It's obvious as hell that the accounts voting PRO were Magic's multi-accounts, but mods suspending vote privileges based strictly on circumstantial information can lead to some scary precedent in theory.
7.) Just look at the WaPo excerpt one more time. Trust me. The "multiple potential crimes" is literally them saying people have been indicted/plead-guilty. The other and single crime being something you yourself noted PRO dropped.
8) This is a pretty nuanced issue that I really should have explained a lot better in hindsight. Here's the general idea though: A Principal Officer must be confirmed by the Senate. An inferior officer can be appointed directly by a Principal Officer, provided the inferior officer is supervised and directed by the Principal Officer and subservient thereto. My argument here is that Mueller is inferior officer in name only, has not been supervised and directed by the Principal Officer (Rosenstein, due to Sessions' conflicting himself) and has not been subservenient (due to exercising powers on par with, if not beyond that of the Principal Officer, such as nationwide jurisdiction, his indictment of foreign citizens and business entities and his breach of Attorney-client privilege is a threat to civil liberties unlike any that has been attempted in this country since Senator Joe McCarthy’s red scares).
9) I guess I can give heads/tails on this, but in the debate, I had made the point that Mueller had investigated Manafort on things that occurred and happened over a decade prior to the existence of the Trump campaign, much less any notion of Russia collusion. PRO said financial records are relevant while simultaneously saying Trump University would be out-of-bounds. I just don't see how one can salvage both statements.
Anyways, don't take it personally! This is a debate site and I like to debate! Thanks for reading!
Don't take it personal, Ram, but this is a debate site after all and you just so happened to comment on something I'm quite interested in! I won't relitigate the debate. And hell, I'll probably agree to disagree after this latest exchange.
By your own admission, you aren't a pure TR voter, so I don't see any issue in discussing any implicit presumption that influenced your rendering of the debate.
1) Why is it that you think I was only referencing a general ability of prosecutors to be malfesant as opposed to questioning the reliability of the entire plea/indictment process?
2) I'm willing to give heads/tails on this one as I honestly did not give it any thought until you pointed out and since boils down to the difference between a pure TR and non-pure TR voter.
3) The harm was fair and free of any suggestion of impropriety.
4) Why? I raised a specific argument that the ethics investigation did not address. Logically, why should that argument be swept under the rug just because some ethics investigation has determined Rob is a good dude?
5) Do you believe that it is a valid default position that someone having an alternative party affiliation to the degree of donating massive sums of money, breaking their oaths of office and engaging in malfeasance is indicative of "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest?"
6) I'm willing to give heads/tails on this one. Had I seen the "federal judge is more credible" argument in the debate, I would have rebutted by citing the federal judge in my source. I probably should have done that regardless. My thing here is that I was making the point A. Dershowitz was making in his article which is that Mueller shouldn't be anywhere near the POTUS until this stuff gets investigated.
"Con argues that mueller has gone beyond his scope. Pro argues that the additional scope is warranted if the crimes were discovered in the process of investigating other matters - In my view this constitutes an explanation of how the crimes are related to the Russian interference and the campaign. Con has to provide a justification to refute pros position as to why Mueller should ignore crimes if he discovers them. Con provided no rebuttal here."
He discovered them in a way he could not have discovered them purely by investigating potential Russian collusion (i.e. investigating information a decade before the 2016 elections even occurred). I think PRO's admission that Trump University would be out-of-bounds is devastating here as Mueller could easily investigate that if carte blanche investigation into financial records is truly fair game.
"Con argues with a link that WaPo did it with Snowden, and didn’t get charged, but pro doesn’t respond! However while I’m forced to accept that Trump doing something with the stolen data would not be illegal (as pro drops this), con drops the rest of the point - that there were multiple crimes, and other unknown possibilities for individuals in the campaign to assist with those crimes - of which cons rebuttal forms only part."
PRO's WaPo source cites articulates no other crimes. Instead, it makes mention of the fact that numerous indictments/guilty pleas have been obtained on this case, hence why it says: "The argument that such coordination would be lawful is striking, including the fact that it follows 191 charges against 35 individuals and companies brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, which have yielded five guilty pleas. Taken together, that work spells out the many crimes Russia committed to attempt to affect the outcome of the 2016 election."
"Con argues that it can’t be considered constitutional due to his power and thus is not an inferior office. I feel the power aspect is clearly addressed into pros Supreme Court portion - the independent counsel seems to be very similar: With the only aspect being difference in appointment. I also find the argument that repeated appointments since 1875 to be pretty compelling."
The issue wasn't whether someone could be appointed though. The issue was how much power an inferior officer could have and how much supervision he could avoid and my source went to great lengths of demonstrating how Mueller is on par with a full fledged U.S. Attorney.
"Pro rebuts that Mueller was not appointed by a democrat, that there is no conflict of interest with regards to donations as they are expressly allowed.
Con argues this is an appeal to authority - I reject this as pro clearly states that mueller underwent an ethics review, not just that he was appointed by a Republican."
Citing the ethics review board on its face is also an appeal to authority. The point is that when someone gives a specific objection, we shouldn't presume that just because X authority generally says otherwise (without addressing the specific objection, the authority figure is correct.
"Con is asking me to accept that there is a substantial chance that one or more of the prosecutors are acting unfairly against Trump, that the whole group is allowing it to occur (including Mueller), and I must accept this on its face because they have ties to a political opponent of someone being investigated. Con implies the motive is simply pay back."
Why do you think payback is a weak motivation in a field as slimy and underhanded as politics?
"Con lists a number of reasons why Mueller is corrupt revolving around a case in Boston. Pro outlines the judge citing categorically that there was nothing implicating Mueller, and pointed out vetting and ethics investigations."
And as Alan Dershowitz indicated in my source, this has yet to be investigated and the Judge simply saying she "didn't see anything" in the FBI's files is ludicrous when the FBI itself is being accused of corruption (see my Washington Examiner source about the numerous irregularities in the files on that case, also noted by a Federal Judge mind you) and when we have a credible eye witness who says otherwise.
"5.) Conflict of interest.
Pro points to a single example of personal conflicts of Mueller (knowledge of Comey), and a number of examples of individual members of the investigation having ties to Hilary.
This is less an argument from conflict of interest - and at worse poor judgement but that’s semantics."
Refer back to my article from the national review. Maybe if this kind of thing happened once or twice, you could dismiss it as poor judgment, but when it's happening over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it's intentional.
"3.) Troll farms.
Pro argues that we know that there were Russian troll farms, and as we do not know the true extent - the investigation should continue. In the definitions and opening the investigation is not just an investigation into Trump, but also Russian interference. Cons rebuttal on this point in my view is insufficient - pro rightly points out, that he should not need to produce proof of Trumps guilt to indicate whether the investigation as a whole should continue.
I found cons final rebuttal wholly unwarranted, firstly, it didn’t address the key point that pro made. Secondly, the definition of the investigation, and pros argument appears to be not that there are necessarily any specific crimes the Russian Troll farms have committed - but their actions must be understood."
First, my reading of the special appointment order was that Mueller was tasked to investigate any link/role between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, any matters that directly arose as a result of that and all within the scope of existing law. That's why Mueller was appointed in the first place. The investigation revolved around subject matter that the previous USAG could not involve himself in due to a conflict of interest. In R4, PRO even says "The resolution is whether or not the Trump investigation should be continued." And so I would reject any interpretation of the topic that allows the investigation to go beyond the Trump campaign working with Russia.
Second, I admittedly didn't go into this "must be understood" element of PRO's argument you're mentioning. Granted, even in hindsight, I don't think I needed to and think my points on political/criminal conduct speak for themselves.
"Cons main rebuttal is that just because someone was indicted, or plead guilty, doesn’t mean that it is justice or is warranted. Pro is correct in his response that merely implying that they could have been dishonestly indicted or pled, or found guilty doesn’t mean they were.
On this point I mostly side with pro: If con is arguing that the indictments MAY be spurious, then it cons duty to convince me that they are spurious. Without this, con hasn’t shown me warrant to believe that these indictments are spurious - only that indictments In general can be serious."
Massively disagree. My point here is that an indictment and a guilty plea on its own is meaningless. It does not tell us anything. Prosecutors can indict just about anybody and the vast majority of people (innocent or guilty) do NOT want to roll the dice and spend a ridiculously large portion of their lives in jail due to the prosecutor's ability to overcharge. It's not a matter of whether indictments and guilty pleas MAY be spurious. They ARE spurious. As such, we would need information beyond the fact the fact that Mueller has secured various indictments/pleas to determine that the investigation has bore legitimate fruit.
Saying otherwise is flipping the BOP. Imagine Steve walks into a bar and shouts "Ghosts exist!" and citing a message on his "Ouija board app" as proof. Now imagine Robert responding to Steve by telling him that "Ouija board apps" aren't reliable since its just a program designed to input random messages and cash in on suckers." If Steve tells Robert to prove that this particular message was in fact random and NOT the doings of some apparition, is it your position that Robert should do just that or else submit to Steve's position?
I'm generally ambivalent about who votes for what in these debates and probably won't say much even if it's a vote against me. However, in this case, we have some subject matter I'm pretty PASSIONATE about, so it's a different story. Granted, I'm not asking you to change your vote (in fact, I'd ask you to keep it the same even if you somehow end up agreeing with me) and note that you are entitled to opinion regardless of what I am inclined to say. With that being said . . .
"In my view pro does not do nearly enough to show why con doesn’t know the person well enough. This is clearly a big problem for con, and in my view, not clearly refuted."
There might be a typo here, but it was never my argument to show or explain why CON didn't know the girl well enough. In fact, I made the case he knew her very well based on his extensive poems about her. Thanks for reading nonetheless! =)
"PRO was in a situation where his crush liked him back. How could he have known this? He could have looked at the signs that she liked him. Dilated eye pupils, feet toward the POI(Person of Interest), etc. If he saw the things, then I would tell him to go for the girl and ask her out. That would've been the right moment if PRO noticed the signs that were present. But he didn't."
I could have observed numerous signs that she liked me, but it wasn't really a matter of my ability to look at the signs. The issue was that my fear of getting rejected overwhelmed my ability to think rationally. Or as Mr. Miyagi put it at the end of Karate Kid 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S6GYF1B8Yk
"IT'S OKAY LOSE TO OPPONENT! MUST NOT LOSE TO FEAR!"
If not for the fact that it's a 90s show full of 90s references, I would recommend to it. Frasier on the other hand, I highly recommend it! Niles and Daphne is all I have to say. =)
Any interpretation of those documents that extends beyond investigating the Russian collusion should be rejected for the sake of your best interest and mine. =)
lol, in the distant past, I was in your shoes (minus the poems and talking about it on the internet). By the end of this debate, I'll let you know how it turned out!
Incidentally, have you ever seen the show Hey Arnold?
Have thought about it, but am way way waayyy too biased on this debate to give my personal preference to properly judge it! As a consolation, I shall set aside some time to vote on any one debate either debater solicits from me starting . . . now. Consider this comment a free voucher on any one debate either debater would like for me to look at!
"They need to thoroughly examine the witness and the evidence before getting an arrest warrant or trying the case."
They say they do, but sometimes I wonder. Had a case a couple of weeks ago in which the my client, a mother, was defending her son against a college-aged female wielding a knife. The son got his arm slashed up and the mom receiving ample cuts and bruises. The police arrived and arrested the mom despite this. I got this stupid charge dismissed ultimately, but my client still ended up losing her good paying job in the process.
"I cited an alarming number of innocent people who plead guilty to murder charges. I shudder to think how many innocent people were convicted of lesser crimes."
It is much MUCH MUCH higher. I've even gotten the opportunity to question cops/prosecutors about their tactics behind closed doors and they've told me that these defendants weren't guilty of the crimes they were charged, they were probably guilty of something else anyway so it all works out in the end. Disgusting.
"The fact the law encourages innocent people to testify against another innocent person is kinda disgusting."
It makes even the shittiest of prosecution cases into viable cases when you can threaten/blackmail witnesses into testifying.
"The biggest issue I see with rape cases and sexual assault cases is that it's really their word against his. Unless it's collaborated by quite a few people (as in the Cosby case) it's really impossible to prove without DNA evidence."
Which is sad because the victim's testimony alone, by law, is sufficient to convict you. Sadly, a great deal of alleged victims have used this to their advantage (whether it be to get back at ex-husband/boyfriend or to get ahead in a divorce or child custody dispute). And even if you do manage to beat the charges, that doesn't rid of you of the stigma of what you were charged with in your community, the time you spent in custody (especially if you couldn't make bail), the job you've no doubt lost due to the charge, the money you are no doubt out of if you weren't indigent already and the emotional distress you've suffered (some of which will be suicidal). We have a truly diabolical system in our country (nothing like what the founders envisioned) and all you can do is hope and pray that you don't wake up one morning until to find out that you have become the government's next target.
"Also if anyone files a false charge, they should get the same time the other perosn would have gotten."
DAs offices are generally hesitant to do that. On the one hand, prosecuting a false charges case makes their office look bad for having previously prosecuted an innocent person in the first place (they'd rather sweep it under the rug). On the other hand, there *generally* (as in it does happen, but not often) just isn't enough political capital involved to make prosecuting, for example, a woman for lying about rape or domestic assault case worthwhile. It's sad, but that's how they see things. I recently had an order of protection violation case in which I was able to expose the alleged victim on the stand for telling a bald faced lie (of which she walked back on her allegations and blamed it on being so "afraid" of my client). During my closing argument, I jumped up and down about how she committed blatant perjury and how the DA's office needs to prosecute her. All I got from the judge and the prosecutor was crickets.
"I agree 100%!
Also people exonerated from DNA evidence ought to get at least 1 million for every year in jail."
You'd be surprised. Even when the law demands that these exonerated defendants get a payout, the State will fight tooth and nail to see to it that that doesn't happen. Just look at this example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lawrence-mckinney-wrongful-conviction-tennessee-75-lawyer-dna-evidence-petition-governor-bill-haslam-a7478396.html
The beauty of rape cases is that they involve DNA and thus exonerating these defendants can be done in a concrete/fullproof fashion. But just imagine all of the criminal defendants who plead guilty and whose cases don't involve any DNA whatsoever. They have zero recourse and are currently sitting in jail for something they didn't do. It's a f-cked up system and something needs to change.
What prosecutors do is that they stack a bunch of trumped up charges onto each other and tell defendants that they'll drop all but one charge if they plea guilty and that they'll prosecute every charge and push for a consecutive sentence if they don't plea guilty. Many times, this winds up being the difference between serving a couple of years and a couple of decades in jail, so of course the "logical" decision is to "plea guilty" regardless of guilt or innocence. To the defendants, it is about how much they are willing to risk fiddling around in an otherwise rigged system.
In a law school, I thought the PRO position was nonsense. Having done criminal defense for a couple of years now, however, the PRO position is the only sane position to have. If the government were forced to try every case they prosecuted, the government would lack the means to try a majority of the BS cases they're currently prosecuting and would be forced to focus on prosecuting people who are actually harming the public. I'd further propose forcing the government to foot the defense's legal fees whenever losing a case: https://www.debateart.com/debates/120
You can probably still argue that Trump made the mistake of never defining terms of his challenge (thereby making 1% Indian blood irrelevant) and that Trump merely paying a charity $1,000,000 is an inherently honorable thing to do and that Trump's riches enable him to do this without breaking a sweat. I don't agree with that, but it's not like there's no arguments to be made here.
I'm fine with leaving it as a tie if you want. I only took this debate because it involved issues I deal with on a regular basis. Traffic cameras may have their flaws, but I've seen crooked cops do a heck of a lot more damage to people's lives than cameras ever have!
I must say it's a very impressive deduction on your part. As I was coming up with mechanisms to conceal my conservative christian agenda by voting on an Assassin's Creed game debate, I was almost certain that no one would be any the wiser if I voted in favor of imabench, an atheist liberal, but you saw right through me. I tip my hat off to your superior intellect. A boundlessly brilliant intellect that yankee doodle ding dongs like myself are unable to fathom.
Yeah, I'm definitely out to teach non-conservative Christian waggly doodles a lesson! As are the voters from . . . most of your other debates from the looks of it. This is neocon town here and we don't give a f-ck who knows it!
That's just it though. Your whole "refuses to make an actual argument" point was just an argument by assertion. I'm not a mind reader. I don't know why you thought CON's arguments did not constitute "actual arguments" other than you saying so and making it loud and clear as to what you do and don't "give a f-ck about." You basically came into the debate making a lot of unsubstantiated opinions. Which is unfortunate because there's enough truth to reviewers getting paid to make reviews and sales not being indicative of quality (e.g. anyone who has ever eaten at Hooters will know what I'm talking about :P ) to make your position very defensible.
1) There appears to be no issue with my convincing arguments assessment, but the vote was removed anyway.
2) The conduct violation in this debate is as plain as day. Frankly, I'm surprised mods didn't use this opportunity to issue a warning to PRO. I've been to sites where I would get banned for carrying around the way PRO did during this debate. I mean I guess I'm glad DART is more tolerant than other websites towards this kind of thing, but still . . .
3) I did explain my justification for the conduct vote. PRO reduced the debate to being about personal attacks. I don't know why the concern here is that I didn't explain why CON's "specific poor conduct is worse" since I'm not saying CON's conduct was worse. If I thought it was worse, I would've given conduct to PRO.
4) At the rate you guys are going, you may as well make it to where all votes need mod approval as someone is always going to take issue with the votes on a debate.
What a genius is doing spending so much free time with witless troglodytes is beyond me. A conundrum perhaps only a "genius" has the capacity to unravel.
Elitism is overrated. Don't learn the hard way that the real world is cruel and merciless to self-proclaimed special snowflakes who see themselves as being above the chaff.
You would've been a lot better off constructing a case on why sales and reviews themselves should never be taken into account as opposed to just asserting that they shouldn't. No need to go around asserting what you do and don't "give a f-ck about." That could have made for a good debate.
Suppose we have two rocks. One rock is 5 feet tall and the other rock is 4.999999 feet tall. If one were to keep increasing the height of the second rock by small enough increments, could one infinitely increase the height of the second rock without ever making the second rock 5 feet tall? :P
I beg to differ. See the Knoxville, Tennessee rape case I cited. There, in addition to the rape case being premised on an accusation alone, the victim actually destroyed crucial evidence. A no brainier on cases not to waste taxpayer on, right? Nope. For many people, it takes actually being on the wrong end of a prosecution / FBI investigation to realize just how utterly f*cked up our judicial system is and how much money they will not hesitate to waste on sheer nonsense.
"Better representation for indigent defendants can be achieved more directly by hiring more public defenders and providing them with greater resources."
Which States are incredibly reluctant to do even with the threat of lawsuits. I would propose both solutions for reasons cited in the debate.
"Given all the injustice in the world - Why is this particular injustice important to you?"
Because most people have no idea it's happening and the news media downplays it beyond belief. I didn't know about it either until I saw it firsthand.
"Should the taxpayers have foot the $5 million legal bill for OJ's defense?"
Not only should the taxpayers foot the $5 million legal bill for OJ's defense, but they should subsequently fire the incompetent DAs who caused them to pay the bill in the first place. I'd also say that the demonstrable police corruption shown and proven by the OJ defense time would be well worth the price of $5 million and that the awareness raised towards men like the disgraced Detective Mark Furhman has surely fundamentally changed how the LAPD operates.
Challenge me to this debate. Lets have some fun!
It's obvious as hell that the accounts voting PRO were Magic's multi-accounts, but mods suspending vote privileges based strictly on circumstantial information can lead to some scary precedent in theory.
Talk about a temper tantrum.
7.) Just look at the WaPo excerpt one more time. Trust me. The "multiple potential crimes" is literally them saying people have been indicted/plead-guilty. The other and single crime being something you yourself noted PRO dropped.
8) This is a pretty nuanced issue that I really should have explained a lot better in hindsight. Here's the general idea though: A Principal Officer must be confirmed by the Senate. An inferior officer can be appointed directly by a Principal Officer, provided the inferior officer is supervised and directed by the Principal Officer and subservient thereto. My argument here is that Mueller is inferior officer in name only, has not been supervised and directed by the Principal Officer (Rosenstein, due to Sessions' conflicting himself) and has not been subservenient (due to exercising powers on par with, if not beyond that of the Principal Officer, such as nationwide jurisdiction, his indictment of foreign citizens and business entities and his breach of Attorney-client privilege is a threat to civil liberties unlike any that has been attempted in this country since Senator Joe McCarthy’s red scares).
9) I guess I can give heads/tails on this, but in the debate, I had made the point that Mueller had investigated Manafort on things that occurred and happened over a decade prior to the existence of the Trump campaign, much less any notion of Russia collusion. PRO said financial records are relevant while simultaneously saying Trump University would be out-of-bounds. I just don't see how one can salvage both statements.
Anyways, don't take it personally! This is a debate site and I like to debate! Thanks for reading!
Don't take it personal, Ram, but this is a debate site after all and you just so happened to comment on something I'm quite interested in! I won't relitigate the debate. And hell, I'll probably agree to disagree after this latest exchange.
By your own admission, you aren't a pure TR voter, so I don't see any issue in discussing any implicit presumption that influenced your rendering of the debate.
1) Why is it that you think I was only referencing a general ability of prosecutors to be malfesant as opposed to questioning the reliability of the entire plea/indictment process?
2) I'm willing to give heads/tails on this one as I honestly did not give it any thought until you pointed out and since boils down to the difference between a pure TR and non-pure TR voter.
3) The harm was fair and free of any suggestion of impropriety.
4) Why? I raised a specific argument that the ethics investigation did not address. Logically, why should that argument be swept under the rug just because some ethics investigation has determined Rob is a good dude?
5) Do you believe that it is a valid default position that someone having an alternative party affiliation to the degree of donating massive sums of money, breaking their oaths of office and engaging in malfeasance is indicative of "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest?"
6) I'm willing to give heads/tails on this one. Had I seen the "federal judge is more credible" argument in the debate, I would have rebutted by citing the federal judge in my source. I probably should have done that regardless. My thing here is that I was making the point A. Dershowitz was making in his article which is that Mueller shouldn't be anywhere near the POTUS until this stuff gets investigated.
"Con argues that mueller has gone beyond his scope. Pro argues that the additional scope is warranted if the crimes were discovered in the process of investigating other matters - In my view this constitutes an explanation of how the crimes are related to the Russian interference and the campaign. Con has to provide a justification to refute pros position as to why Mueller should ignore crimes if he discovers them. Con provided no rebuttal here."
He discovered them in a way he could not have discovered them purely by investigating potential Russian collusion (i.e. investigating information a decade before the 2016 elections even occurred). I think PRO's admission that Trump University would be out-of-bounds is devastating here as Mueller could easily investigate that if carte blanche investigation into financial records is truly fair game.
"Con argues with a link that WaPo did it with Snowden, and didn’t get charged, but pro doesn’t respond! However while I’m forced to accept that Trump doing something with the stolen data would not be illegal (as pro drops this), con drops the rest of the point - that there were multiple crimes, and other unknown possibilities for individuals in the campaign to assist with those crimes - of which cons rebuttal forms only part."
PRO's WaPo source cites articulates no other crimes. Instead, it makes mention of the fact that numerous indictments/guilty pleas have been obtained on this case, hence why it says: "The argument that such coordination would be lawful is striking, including the fact that it follows 191 charges against 35 individuals and companies brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, which have yielded five guilty pleas. Taken together, that work spells out the many crimes Russia committed to attempt to affect the outcome of the 2016 election."
"Con argues that it can’t be considered constitutional due to his power and thus is not an inferior office. I feel the power aspect is clearly addressed into pros Supreme Court portion - the independent counsel seems to be very similar: With the only aspect being difference in appointment. I also find the argument that repeated appointments since 1875 to be pretty compelling."
The issue wasn't whether someone could be appointed though. The issue was how much power an inferior officer could have and how much supervision he could avoid and my source went to great lengths of demonstrating how Mueller is on par with a full fledged U.S. Attorney.
"Pro rebuts that Mueller was not appointed by a democrat, that there is no conflict of interest with regards to donations as they are expressly allowed.
Con argues this is an appeal to authority - I reject this as pro clearly states that mueller underwent an ethics review, not just that he was appointed by a Republican."
Citing the ethics review board on its face is also an appeal to authority. The point is that when someone gives a specific objection, we shouldn't presume that just because X authority generally says otherwise (without addressing the specific objection, the authority figure is correct.
"Con is asking me to accept that there is a substantial chance that one or more of the prosecutors are acting unfairly against Trump, that the whole group is allowing it to occur (including Mueller), and I must accept this on its face because they have ties to a political opponent of someone being investigated. Con implies the motive is simply pay back."
Why do you think payback is a weak motivation in a field as slimy and underhanded as politics?
"Con lists a number of reasons why Mueller is corrupt revolving around a case in Boston. Pro outlines the judge citing categorically that there was nothing implicating Mueller, and pointed out vetting and ethics investigations."
And as Alan Dershowitz indicated in my source, this has yet to be investigated and the Judge simply saying she "didn't see anything" in the FBI's files is ludicrous when the FBI itself is being accused of corruption (see my Washington Examiner source about the numerous irregularities in the files on that case, also noted by a Federal Judge mind you) and when we have a credible eye witness who says otherwise.
"5.) Conflict of interest.
Pro points to a single example of personal conflicts of Mueller (knowledge of Comey), and a number of examples of individual members of the investigation having ties to Hilary.
This is less an argument from conflict of interest - and at worse poor judgement but that’s semantics."
Refer back to my article from the national review. Maybe if this kind of thing happened once or twice, you could dismiss it as poor judgment, but when it's happening over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it's intentional.
"3.) Troll farms.
Pro argues that we know that there were Russian troll farms, and as we do not know the true extent - the investigation should continue. In the definitions and opening the investigation is not just an investigation into Trump, but also Russian interference. Cons rebuttal on this point in my view is insufficient - pro rightly points out, that he should not need to produce proof of Trumps guilt to indicate whether the investigation as a whole should continue.
I found cons final rebuttal wholly unwarranted, firstly, it didn’t address the key point that pro made. Secondly, the definition of the investigation, and pros argument appears to be not that there are necessarily any specific crimes the Russian Troll farms have committed - but their actions must be understood."
First, my reading of the special appointment order was that Mueller was tasked to investigate any link/role between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, any matters that directly arose as a result of that and all within the scope of existing law. That's why Mueller was appointed in the first place. The investigation revolved around subject matter that the previous USAG could not involve himself in due to a conflict of interest. In R4, PRO even says "The resolution is whether or not the Trump investigation should be continued." And so I would reject any interpretation of the topic that allows the investigation to go beyond the Trump campaign working with Russia.
Second, I admittedly didn't go into this "must be understood" element of PRO's argument you're mentioning. Granted, even in hindsight, I don't think I needed to and think my points on political/criminal conduct speak for themselves.
"Cons main rebuttal is that just because someone was indicted, or plead guilty, doesn’t mean that it is justice or is warranted. Pro is correct in his response that merely implying that they could have been dishonestly indicted or pled, or found guilty doesn’t mean they were.
On this point I mostly side with pro: If con is arguing that the indictments MAY be spurious, then it cons duty to convince me that they are spurious. Without this, con hasn’t shown me warrant to believe that these indictments are spurious - only that indictments In general can be serious."
Massively disagree. My point here is that an indictment and a guilty plea on its own is meaningless. It does not tell us anything. Prosecutors can indict just about anybody and the vast majority of people (innocent or guilty) do NOT want to roll the dice and spend a ridiculously large portion of their lives in jail due to the prosecutor's ability to overcharge. It's not a matter of whether indictments and guilty pleas MAY be spurious. They ARE spurious. As such, we would need information beyond the fact the fact that Mueller has secured various indictments/pleas to determine that the investigation has bore legitimate fruit.
Saying otherwise is flipping the BOP. Imagine Steve walks into a bar and shouts "Ghosts exist!" and citing a message on his "Ouija board app" as proof. Now imagine Robert responding to Steve by telling him that "Ouija board apps" aren't reliable since its just a program designed to input random messages and cash in on suckers." If Steve tells Robert to prove that this particular message was in fact random and NOT the doings of some apparition, is it your position that Robert should do just that or else submit to Steve's position?
I'm generally ambivalent about who votes for what in these debates and probably won't say much even if it's a vote against me. However, in this case, we have some subject matter I'm pretty PASSIONATE about, so it's a different story. Granted, I'm not asking you to change your vote (in fact, I'd ask you to keep it the same even if you somehow end up agreeing with me) and note that you are entitled to opinion regardless of what I am inclined to say. With that being said . . .
The level of semantics CON employs is the point!
Check out this debate!
https://www.debate.org/debates/Wikipedia-should-be-a-valid-source-for-projects-in-schools/1/
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"In my view pro does not do nearly enough to show why con doesn’t know the person well enough. This is clearly a big problem for con, and in my view, not clearly refuted."
There might be a typo here, but it was never my argument to show or explain why CON didn't know the girl well enough. In fact, I made the case he knew her very well based on his extensive poems about her. Thanks for reading nonetheless! =)
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I had an unusual amount of free time over the Holidays, so I got to play a good chunk of Persona 5!
Forgot to source the vacation together bit. https://www.lifezette.com/2017/06/fmr-fbi-agent-mueller-should-step-down-over-comey-conflict/
"come on voters who have blocked me and I've blocked them and are vindictively trying to vote me down!"
Wow. Do you seriously think that?
Meant to address this, but:
"PRO was in a situation where his crush liked him back. How could he have known this? He could have looked at the signs that she liked him. Dilated eye pupils, feet toward the POI(Person of Interest), etc. If he saw the things, then I would tell him to go for the girl and ask her out. That would've been the right moment if PRO noticed the signs that were present. But he didn't."
I could have observed numerous signs that she liked me, but it wasn't really a matter of my ability to look at the signs. The issue was that my fear of getting rejected overwhelmed my ability to think rationally. Or as Mr. Miyagi put it at the end of Karate Kid 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S6GYF1B8Yk
"IT'S OKAY LOSE TO OPPONENT! MUST NOT LOSE TO FEAR!"
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Technically, you asked her out as soon as reasonably possible! ;-)
That notwithstanding, congrats man! Although I don't agree with your argument, I am pleased with the outcome nonetheless!
Thanks for the debate! And regardless of what you say in R3, you seriously need to do this ASAP! =)
If not for the fact that it's a 90s show full of 90s references, I would recommend to it. Frasier on the other hand, I highly recommend it! Niles and Daphne is all I have to say. =)
Noted! And here's to hoping I convince you to do the deed come January! =)
Any interpretation of those documents that extends beyond investigating the Russian collusion should be rejected for the sake of your best interest and mine. =)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-manafort/us-judge-questions-special-counsels-powers-in-manafort-case-idUSKBN1I51WE
A point I would have been happy to discuss with PRO had he participated in this debate. A shame.
I'm fine with either proposal!
Maybe next week! Two pending debates on my docket is enough for me for now!
That or Frasier. Good shows and perhaps some of the best ones I've seen in regards to this topic!
lol, in the distant past, I was in your shoes (minus the poems and talking about it on the internet). By the end of this debate, I'll let you know how it turned out!
Incidentally, have you ever seen the show Hey Arnold?
Will do!
Have thought about it, but am way way waayyy too biased on this debate to give my personal preference to properly judge it! As a consolation, I shall set aside some time to vote on any one debate either debater solicits from me starting . . . now. Consider this comment a free voucher on any one debate either debater would like for me to look at!
"They need to thoroughly examine the witness and the evidence before getting an arrest warrant or trying the case."
They say they do, but sometimes I wonder. Had a case a couple of weeks ago in which the my client, a mother, was defending her son against a college-aged female wielding a knife. The son got his arm slashed up and the mom receiving ample cuts and bruises. The police arrived and arrested the mom despite this. I got this stupid charge dismissed ultimately, but my client still ended up losing her good paying job in the process.
"I cited an alarming number of innocent people who plead guilty to murder charges. I shudder to think how many innocent people were convicted of lesser crimes."
It is much MUCH MUCH higher. I've even gotten the opportunity to question cops/prosecutors about their tactics behind closed doors and they've told me that these defendants weren't guilty of the crimes they were charged, they were probably guilty of something else anyway so it all works out in the end. Disgusting.
"The fact the law encourages innocent people to testify against another innocent person is kinda disgusting."
It makes even the shittiest of prosecution cases into viable cases when you can threaten/blackmail witnesses into testifying.
"The biggest issue I see with rape cases and sexual assault cases is that it's really their word against his. Unless it's collaborated by quite a few people (as in the Cosby case) it's really impossible to prove without DNA evidence."
Which is sad because the victim's testimony alone, by law, is sufficient to convict you. Sadly, a great deal of alleged victims have used this to their advantage (whether it be to get back at ex-husband/boyfriend or to get ahead in a divorce or child custody dispute). And even if you do manage to beat the charges, that doesn't rid of you of the stigma of what you were charged with in your community, the time you spent in custody (especially if you couldn't make bail), the job you've no doubt lost due to the charge, the money you are no doubt out of if you weren't indigent already and the emotional distress you've suffered (some of which will be suicidal). We have a truly diabolical system in our country (nothing like what the founders envisioned) and all you can do is hope and pray that you don't wake up one morning until to find out that you have become the government's next target.
"Also if anyone files a false charge, they should get the same time the other perosn would have gotten."
DAs offices are generally hesitant to do that. On the one hand, prosecuting a false charges case makes their office look bad for having previously prosecuted an innocent person in the first place (they'd rather sweep it under the rug). On the other hand, there *generally* (as in it does happen, but not often) just isn't enough political capital involved to make prosecuting, for example, a woman for lying about rape or domestic assault case worthwhile. It's sad, but that's how they see things. I recently had an order of protection violation case in which I was able to expose the alleged victim on the stand for telling a bald faced lie (of which she walked back on her allegations and blamed it on being so "afraid" of my client). During my closing argument, I jumped up and down about how she committed blatant perjury and how the DA's office needs to prosecute her. All I got from the judge and the prosecutor was crickets.
"I agree 100%!
Also people exonerated from DNA evidence ought to get at least 1 million for every year in jail."
You'd be surprised. Even when the law demands that these exonerated defendants get a payout, the State will fight tooth and nail to see to it that that doesn't happen. Just look at this example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/lawrence-mckinney-wrongful-conviction-tennessee-75-lawyer-dna-evidence-petition-governor-bill-haslam-a7478396.html
The beauty of rape cases is that they involve DNA and thus exonerating these defendants can be done in a concrete/fullproof fashion. But just imagine all of the criminal defendants who plead guilty and whose cases don't involve any DNA whatsoever. They have zero recourse and are currently sitting in jail for something they didn't do. It's a f-cked up system and something needs to change.
What prosecutors do is that they stack a bunch of trumped up charges onto each other and tell defendants that they'll drop all but one charge if they plea guilty and that they'll prosecute every charge and push for a consecutive sentence if they don't plea guilty. Many times, this winds up being the difference between serving a couple of years and a couple of decades in jail, so of course the "logical" decision is to "plea guilty" regardless of guilt or innocence. To the defendants, it is about how much they are willing to risk fiddling around in an otherwise rigged system.
In a law school, I thought the PRO position was nonsense. Having done criminal defense for a couple of years now, however, the PRO position is the only sane position to have. If the government were forced to try every case they prosecuted, the government would lack the means to try a majority of the BS cases they're currently prosecuting and would be forced to focus on prosecuting people who are actually harming the public. I'd further propose forcing the government to foot the defense's legal fees whenever losing a case: https://www.debateart.com/debates/120
You can probably still argue that Trump made the mistake of never defining terms of his challenge (thereby making 1% Indian blood irrelevant) and that Trump merely paying a charity $1,000,000 is an inherently honorable thing to do and that Trump's riches enable him to do this without breaking a sweat. I don't agree with that, but it's not like there's no arguments to be made here.
I had the same inclination initially, but then I noticed Death23 was arguing CON and decided to forget about it.
I'm fine with leaving it as a tie if you want. I only took this debate because it involved issues I deal with on a regular basis. Traffic cameras may have their flaws, but I've seen crooked cops do a heck of a lot more damage to people's lives than cameras ever have!
Warren is as native American as I am French.
I must say it's a very impressive deduction on your part. As I was coming up with mechanisms to conceal my conservative christian agenda by voting on an Assassin's Creed game debate, I was almost certain that no one would be any the wiser if I voted in favor of imabench, an atheist liberal, but you saw right through me. I tip my hat off to your superior intellect. A boundlessly brilliant intellect that yankee doodle ding dongs like myself are unable to fathom.
Yeah, I'm definitely out to teach non-conservative Christian waggly doodles a lesson! As are the voters from . . . most of your other debates from the looks of it. This is neocon town here and we don't give a f-ck who knows it!
That's just it though. Your whole "refuses to make an actual argument" point was just an argument by assertion. I'm not a mind reader. I don't know why you thought CON's arguments did not constitute "actual arguments" other than you saying so and making it loud and clear as to what you do and don't "give a f-ck about." You basically came into the debate making a lot of unsubstantiated opinions. Which is unfortunate because there's enough truth to reviewers getting paid to make reviews and sales not being indicative of quality (e.g. anyone who has ever eaten at Hooters will know what I'm talking about :P ) to make your position very defensible.
A couple of issues I have with this mod action:
1) There appears to be no issue with my convincing arguments assessment, but the vote was removed anyway.
2) The conduct violation in this debate is as plain as day. Frankly, I'm surprised mods didn't use this opportunity to issue a warning to PRO. I've been to sites where I would get banned for carrying around the way PRO did during this debate. I mean I guess I'm glad DART is more tolerant than other websites towards this kind of thing, but still . . .
3) I did explain my justification for the conduct vote. PRO reduced the debate to being about personal attacks. I don't know why the concern here is that I didn't explain why CON's "specific poor conduct is worse" since I'm not saying CON's conduct was worse. If I thought it was worse, I would've given conduct to PRO.
4) At the rate you guys are going, you may as well make it to where all votes need mod approval as someone is always going to take issue with the votes on a debate.
What a genius is doing spending so much free time with witless troglodytes is beyond me. A conundrum perhaps only a "genius" has the capacity to unravel.
Elitism is overrated. Don't learn the hard way that the real world is cruel and merciless to self-proclaimed special snowflakes who see themselves as being above the chaff.
You would've been a lot better off constructing a case on why sales and reviews themselves should never be taken into account as opposed to just asserting that they shouldn't. No need to go around asserting what you do and don't "give a f-ck about." That could have made for a good debate.
Stopped playing AC after AC3. The series went downhill after AC2.
You may as well just assess every vote that gets made on this site, lol
Question.
Suppose we have two rocks. One rock is 5 feet tall and the other rock is 4.999999 feet tall. If one were to keep increasing the height of the second rock by small enough increments, could one infinitely increase the height of the second rock without ever making the second rock 5 feet tall? :P
"Trial costs already discourage prosecution "
I beg to differ. See the Knoxville, Tennessee rape case I cited. There, in addition to the rape case being premised on an accusation alone, the victim actually destroyed crucial evidence. A no brainier on cases not to waste taxpayer on, right? Nope. For many people, it takes actually being on the wrong end of a prosecution / FBI investigation to realize just how utterly f*cked up our judicial system is and how much money they will not hesitate to waste on sheer nonsense.
"Better representation for indigent defendants can be achieved more directly by hiring more public defenders and providing them with greater resources."
Which States are incredibly reluctant to do even with the threat of lawsuits. I would propose both solutions for reasons cited in the debate.
"Given all the injustice in the world - Why is this particular injustice important to you?"
Because most people have no idea it's happening and the news media downplays it beyond belief. I didn't know about it either until I saw it firsthand.
"Should the taxpayers have foot the $5 million legal bill for OJ's defense?"
Not only should the taxpayers foot the $5 million legal bill for OJ's defense, but they should subsequently fire the incompetent DAs who caused them to pay the bill in the first place. I'd also say that the demonstrable police corruption shown and proven by the OJ defense time would be well worth the price of $5 million and that the awareness raised towards men like the disgraced Detective Mark Furhman has surely fundamentally changed how the LAPD operates.