Georgism is better than America’s current system of taxation

There was some discussion of how we could change the standards after the decision was made to shift from spelling and grammar to legibility, but to my knowledge at least, we did not make any substantial alterations to those standards. As for why not, the change-over happened when the site owner Mike decided to make a number of big changes to the site and I think this one just never got all that much attention. It’s past time we opened the issue up to public comment and at least determined whether enough people would like the standard to change, then we can workshop some ideas for how to do it.

I’ll go ahead and remove the vote. It looks like Sir.Lancelot has already posted the whole text of it below.

I meant to address my #22 to you, but erred in not addressing it to you. please read, and then cancel my vote; I'll re-do it, but, pls, answer the question in it. When the name changed from spelling & grammar to legibility, did the description also change with it? If not, why not? "...The goal isn’t to nitpick, the problem(s) should usually be obvious at a glance." Pro's change of argument was "obvious..." and confusing for the reasons I've already discussed.

That did not answer my question, which was an honest question. I'm not trying to be difficult, just want to understand, because I am suspcious that when the name changed [before I was here five years ago, the name changed, but I have no idea if the body of the description of legibility changed with it. If it didn't, why not, because I have always voted with this interpretation, and this is the first time it has raised feathers. Just cancel my vote, I'll re-do.

It’s valid to argue that the way legibility is awarded should change, but at this moment, the view you’ve provided on legibility is not how it is applied. We would need to alter the voting standards to reflect that, which would require some public discussion. For the time being, even if I fully defer to your judgement on the term, it’s not how the voting standards apply in this case.

I have to wonder why, then, the name of the section changed from spelling & grammar if the intent was not to widen the scope from mere spelling and grammar, because that is what I'm doing, and y'all think I'm crazy. Isn't the whole idea of reading to be able to understand the writer? In written debate, I expect consistent argument from one side, not being all over the map. In linguistics, we reduce reading to a concept of the ability to decode symbols: the basic units of a language, and when a writer converts thought to written symbols [letters in our case] that collectively say the same thing when repeated, which debate argument is expected to do from round to round.. Pro did not repeat. Sorry, but that implies poor legibility to me, Legibility is not exclusively the job of the de-coder, but the coder, as well.

Can you and I debate capitalism and socialism?

Not to but in, but the way I always interpreted the legibility point wasn't about the writing itself, but about how that writing is formatted, (grammar, punctuation, indents, paragraphs). Your specific complaints with my argument would go in the argument section, not legibility.

Again, though, that reads to me as an issue of argument, not one of legibility. If he effectively conceded the debate, no matter how he did it, it would not be reflected in the Legibility scoring.

My complaint is the complete reversal of stand from absolute assurance that Georgism is the greatest thing since butter to not being certain there is butter. Sorry if that is not confusing to you; it is to me.i.e., it iscapitulation to Con's argument.

I don't recall that specific instance and I'm not challenging your credentials. I'm just trying to get a clear idea of what makes Pro's case hard to understand as a result of said word salad. I haven't read through the debate, but if we're talking legibility, there's a pretty clear voting standard for that:

Awarded as a penalty for excessive abuse committed by the other side, wherein sections of the debate become illegible or at least comparatively burdensome to decipher.

Examples:

Unbroken walls of text, or similar formatting attempts to make an argument hard to follow.

Terrible punctuation throughout.

Overwhelming word confusion, or regularly distracting misspellings.

Jarring font and/or formatting changes.

https://info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy

So it has to meet some clear standard for awarding the point, and I'm asking you to explain how this instance meets that standard.

I bring to the table a PhD in English Lit, and am a published author as a retirement profession, so I am a critic for good grammar and consistency of plot. The "plot" of Pro's R1 vs. R4 tells an opposing story, thus the "word salad.". I do not check my experience at the door when voting. If I must, then I might as well not be a member anymore, because I do not lower my standards for a website's feelings. I recall losing a debate four years ago because a voter cited off=debate sources [i.e., the sources were not cited by my opponent in rebuttal, but by the voter] in order to vote against my argument. If that can fly unchallenged, then so should this word salad negative vote.

Yeah, it'll have to be re-posted.

As for Legibility, I'll need to see more on why it's difficult to decipher. I understand what you mean by "word salad," but I'll need some examples of what made it difficult to understand. We can work this out here and then I can delete it for your re-post.

Yeah, re: conduct, I forgot about the rules commentary "Any unexcused forfeited round…” was an automatic loss of conduct. Sorry. Can you change that item, or do I need to re-enter a vote?
However, re: the Legibility vote, I gave Con the point because of Pro's word salad between R1 and R4, as mentioned in my voting explanation. I call that sufficient illegibility: “…at least comparatively burdensome to decipher.” plus the [sic] item of omitting cap on America, rendered "america" to begin R1 Just sloppy. I stand by that vote.

Yeah, I'm afraid you're going to need a better reason for withholding the conduct point than "it didn't amount to enough of the debate for me to award this point." The 40% threshold is the threshold for an automatic loss on the debate i.e. a full forfeit. I'm likely going to need a better reason for legibility as well because the afforded reasoning doesn't appear to have anything to do with the legibility of his argument. It looks like you're stating that he got off topic, which can factor into your argument points, but not legibility.

I'll keep this loose. Are you good with re-posting the rest of your reasoning avoiding legibility while awarding conduct to Pro? Or do you have another reason why these should be awarded differently?

Argument:
Pro's R1 argument begins, "america's [sic] current taxation system has money coming in from a wide variety of sources..." which clarifies an argument of its own developing in later rounds of the debate in which Pro becomes lost in the weeds and loses focus on the detail of the Resolution. The thrust of pro's R1 argument is that America's tax system is "inherently unfair and wrong." Pro claims a Georgian tax system would improve the "unfair and wrong" because it consists of a "land-value tax." [as a personal note, having naught to do with my vote, but what, then, is current property tax if it isn't a "land-value tax" that is less tax for undeveloped property, more tax for developed property?] Pro's Resolution is "Georgism is better than America’s current system of taxation." Pro defines "Better" as "more favorable quality of life for the most citizens..."

Con's rebuttal consisted of proposing what factors contribute to "better" as being: 1] livelihood, 2] consumption & welfare, 3] sustainable prosperity, and declares "Georgism" is not a current tax policy, and is therefore speculative as to accomplishing these three outcomes of Georgism's application.

Pro lost the argument by never being able to overcome his weed entanglement of referencing America as his country of primary interest by declaring it upfront in R1 as his country of interest, and then admitting in R4 that Georgism cannot be proven to be better for America.

Sourcing: Pro completely lacked sourcing . Con sourced in all three arguments in which he participated, sustaining his arguments and rebuttals effectively, such as A Search-Theoretic Critique of Georgism - Econlib in R4.

Legibility: Pro lost this by his opining weed entanglement mention in R1 when it served no purpose since he admitted, in R4, that Georgism cannot be proven to be better for America

Can I get this vote removed? My opponent forfeited the conduct point and I still didn't get that point, and I can't find anything about 40% in the voting guidelines whereas I found this in the voting policy: "The disrespect of even a single forfeiture necessitates this penalty unless there is reason to withhold it. "

Now that I've voted, I'll vent:
1. It is fact that public schools do not entirely depend on the local, municipal economy for funding, as claimed by Pro. Local schools receive federal funding as well.
2. Social Security, maligned by many as funded by taxpayers, and, therefore, essentially a socialist system, is not funded by one dollar of public money. Its entire funding is by private money: contributed by FICA taxes withdrawn from the paychecks of workers, and an equal sum, each paycheck, by their employers, which is also private money. Those contributions go 100% into the Social Security Trust Fund. Some claim the trust fund is robbed by government to go to other programs the government funds, but this claim is theoretically false. The government does not rob from the S.S Trust Fund, but it does borrow from it. The idea, the LAW, is that the government reimburses the SS Trust Fund for all monies borrowed, but, to date, according to their own calculation, the US government owes the trust fund, as of close of fiscal year 2024 [9/30/24] $2.5 trillion. That's the problem with social security: the government fails to pay it back for borrowed money for other purposes. PRIVATE money, NOT public. Get it?

No pressure. I'll ping you with three days left or so.

Remind me, but sure.

As per my opponent's recommendation, care to vote?

Whiteflame, Rational, or Barney will vote on this

Votes

This is a very interesting subject.
Great topic choice for discussion.

There’s lots of room for conversation about economy statistics versus systems of policy that haven’t been tested yet

It is better if government just prints money. Its the most simple tax there is.