me of what criteria is important to weigh when I’m assessing their argument.

To start off with, cons opening was a reasonably good case at showing that the wall may not have great effectiveness; and will not solve all problems - while I could buy everything con said - con doesn’t tie these into a weightable argument. How effective would it be? How much will it cost? And why is going ahead with the wall on balance harmful?

Pros main arguments start off with the claim that illegal immigrants are victims of rape, the wall will stop terrorists coming over the border.

While pro doesn’t provide a justification of how much a wall will reduce the incidence of this; this seems like an impact.

Pro argues the wall would be effective, citing the example of Yuma; and a dead link. Pro doesn’t make it clear how this would be extended and applicable; to the rest of the border as by definition it doesn’t cover the whole border.

Pro attempts to quantify the yearly financial impact of healthcare for illegal immigrants too; then rounds the argument out with an appeal to enforcing the law (which isn’t clear how it fits into pros value or impacts), and estimates the cost.

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@TheRealNihilist

It was a red-herring because economic factors tie more precisely with feasibility. You restricted the resolution to only efficiency; this is why I was more inclined in my vote. Although you had a good argument against building the wall in general you didn't provide much of an argument for its inefficiency. For example, a dark matter drive is unfathomably expensive, so even if we could build one it wouldn't be feasible, but despite the cost it would be wholly efficient. That's why I suggest you both have another debate because many of both of your arguments were not in the context of efficiency.

"Firstly, undocumented immigrants are reportedly travelling across the border in record lows."

"More than 19,000 immigrants are currently in CBP custody. Nearly 1,000 border patrol officers have been moved from northern ports of entry, airports, sea ports and elsewhere along the southwest border to assist border agents in areas experiencing the highest influx of migrants.

"We are in a full-blown emergency, and I cannot say this stronger: The system is broken," said acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/record-number-undocumented-immigrants-flooded-southern-border-may-n1014186

So, nope record number of people crossing

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@TheRealNihilist

"I didn't get scared. I created the debate before you decided what you wanted to do then you asked me to change it."

Not true, we were debating a generic border wall in discord and we were supposed to settle that here, but you attempted to make an abusive resolution to give yourself an unfair advantage. Why would we debate a generic border-wall on discord and you interpret it as Trump's border wall, and change it from the benefits of to The effectiveness of.

I am okay debating whether your vote on Pinkfreud's debate was a good vote

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@Wylted

You can start by clearly laying out definitions so I know what we are arguing.

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@Wylted

>>I tried to create that debate, but you got scared to do it,

I didn't get scared. I created the debate before you decided what you wanted to do then you asked me to change it.

>>10k limit if the topic is good

Okay. Give me 1 week for arguments. So basically increase time of arguments to 1 week.

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@TheRealNihilist

I tried to create that debate, but you got scared to do it, and instead wanted this one because you thought it gave you some unfair advantage. We can debate another topic if you want, but 30k rounds are retarded so no on that. 5k if the topic bores me, 10k limit if the topic is good

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@semperfortis

>>The economy contention was ultimately a red-herring to the resolution

How was it a red-herring? Lack of detail in the information or are you saying the very core of that argument is a red herring?

>>I'd suggest you guys have a rematch and change it to a general debate on whether or not the wall should be built or not, rather than focusing the resolution on wholly effectiveness.

Okay. I am sure Wylted has seen this so he can decide. If he does decide to create it have it be a 1 week for each argument and 30k characters that I won't fill but I might need.

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@blamonkey

>>I would recommend for the future that the first thing you point out is that using the success of border walls in other countries and at one solitary point on the southern border to suggest that a national wall would be beneficial is erroneous.

Okay. Compare other border walls tell the opponent why the southern border wall wouldn't work.

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@TheRealNihilist

The economy contention was ultimately a red-herring to the resolution; I'd suggest you guys have a rematch and change it to a general debate on whether or not the wall should be built or not, rather than focusing the resolution on wholly effectiveness.

You said that there were jobs that needed to be filled, but you never explained why illegal immigrants had to fill those jobs. Most importantly though, you never explained the harm in letting the jobs go unfilled. Where is your stats about businesses failing? While Wylted's case was flawed, he offered a lot of quantifiable points. He offered lots of examples showing that the wall would work. I would recommend for the future that the first thing you point out is that using the success of border walls in other countries and at one solitary point on the southern border to suggest that a national wall would be beneficial is erroneous.

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@blamonkey

>>Just because something isn't bad for the economy doesn't make it a good thing.

Didn't I state how immigrants would be helpful to the economy as in be people for the jobs that are open currently?

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@Wylted

>>Omar is now mad that you voted in my favor and vote bombed my socialism debate, by voting for the obvious loser. This site is ridiculous and needs fixing

Me asking makes me mad? I can't imagine you not wanting to tear yourself apart if your salt is worse than my questioning. I don't want to talk to you but you can keep message me if you want. I'll respond when you actually have something worth responding too.

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@blamonkey

Omar is now mad that you voted in my favor and vote bombed my socialism debate, by voting for the obvious loser. This site is ridiculous and needs fixing

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@TheRealNihilist

Just because something isn't bad for the economy doesn't make it a good thing. If you proved significant economic harms that have quantification (i.e. the wall will de-incentivize trading with Mexico because it leads to populist anti-US leaders gaining power who aren't going to cooperate on trade deals,) then your argument would of had an impact.

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@Wylted

Perhaps, but I thought that if it was a Nationwide problem, that the TB would affect everyone in Mexico regardless of social class. I would recommend making the distinction you just made if you plan to run this point and suggest an increase in legal immigration.

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@blamonkey

>>It's defensive and offers no real impact.

What do you mean by this?

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@TheRealNihilist

I checked. I said that the same problems associated with your 1st 2 points also applies to your economic point. It's defensive and offers no real impact.

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@blamonkey

Did you address this paragraph that starts with this:

"Thirdly the bad for economy point."

I can't seem to find a mention of it in your docs.

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@blamonkey

Yeah, I have issues with every RFD ever written, but that was the only thing that stuck in my craw. I never mentioned it I don't think. I just assumed my stats on illegal immigrants would not be applied to legal immigrants who are usually coming from better circumstances

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@Wylted

That's fair. Perhaps I missed where you said that. The RFD is ok besides that, yes?

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@blamonkey

One point of contention. Illegal Latin American immigrants are spreading TB, the latin Americans who come in legally have lower levels of disease and our generally healthier than the native population

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@blamonkey

Thanks for taking your time to read the debate

Some of Pro’s points were negated by broken links and rebuttals. Considering this alongside the split BOP, I give Pro 2.25 points.
Spelling/Grammar: .25 points to Wylted. Omar said “Just to make he can’t have the excuse there isn’t more recent data.”. “Since both Trump and the instigator failed to deliver what the border wall would actually reduce. I will be assuming this and I think I am fair with these assumptions. I am guessing the border wall would help stop undocumented immigrants, drugs and bad for the economy.” Incomplete sentences and lack of commas. I’m a huge grammar freak and these irked me.
Sources: I give an edge to Omar, since some of Wylted’s didn’t work. Again, I don’t take off points for older sources unless newer data is provided to rebut it. Pro used an opinion piece. Omar had really good sources in round one, but only provided one in R2. He criticized Pro’s sources rather than debunk them. Wylted apparently had just put two links together. Points returned for those two links. Omar: 1.5 points
Conduct: I will only judge conduct based on what occurred in the debate, not the comment section or discord or anything other than the arguments. I give a slight edge to Omar on conduct because Wylted called him “Lazy” and had a disagreeable tone in round one. Omar was also condescending, as he expressed doubt that Wylted would have good points at the end of R1. Wylted also swore in final round coupled with condescending “buddy”..5 points for Omar.

. I agree with Con’s statements against Wylted establishing rules, however, the judge this debate we must weigh pros and cons, making this rule de facto in place.
Points out that Wylted used anecdotal claims. The DCGazette link didn’t work for me, either, so points gone. FAIRUS was stated to be unreliable, but without any reasoning on why that is the case. The points still stand. Con states that a source was outdated. However, no new data was provided to combat this point, nor did he elaborate on what “things change” in that time to invalidate the point. A bunch more “outdated” rebuttals…. 100/135(Wylted) vs 138/180(Omar) on corruption. Omar’s newer data actually put Mexico in a worse percentile for corruption than’s Pro’s sources. Omar says he uses Cntrl + F to find the stat, which is very deceptive. The stat was derived by the article that said eight hundred people were apprehended daily before, now only fifty are every day. Ends with points about path to citizenship for illegals, which was not the point of the debate.
Wylted: Disputes Con saying Trump doesn’t have a plan by describing an emergent plan. Also asserts that “old” is subjective about data and that Con gave no criteria for determining what makes old data “old” and bad. Also, states that dismissing data only has potential to hurt Pro’s case, not bolster Con’s. Explained why his anecdotal claim has merit and gives insight into the situations of illegal immigrants. Pro explains why his “old” sources should not be dismisses, as, again, no newer stats debunked them. “A $32 billion dollar industry didn’t disappear overnight”. Said how Omar proved his corruption point by reading link. Debunked Con’s argument of no ethical point in enforcing laws and how he ignored rape stats.
Verdict: As Wylted stated, no points were given as to promoting public good. Con did not give any reason as to how he could solve issues that Pro brought up without using a wall.

Arguments:
R1
Omar: Points are that illegal immigration is already slowing down, a wall won’t stop drugs that go through legal points of entry, and that we don’t have enough workers. However, I would like to point out that he perhaps misspoke. He said immigrants would be needed anyway to build the wall. However, Omar stated that the goal of the wall was to stop illegal immigration with no mention of legal immigration.
Wylted: Points out that this debate should be based on the positive impact of each position. This makes sense because the description says “I am against the border wall…”. If there were more positive effects from building the wall, he shouldn’t be against it. Wylted gives an example of another country using a wall. Gives statistics on the crisis at the border, including rape and still 700,000 people crossing annually. Con’s argument about needing more workers(immigrants) is negated by a direct quote from Trump about his plan being pro-immigrant. Wylted brings up the point of national security by providing statistics on terrorism and the unhealthy state of many illegal immigrants. All provides statistics on the public cost of illegal immigrants to healthcare and housing.
Pro then gives stats on projected costs and the effect of an Arizona wall being significant in stopping illegal immigration. Then, he finishes off arguments with an appeal to upholding order. Pro then rebuts con’s claims that Trump never stated benefits of the wall and that he wouldn’t use natural barriers. States that drugs come into the country outside of legal points of entry, but this wasn’t substantiated with a source. Finishes off with an appeal to emotion towards not exploiting these workers.
R2
Omar: Not really sure what Omar was getting at with his point about there being no plan for a border wall. If that were the case, this couldn’t be a debate according to the description. As far as I know, Pro was using projections, so the points still stand.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IoXExnR3SjmUrat-bC-TjtbKCne8TApUq8pTqs3zlBU/edit?usp=sharing

Didn't realize this was a win/loss debate. I was weighing the usual sections. :/

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@semperfortis

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

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@Wylted

You're thinking of book keeping. That is where you just record the numbers and that is it, which is awful and doesn't pay much. I'm gonna try to get an auditing job at a Big Four firm and after 5ish years I can do anything finance or accounting related in most businesses. Job prospects after that are huge

I'll draw up a vote now.

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@bmdrocks21

Dude there are accoubtants working at wal-mart. Right next to a psychology degree this is one of the worst degrees at getting you a job. Most businesses just hire their wife to do the QuickBooks.

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@Wylted

That was a debate idea back in high school: is college worth It? I am trying to get my CPA. Some of the best job security. Still need accountants and auditors even during recessions

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@bmdrocks21

Life hack don't waste your time with college. I have worked myself up to 6 figures twice, my only problem is that I am a perfectionist and usually end up quitting when I do something that exposes me as imperfect

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@blamonkey

I am both honored and disappointed haha

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@bmdrocks21

Fun fact, I spent more time on the vote than on my college paper.

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@blamonkey

If you read my Israel debate, you can read this lol

It’s on my list

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@Ramshutu

If you are aware of any voter that doesn't suck, could you recruit them to vote on this.

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@David

Can you possibly vote on this debate please?

No problem. I'm one to talk about debate length. Some of my debates could qualify as novels 😌.

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@blamonkey

Sorry about that. It would be much appreciated. If you need a fair vote on something from me also do not hesitate to ask. I have like another 2 weeks before work starts getting ridiculous again.