Society should evolve to Communism

PRO badly misdefines COMMUNISM to suit his lecture's needs. The definition provided would earn any student an F in any Economics 101 class the world over. PRO's argument has nothing to do with economics and in spite of framing his argument as "SOCIETY should," PRO demonstrates no interest in public policy. PRO merely presents a commonplace universal utopian ideal as a theory of moral obligation without devoting a single brain cell to evidence or experience or pratical consideration. PRO fails to define SOCIETY but based on the globalism of his examples, his plan of moral obligation seems to apply to the whole world without any interest in implementatin, effect, or sustainability- such are the justifications of cartoon Bond villains. PRO should have also fulfilled his obligation to define EVOLVE. Evolution can just mean change but since Darwin that word carries a definite connotation of adaptation to a more sustainable configuration, PRO should have explained up front whether he felt universal sharing was likely to improve mankind's destiny or merely recommended a righteous seppeku by human ideal. Without any sepcifics, any history, any experiements, any knowledge of economic or even biological precedent we are left with a child's digest of the Sermon on the Mount, minus the eloquence or supernatural reassurance of success

The BURDEN of PROOF is 100% PRO's and PRO shrugs off this burden then runs aways from it like an injured wild hippo might from a clown with a saddle. PRO is not here to persuade, only to recycle past punditries with an acolyte's faith-based toolkit. This VOTER, for one, likes to see some evidence supporting a structured rational framework in an argument

PRO's best argument is a restatement of Christ's Golden Rule: do unto the sons of others as you would your own son. As a moral justification for Communism I suppose this works well enough but as a plan for real humans adapting to extreme overpopulation, technototalitarianism, and a burgeoning sixth extinction level event the rational priority is to make sure somebody's sons (and of necessity, daughters) survive

CON's job here is pretty easy since all he has to do is rebut PRO's assertions with evidence or demonstrate the lack thereof. I think CON succeeds in this rebuttal by roughly challenging point by point, although I give few points for style or accuracy and certainly, although I find myself disagreeing with CON more often than not. I don't think CON makes much of a case that ownership is not thef or communism produces scarcity but CON needs only make it clear that PRO's proselytizing stands unproven, he need not prove his counterclaims and mostly I wish he had not tried. CON does show that PRO's definition of Communism is fake news and that the geo-political history of what has been called Communism produces the opposite of the Christian effects PRO hopes for less freedom, less equality, less prosperity, stagnant, short-lived slave state

In round 2, PRO outright states that there are contradicting notions of properties, and all contradiction being irresolvable, the anarchist's war cry "property is theft" must be true. PRO lists North Korea, China, Japan, Canada, Finland, Sweden, and the US as examples of emerging classless, propertyless Communists societies although some of these examples offer polar extremes in onlook about social equity and ownership. The more examples PRO gives the fuzzier his conception of Communism seems to be, merging finally into a doubleplusgood singularity. If a nation does something PRO aprroves of, then he will call it Communism

PRO seems to know he's beaten and switches tactics- he insists we accept his false definition of communism as valid and failing that, attack Captialism irrelvantly- as if the way to make
Communism plausible is to criticize Captialism. That's a very 20th Century American way of thinking about socio-economics- two polarized forces locked in a zero sum death match. It was bullshit propaganda in the age of Krushchev and Reagan and it remains bullshit propoganda today

CON wins in round 3 by demanding an Economicly correct definiton of Communism and by pointing out that PRO's argument is actually irrelevant to Communism or any socio-econoic theory. CON wisely demands to see PRO's evidence, research, proofs

PRO knows when he is beat and runs away from CON's demand for facts as fast as possible, only leaving the minimum necessary to avoid technical while nevertheless forfeiting the last 40% of the debate, ignoring CON's demands for substance and depriving CON of any opportunity to refine.

ARGs to CON

SOURCES to CON for using some. When CON demanded that PRO show his research, PRO scampered

CONDUCT to CON. Although PRO did not technically forfeit the second half of the debate, by any normal standard PRO's refusal to engage is just as chicken as not showing up at all

Communism is garbage. At R1 I fully expected my vote would go to con, with so many of pro's points being kinda BS (everything is theft, NK is ideal...)

That said, pro was able to show that applesauce is better for the people by utilitarian standards (to include that morally we ought to not give special status based on blood relation). Con's replies boil down to applesauce being a taboo word; yet failed to show that in the form suggested it wouldn't be better (indeed with countries we instinctively favor being more applesauce than capitalist).

One of the smarter things pro did was not going for absolute governments oversight but rather just a few vital areas, as seen with saying cars are outside the scope of consideration.

I'd have been more likely to buy con's lawyering, had it not waited so long. A key flaw in the execution is that I have no difficulty with the substitutions (e.g., applesauce above), so with pro's case not being reduced to word salad with confusing and/or contradictory definitions it holds.

Sources:
They lean to con for the effort put into research. None of them clicked with me to tip anything but with arguments to pro I am more liberally mitigating said victory.

Legibility:
Con had two full rounds all bolded, and one most nearly all bolded. A little bit of bold text can help, but acting like it is all special and super important means none of it is, and of course this distracts from reading his points.

Conduct:
Pro used a tactic of not answering anything from con in the final two rounds. While this carried the day, it was disrespectful... That said, con's kritik against the debate setup was also problematic; but it seems a fair point mitigation against the side whose tactic of questionable sportsmanship was successful.

Pro's first argument is basically a write-up on the contradiction of individual rights and human rights. He constructs a compelling case for mandating the equitable distribution of resources as a means of serving the public good. Where Pro falters is in his advocacy of communism as a liberating force, and then immediately referencing North Korea as an example of communist ideals in practice. As one would expect, Con highlights the repressive nature of North Korean society. Con's main response in round one was an argument in favour of private property because, in his view, there are enough resources to go around. I think the main problem with Con's argument was twofold. First, Pro did a good job of cementing the fact that a constant state of abundance cannot be assumed. Therefore, Pro argues that the equitable distribution of resources would alleviate the plight of the disadvantaged when there is no abundance. My second problem with Con's argument was that he never really established that communism would be destructive in a world with abundance. Rather, his arguments seemed to merely prove that communism would be less efficacious in a world of abundance than it would be in a world of scarcity. Much of the debate also centred around what societies are and aren't socialist. In the end, Pro convinced me that countries like America, Canada, and Japan satisfied many aspects of his definition of communism, which effectively boils down to "communism = welfare state." However, Pro did himself a disservice by focusing so much on property rights, because as Con points out, many repressive countries (he lists the Soviet Union) were avidly against property rights. Ultimately, I was convinced that The most successful countries of the modern era integrate communist principles (as they're defined in this debate) into their societies through their welfare state. That being said, I am not convinced that the wealthiest countries in the world share the communist perspective on property rights. This topic brought out another key contention in the debate, the definition of communism. On this issue, I will say just one thing: I understand Con's frustration with Pro's unconventional definition of communism, but it is well established that definitions pre-defined in the debate description override definitions derived from intuition or the dictionary.

In short, I think Pro was able to make an interesting case in favour of equitably distributing resources for the purposes of looking after the disadvantaged. Con never made a concrete response to this, other than with his argument from abundance, which as I previously explained, is stained by two big flaws. This is the primary reason arguments are going to Pro. The rest of the debate was about what societies are communist and what constitutes theft. With regard to the presence of communism around the world, I thought Pro did a good job of proving that the modern day welfare state is fundamentally communist, while at the same time, I thought Con did a good job at tearing down North Korea and combatting the idea that countries today share a communist (again, as it is defined in this debate) property rights doctrine. I view this as a pretty even point. The argument over theft was fairly boring. Instead of proving why the theft in question was justified or not, it was just about throwing around the label and hoping the moral baggage associated with the word would constitute an argument. Because neither side gave me a good reason to care about whether communism necessitates theft, I am not considering this point.

I am giving Con the conduct point because Pro basically resigned from the culminating rounds of the debate.