Living in the United States is Better than the Majority of Developed Nations.

I'd challenge the BoP

IDK if that would meet your BoP.

I do what I can.

Why 1 country being better than America should be enough to win the debate

Peoples Right v Infrastructure

Neoliberalism K

What would running a K look like on this debate?

Fair enough of a claim to make. But there was no other contentions you can make regarding this because is America's weak spot. I should have ran a K on this (even though I hate K's) about this

Honestly I think you would've been better off making another argument than gender inequality. It's hard to quantify it into something that fits into the way this res is set up. You could go for an oppression bad route but how do you rank that between developed nations?

You made America very proud ^_^

#MAGA

Thank you for the vote. I guess from your impact from Gender Equality said it needed to have an impact. How could have been improved

Pretty sure I know where I'm voting. But gonna sleep and give it one last look over tomorrow before I vote.

Also, I agree with Ragnar that the format both sides went with for their rounds feels super fucky.

I'll read through this. But from R1 I can already tell Pro needs to learn what impact calc is and how to do it. It'd turn his lackluster case into a decent one.

On women I was left torn due to the freedom angle from Pew Research. I am not positive how I would have graded it, but if all the same points were used with a focus on how women do on those measurements in the USA, that could have carried it. Some numbers would be needed. Such as 51% of people are women, and in 55% of those countries they do better by X, 61% they do better by Y, etc., it could have proven that for the average person the USA is worse to live in than the average other country.

I am feeling more in favor of one on one comparisons. Looking back on this, and realizing how tiny the character limit it (admittedly, my last debate was only 5k, but also 4 rounds...), I can imagine Saudi Arabia instead of the USA using all the same contentions (granted, the oppression of women there lacks any ambiguity, so it would be a much stronger counterpoint), and there just not being enough room to refute the general trends of how well that country is doing.

Thank you for the vote.

I did try for the Pathos appeal with some evidence for it becoming less and less. I did try to make a case that if we are ranked 8th in Freedom despite what are constitution tells us, then we technically failed as a nation. I do think this was a good K but I could have focused more on it! I think a debate itself could have been made about Freedom itself, but with the words restriction, I had to balance the arguments on and focus on the link and using my case to destroy his case, but I think with more of a word input, I could have swayed it.

I think that you do have a point with the fact that it is getting downhill. I simply thought it could be something used to give weight to the arguments I have in the first place and potential give some leniency to prefer my case over this, but I guess it didn't work. I think there was sources out there saying that these countries themselves are getting better, but I was a bit cocky

It is a pretty weird debate statistically. I was thinking of challenging the fact that 18 had to be proven, and only 1 should be proven, but I decided to pussy out of the idea.

The Gender Equality is something I would have to respectfully disagree with/think differently about the outcome. 50% of the population is a female. This means that 3.5B of the population itself would be treated unequal because of their gender and it would be better off living in a different country versus the ones stated. That is a huge population and the US itself has a higher % of females, yet with more inequity for them. I wouldn't say in honesty it is a slight victory for me personally in the debate, since he does have weak links that I think do ignore.

I think this is a fair RFD though and I thank you for your time to vote

---RFD (1 of 2)--
Gist:
I was left with the impression the USA is overall preferable. While some countries may be a better match for an individual (damn this reminded me of my final debate on DDO: https://www.debate.org/debates/The-Vast-Majority-of-Sociology-is-Useless./1/), weighing gives the USA enough benefit to overcome any shortcomings.

1. Education: Pro
Ranks well on education. Con counters that this is somehow evidence of poverty. Pro explains that the average rate favors the USA with “over 90% of Americans graduate high school, and 45.6% of Americans graduate college.”

2. Fiscal Well being vs. Poverty
We do extremely well with wealth distribution, but counterintuitively badly as well.

“more people are in poverty than there are millionaires and the evidence can't deny this” yes, this is a self-evident truth everywhere. Millionaires are the exception, apparently the USA has far more of them than other countries.

Generally pro held this well with pointing out consumption rates for those in poverty in the US, implies that poverty here is better than poverty elsewhere. Still, it’s a decent area of contest to which con cast some doubt on USA superiority. Giving this to con by a very small margin (I weigh things, meaning the margin of victory gives it a low weight compared to other points).

3. Freedom: pro
We do very well in this. That we could do even better, especially when this is supposed to be a comparison debate, does not refute this. Nor does if we’ve slipped, as we’re still well ahead of the average. That we can voice these complaints, is a wonderful example of our freedom.

I do however applaud the well-constructed pathos appeal.

4. Gender Equality
First, I need to address something: “None of PRO case matters if people are unequal based off the gender they identify as, a strong disadvantage.” We all want silver bullet points that override everything else, but this is a comparison debate. That is an identified area of weakness, which scores some points, but it does not override the other categories. The freedom point as an example, that people are free to identify as any gender they wish, actually bolsters that point.

Okay, getting back on track... Women do slightly worse than men in the USA. There’s some back and forth on this, such as Pew Research showing they have almost the same rights as men (4th place in the world if my skimming of that data is correct), and that they have more opportunities in management; but yes, there is a sex wage gap (not to be confused with a gender wage gap, as most publications do).

Giving this to con by a small margin, even while increasing the margin of victory for the freedom contention.

5. QOL
Largely repeats of tactics seen earlier, such as oh no, the rich are better off...

---

Arguments:
See above review of key points. While con came slightly ahead in a couple of areas, they do not cancel out pro’s substantial lead in others. Issues like if the USA might get worse, is hard to take seriously when that type of instability occurs everywhere.

Pondering this, I am unsure what path con could have best used for victory. Showing individual countries better than the USA, would not negate the on average part; and on averages, there’s always going to be some areas which come ahead. Perhaps a look at the rate of ethnic violence? Not sure how that would play out, it could have been reviewed as a tactic and summarily rejected.

I will say that the format of responses to the alternating rounds, was disjointing.

I mean...I agree.

"Perception based results aren’t reliable."

This. We live in a country where:

1. The culture is highly individualistic, dare I even say narcissistic, and everyone is constantly challenging and nitpicking every aspect of the status quo to find something unfair, whereas in a society like Singapore people in general would be less likely to question the way things are. A trip overseas would reveal that many East Asian countries have cultures (and especially corporate cultures) that are far more sexist than in the US, and yet American women would be far more likely to complain about sexism than, say, a Chinese or South Korean woman.

2. Social media allows an individual who's part of some demographic to share anecdotes about how he/she was presented with some kind of unfair situation because of their membership in said demographic. Readers/watchers who are also part of that demographic, if exposed to enough such anecdotes, may internalize it even if they themselves have never experienced the same, even if the anecdotes in question described events which, though widely sensationalized, were fringe occurrences. As a result, they come to perceive themselves to be subject to unfair treatment. This can happen with EXTREME ease. I myself have fallen victim to this effect before, on many occasions.

Dope

Yeah, I generally use R2 for rebuttals, and some new args maybe.

I worked my case out already so do not be concerned for quick response.

I also assume that R2 is refutations to case

Lol, I don't have the capacity to write past that outside of school.

3,500 characters per argument...you tryna kill me here

mAtE

R u SuM kEyEnD uV cOmYoUnIsT?

18 of the listed countries, yes.

Thank you. I am looking forward too.

You said 18 countries right?

Look forward to this debate.

Potentially will do this going to do this...if I can make time I will accept the challenge tonight