Instigator / Con
4
1644
rating
64
debates
65.63%
won
Topic
#2637

Resolved: Violent revolution is a just response to political oppression

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
3
Better sources
2
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

MisterChris
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
15,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
7
1762
rating
45
debates
88.89%
won
Description

Revolution: As a historical process, “revolution” refers to a movement, often violent, to overthrow an old regime and effect, complete change in the fundamental institutions of society -- http://www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/exeas/asian-revolutions/pdf/what-is-revolution.pdf

Violent: using force to hurt or attack, used to describe a situation or event in which people are hurt or killed -- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/violent

Political: Relating to the activities of the government, members of law-making organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is governed (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/politics)

Oppression: a situation in which people are governed in an unfair and cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom

Just: morally correct (similar to Justice: righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness)

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@Wagyu

Yep.

The RFD is half the length of the whole debate...

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@Undefeatable

That would have been pretty bad. Generally, I view waiving a round as a concession of any points your opponent made against your points in the previous round, so anything that you responded to previously would have been cross-applied, but you would have sunk yourself on any novel refutations. It also would have made me rethink the strength of your best arguments if my perception of them was that you were unwilling to push the most important elements of them in the end. I think you handicapped that strength, but you would have been just as if not more handicapped by refusing to push the reasons they matter in the end. Also, if your opponent is the only one summarizing and examining the debate as a whole, then they control the entire narrative. Usually a bad move to let them do that.

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@whiteflame

I'm curious, since you mentioned I stabbed myself in the foot the final round. How much worse/better would it have been if I merely waived the round and said "vote con"?

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@MisterChris
@Undefeatable

You might like this, "We will force you to be free" - - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX4AVFymCBg

And yeah, that's a monster of an RFD. Lots to read through, and some parts are a bit rambling/stream-of-consciousness, but it gets across how I'm perceiving the arguments as I go through them. Some look a little better as I go through, some degrade a bit, but you can see where I'm following you better or worse and get some indication of what's working and what's not. It's a lot to plug through, and it's only one judge's perspective, so take your time with it and take it with a giant grain of salt. I've got my own biases and problematic perspectives, and while I'd like to see those balanced by another RFD, this is a big and difficult debate to judge, so I understand if I'm alone in handling it.

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@Undefeatable

I wouldn't call it muddling the resolution. I would say that your best bet was to double down on your argument about uncertainty, whether it's uncertainty over application of a just cause or uncertainty over what suffices as oppression, and then focus on giving as big of a picture as possible on that, especially in your final round. I've been trying the "ask three questions" or "make three statements" that define the debate, and then putting everything under those three. They don't all have to be offense, but by doing this, I can usually drive towards the bigger picture of what my arguments represent and why they're important. I'd say the whole comparison of two worlds aspect of the final round is one of the most important aspects that should be represented, and both of you could use some work fleshing that out. And, yeah, that was a have your cake and eat it, too moment. It's always tempting to go for everything with every point, but that final round requires that you be more incisive and really hit at what matters most in the context of the debate.

And, yeah, in thinking about this resolution, I do think it's more Pro-biased. Making it vaguer can also vastly expand the burdens of both sides, though, so just be careful of where you take it.

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@whiteflame
@Undefeatable

Thanks to Undefeatable for the great debate, and a big thanks to Whiteflame for the great vote. Just read through that monster and got some key takeaways from it to improve my argumentation. Gotta say, I kind of wish we had a bigger character count.... but I think I agree with Whiteflame that my lack of breathing room was at least partially due to my incessant habit of overkilling certain arguments where possible and under-refuting the more important ones.

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@whiteflame

so just to clarify -- to truly have the "Undefeatable" mindset -- I would have had to muddle the resolution and stick to the crystallization of the lack of clear decision, correct? I stabbed the argument in the foot to try to have utilitarian outcome hopefully result in the endless violence that wouldn't work out in the world creation (and Pro never countered), but because I keep my username with a tie, making the resolution as vague and ambiguous as possible would ruin Pro's work, yes?

[I should really do that often. Since my name is not "Victorious", I am encouraged to make the vote as difficult as possible to make, not to actually win]

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@Undefeatable

That's an interesting way to take it. I felt that the American Revolution and BLM points seemed pretty separate throughout, and that would have linked them together well enough. The trouble is that that line of logic depends on the perspective. A person could argue that we had a revolution to overthrow a powerful oppressor, whereas BLM is being used as a means to shake up the current government and force changes to the existing system, rather than bucking our leadership entirely. Some might call that an evolution of the tactic, though you could argue that that "evolution" still involves the use of force against people who shouldn't be the targets of BLM.

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@Undefeatable

Included some specific suggestions towards the end. I think you started this strong and you were solid throughout in defending your points, but the main thing I think you could stand to do in general is to have a better perspective of what you're winning and why it's important. It's still something I struggle with. Going on the line-by-line is important throughout much of the debate, but the people I've seen do the best will drop a point or two before the final round, and then zero in on a couple of key issues at the end. It's difficult when you feel like you have to win several points or when you really do feel like you're winning several arguments, but I'd say that's where you could put in the work. It's honestly easier when you're doing these live because there's not a clear record of the things you're dropping, but it's just as important.

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@whiteflame

thanks for the vote. I suspected that Pro had a winning edge in this topic. I suppose he'll be the end to my streak. Any suggestions for this or in general?

I had considered using the example of American Revolution as a solid example to give the impact that we let a country get away with 200 years of supposed freedom only to end back up where we started with BLM talking of oppression of blacks -- the same as when the Whigs complained about "slavery"

I also didn't bother mentioning intentions, because I know libertarian arguments defeat it 100% of the time. You can't defeat "people have the right to defend, even through violence". That's why I mentioned results. Only utilitarianism analysis can overcome the rights argument, as the infringement of the Deontology morality makes Kant lose ground on Pro's ideas.

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@seldiora

I have my own views regarding where I see the topic being weighted towards, though that does at least partially depend on the interpretation. My RFD will include some thoughts on that.

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@whiteflame

pretty sure Pro is favored. I checked online and most people agree that in this resolution a top Pro debater will always win because Con simply doesn't have enough grounding to stand on

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@whiteflame

I think I speak for both of us when I say I appreciate your thoroughness... This debate probably comes down to voter interpretation, so it's definitely reassuring to see such a detailed RFD. Of course, I'm grateful to have an RFD at all.

And, in case you're wondering, no, I haven't figured out who's winning this yet. Going into the final round, you both have options left to take this, though I do think one side is favored, won't say which.

I should have this RFD up tomorrow. Be advised, this is going to be a long one (it's 8 pages and I just started on the last round), even by my standards. I'm doing speech-by-speech breakdowns. There'll be a TL:DR, and if you don't want to go through all the specific feedback for each round, you could just skip to the last two to focus on how I perceive the final rounds and how things wrap up for each side. However, I thought this was thorough and impressive enough that each round deserved attention, so I'm providing the info (it also just generally helps me keep things straight, so it wasn't all for you, but I hope it's helpful).

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@Speedrace

Do you think you'll give a vote?

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@seldiora

Been working on this one. It's taking a while, but I should have it up by the end of the week.

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@seldiora

He's been working on it, told me so on Discord the other day

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@whiteflame

you didn't forget right? There's 5 days left on this.

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@MisterChris

probably your pro case. I was barely holding onto a lot of points (only combined together can they defeat you), and forced to argue a strange non moral stance. The persons' judgement to determine oppression is an interesting point, but I don't think Con you can grasp enough of it to defeat Pro you.

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@Undefeatable

Yeah a lot of those old sources went dead for some reason. And we may debate it still, we'll see.

Now that I've done both sides, I'm kinda curious: if I pit two clones of me against eachother, one with my PRO case and one with a more fleshed out version of my old CON case... which one of me would win?

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@MisterChris

ha, so much for practice. Also apologize for any unanswerable arguments, but I couldn't think of a better place to add them. The structure was weird enough that maybe a 5th round would've helped. Also, I am very surprised I was unable to find "The Ethics of War: Essays” in my research that you had in your first debate.

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@seldiora

Now that i've done both PRO and CON on this topic, not sure if Supa and I will debate this same topic at all. May want to change it. Up to him though

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@MisterChris

true. If Supadudz were to argue the same ideas, it would definitely help to throw in everything wrong about American revolution. Pro likely thought it was more important to stress outcomes and moral based arguments, only choosing misinformation as a final crux basis -- but I feel like this may be just as important as the other two in hindsight. If he spent less time explaining war vs revolution he could spend more time talking about Colonists' demands.

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@seldiora

Oh well. Even if he won that point I have many layers of defense... We will see how Whiteflame judges

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@seldiora

I would've liked the opportunity to debunk that example though. Definitely seems like a big enough last minute addition to where it only seems fair for the other person to be able to respond

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@MisterChris

I'd say that it is not a completely new argument -- he always inferred people are bad deciders due to misinformation ("nowhere in the resolution does it say the oppression actually exists" -- R1). The only new argument was adding taxation without representation on top of framing the Britain king. I think it's better treated as context behind the "malicious king" framing rather than a standalone argument...

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@seldiora

Also, looking back he sorta kinda used it as a new point but also used it as evidence for his already existing points... so I guess it depends on whether the judge likes brand new evidence in the final round or not

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@MisterChris

hmmm... *scratch head* I guess it comes down whether you accept that am. rev. is unjust ( framed England king and claimed oppression) and accurately represents a large proportion of vr's... up to whiteflame.

if you are right that intentions are all that matter then it wouldn't matter if the oppression was nonexistent, then people may revolt merely to display the idea that any oppression is unacceptable. I'll abstain cuz its a hard vote.

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@seldiora

Addressed it.

"CON's narrative is easily refuted here: if the oppression is subtle and nebulous, then violent revolution won’t even be in the playbook.

He may be arguing that people could be convinced that there is more oppression in a government than there really is, but if the government were less oppressive than one worthy of violent revolt, surely it would reform given the threats of the populace, rendering this point moot."

&

"This renders CON’s criticism completely non-topical, as the resolution specifically excludes any government that is not objectively politically oppressive. This should be pretty obvious, as it is impossible to be revolting against a politically oppressive state in which there is no political oppression. All CON does here is prove that violent revolution is unjust in a just society, which is news to nobody."

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@MisterChris

also... the problem with the assumption is that Und. stressed like three rounds in a row about falsified information that would make them unjust. If you mentioned even a little that this was uncommon and unlikely then I'd definitely be thinking you're clearly winning.

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@seldiora

Yeah, I may or may not have a slight fetish for this topic...

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@MisterChris

wow I just realized your first debate is also this, except the opposing side (https://www.debateart.com/debates/1033-violent-revolution-is-a-just-response-to-political-oppression). You've come very far XD

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@seldiora

"(Though, I think you missed out on his re-crystallization on how people can randomly determine "oppressive" based on their own definition)"

I could be penalized for this, but I considered it de-facto refuted, as I had continued with the narrative throughout the debate that people will not rush to violence unless the transgressions are truly heinous.

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@Theweakeredge

I'd appreciate the read. Undefeatable has definitely demonstrated he is a worthy opponent. I'd be OK with my win streak coming to an end against him, although I'd rather it not.

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@MisterChris

I definitely think Undefeatable is a great debater, I enjoy reading all the debates he's in. I'll probably try to give it a read myself

I'll be starting to read through this sometime this week after I'm done with Undefeatable's other debate. Shouldn't take me too long.

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@seldiora

Honestly, this debate was very neck and neck. It mostly depends on how the judge interprets some things in the resolution... I also believe that we may have benefitted from greater character count, because some ideas you just can't refute properly in a few sentences.

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@MisterChris

Nice conclusion. Undefeatable's world building seems cool to me, but this is definitely very close. I don't know who won this one. (Though, I think you missed out on his re-crystallization on how people can randomly determine "oppressive" based on their own definition)

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@Undefeatable

thanks for the engaging debate, you did very well

REPOST FOR VOTERS:

"Undefeatable and I have agreed privately via PM's to structure the debate rounds accordingly:

R1 - Constructives
R2 - Rebuttal of opponent's constructive
R3 - Defense of cases
R4 - Rebuttal of opponent's defense and final summary"

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@MisterChris

Alexei: You can't defeat me

Me: I know, but he can

Younger Alexei: Hello.

I realized that the "Failure of Pacifism and the Success of Nonviolence" article can't be accessed unless you have a school account. The pastebin of the full article is available here: https://pastebin.com/bBF0prCV

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@MisterChris

Nice.

Also, I meant to say harm potential enemies rather than allies in the harm of innocent.

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@Undefeatable

You have a very quick turnaround. Don't expect a response from me for a while, but I'll try to keep it from being so last minute..

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@MisterChris

if you are confused by point 5), it's basically an extremely wordy version of That1User's argument against Seldiora lol (https://www.debateart.com/debates/2342-mysterious-topic)

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@Undefeatable

https://imgur.com/t87SbLe

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@MisterChris

You’ve fallen right into my trap!