As a debater, it is your job to provide a convincing argument for judges/voters as to why your opponent is wrong, and your opponents points should be discounted.
If you provide no arguments as to why a point should be discounted, them this is your fault.
Whatever you think my reply should, or should not have been - it’s your duty as a debater to provide some form of valid, logical counter to it.
If you provide no argument at all, then regardless of your reasons, or motivations: you have failed to provide an rebuttal and the original argument must be considered unrefuted.
In the context of formal debate - as this is - drop refers to the argument not being referenced, and no rebuttal to a point being common: it is an exceptionally common phrase used within the context of formal debate, rather than being some vulgar or uncultured term I am using to abuse you.
When someone drops an argument it means that one side has neglected to respond, and the original point must be considered unrefuted.
If you ignore an argument, and do not respond to it, in formal debate, it is very much considered that the person ignoring the point has given up contesting it. That’s what dropping an argument means.
If you felt a detailed scientific argument was rude, or obnoxious - then you should have argued this in the debate, rather than dropping almost every point raised with little or no further reference.
Voters ahould not need to read your mind to appreciate your arguments.
Actually, “dropped” is a debate term that is used frequently to highlight when an opponent has ignored an argument or omitted a rebuttal. In general, debaters draw attention to this in order to highlight important omissions to the judges.
This was actually covered in round 5 (the crazy dousing guy with no credibility), and round 4 - where o pointed out the argument is a red herring.
Feel free to review the debate - where I went through and highlighted each individual point you dropped, I would do it again here, but I am limited by word count.
Just to clarify: pros entire first round - probably at least 12,000 characters was dedicated to Koran and Hadith quotes. Aside from a handful of quotes - which I covered - I never at any point in my RFD, in any way, said that he used one verse that’s non violent to win. He used multiple quotes and examples to demonstrate this:
“Pro offers multiple reasonable Koran verses here to support the idea that the Koran teaches peace.”
I see seal a bit like lizard or fish - they are exclusatoy and paraphyletic. I was actually thinking of accepting this before RM, as this was pretty winnable.
If I take cons side on this point, then the religious teachings of the Koran are mostly irrelevant. While con attempted to justify this by saying the Koran can be interpreted multiple ways, he didn’t show it (as covered above).
If I take pros side then pros side could use the no true Scotsman fallacy throughout.
My judgement here is that if pros interpretation is not mainstream, or not sufficiently followed, it cannot be considered what “Islam” is, however it is up to con now to justify this. This is difficult to judge as the meaning was partially contested and not fully resolved as far as I can see.
IE: Islam is mostly defined by the teachings, but also it must consider the people who claim to follow it.
So.
2.) Islamic wars.
Con says that Islam started out as a brutal war like religion. Pro points out that wars for the purposes of defence and securing long term peace are okay (con agrees). Pro points out that the initial wars for Islam were defensive - and uses cons own source to show this.
Con asserts that Islam is a religion of war, but other than this initial claim, I see little other justification or detail here. Without specifics of the wars, how am I to judge whether they were violent aggressive wars.
The rest is very similar, outside of the Koran’s teachings, con primarily spent his time telling me how violent Islam is, but doing very little to actually justify it over the initial relatively simple claims.
As a result, arguments to pro.
Conduct was tied up to the last round. There were several references that I felt were close to the line. IMO cons final round crossed a line into being a rant with little in the way of advocacy. It was spiteful and angry for no useful or relevant reason, and outright disrespectful.
434 I agree with con that the Koran advocates wife beating, and that’s horrible - however in the context of this debate I don’t feel that is sufficient to proove that Islam is not a religion of peace - as I am interpreting that to be more concerning wider scale war and violence as has been discussed.
I side with pro on 168-174. The verse doesn’t clearly refer to violence and con doesn’t do enough to convince me of how this should be read how he claims.
There are several other examples of where con states the Koran provides justification for stoning for adultery, circumcision: I do not feel this matches the overarching definition of violence as I understand I from this debate, or a reasonable interpretation of it.
As a result of this, I feel that pro has shown that the Koran is on balance appears to advocate a non-aggressive (but not pacifist) approach. Con didn’t attack the Koran well enough to reject this.
So at this point the best I can say is that the Koran can be read to advocate “peace” of a form - or at least non-aggression.
2.) Who defines Islam.
So, one major contention. Is that con argues that the followers define what Islam is, and use the Koran to validate their position. Pro points out that Islam is based upon the teachings of the Koran.
Pro points out that if the teachings are peaceful then anyone who is not peaceful should not be considered a real Muslim. Pro even throws a challenge to con that even one non-peaceful verse would be enough to refute this.
I am challenged to resolve this dilemma, at this point:
This is shared BoP. BoP is required for anyone who is arguing for a side that goes against the default position. The default position here imo is undecided.
I’m open to BoP arguments - but you have to convince me where the default position is, and that your opponents contention away from the default position and yours is not.
As a result, I will treat the BoP as shared here.
B.) definitions. Con didn’t offer any specific definitions of Islam, nor did he appear to object to the definition that pro offered covers the religion itself - rather than individuals that follow it.
C.) con also didn’t define what he means by Islam is a religion of Peace, I feel pros explanation is close to what I had in mind that “To prove this claim to be true, [pro has] to show that the religious doctrines of Islam promote peace rather than violence.”
Arguments:
The arguments presented clearly fall down into to broad categories here:
That the Koran teaches war and violence, and that followers of islam are violent.
1.) Koran verses:
Pro offers multiple reasonable Koran verses here to support the idea that the Koran teaches peace.
490 was contested, pro argued it was about political maneuvering, but when reviewing the wording presented before and after in 489/491 this doesn’t appear to be supported and pro points this out.
7.) conclusion: This is really the tale of two plans
I think both sides agree that innocent people need to be protected.
Pros plan does this by eliminating the possibility of death to any innocent person by removing it as an option.
Cons plan does this by trying to reduce the crimes and increase the burden of proof for those crimes. - meaning he goes with pros plan - except for the “worst crimes”.
I was mostly willing to overlook cost, unless it was a tiebreaker. While relevant - it was difficult to rate the impact of cost vs the death of an innocent person, or punishment of someone who deserves execution.
Con has the ability to win here with the counter plan he presented - I think the approach he took was valid, but in my view was so lacking in critical detail, as pro pointed out, that he never gave me a reason to pull the trigger.
I was willing to give a little bit of the ambiguity in favour of con - as I implied at the start due to the inherent burdens: but while I get where Con was going, he didn’t give me enough to believe his plan would truly reduce the number of innocents killed to such a low degree to be in that ambiguous area simply due to the fairly vague definitions of his plan.
Con has to show a fairly clear line, and give me reason to believe so few innocently convicted people are on the other side of the line to make it identical to pros plan, but with evil people punished with death. Con didn’t show me enough of where that line was, and how he could justify it - so as a result I must hand arguments to pro.
4.) Counter plan - heinous crimes and shorter appeals.
While this would certainly make the process cheaper - and limiting the pool of execution applicable crimes will reduce the number of innocent people put to death, I have to agree with pro here. Con doesn’t give me a line I can draw with any reasonable intuition.
To award this point to con in light of the issues pro raises (innocents being killed), I have to assume that the line is drawn at a place where there is a minimal pool of cases - and to assume that none, of very few of those cases could be reasonably expected to be prosecuted on an innocent person. I get the idea that con is advocating, but I have to make too many assumptions in cons favour to award him this point.
3:0 pro
5.) The death Penalty is just. Hitler.
So, this is a bit complex to disentangle here: but bear with me.
I feel con offers a good argument here to establish his default burden: that there must be some reasonable or tangible benefit to the death penalty. I feel cons Hitler argument, and the argument from justice was good enough to convince me that there is an inherent benefit and, potentially, justification in execution in some cases.
This is to say that pro doesn’t lose this debate on inherent burden.
However, in weighting - I feel pro is corrects; the mostly agreed values seem at odds with cons logic. I find pros general argument consistent with values : that I have to weight the innocent people killed by cons plan - and not just whether the death penalty is justified.
6.) innocent people go free.
I feel pro adequately addressed this in his plan, while there is a tiny chance of a guilty person killing again, pro convinced me this is so substantially small that I can’t consider it benefit of cons plan.
So: with VD pro argues inherent unfairness of the system that will render invalid verdicts. I think both sides agree this is unjust.
Pros main issue raised is the issues to justice caused by racial disparities on juries. I feels cons counter plan addressed that specific issue with the rule to ensure racial setup in his jury pool: to the point where the majority of pros argument about the harms of all white juries is mitigated.
However, pro rightly points out the major issues of skew due to judges - and existing problems.
In this case, pro correctly makes the case that cons CP is as harmful as the SQ, so pros plan is better than cons here on the values of justice
1:0 pro
2.) Public Defenders.
Pro makes the case that lack of public defenders, and lower quality defense is substantially harmful, and that wrongful executions are likely to be at least 4%. I find this argument pretty compelling.
Cons counter case, doesn’t address public defenders at all. Referencing back the “heinous crimes”, for cons plan to have less harm than pros - the pool of crimes have to be so small, and the burden of proof so high to mitigate so as to prevent a substantial majority of the wrongly convicted due to poor prosecuters. I side with pro - I feel con did not offer sufficient detail for me to take his side.
2:0 pro
3.) Cost.
Pro makes a reasonable appeal to purse strings - arguing that it substantially cheaper to house criminals for life than an execution.
Con references a counter plan, to limit appeals and shorten time till death.
On purely financial terms - I would render this point a draw. While no numbers were given, a charitable interpretation of cons plan feels it is a similar cost.
Note: there were a lot of cross arguments in cost, I will be accounting for them separately.
I have to start by outlining the value and weighting I feel is warranted after the debate. Pro appears to argue that I must weigh the consequences to society and individuals, and con appears to mostly agree. So I’ll be using this lens to weigh the plans.
I felt the distinction and argument from should/ought was relatively meaningless, and has little impact on how I view burdens:
That being said, Cons appeal to weighting/burden suggests that if he finds one example where the death penalty is justified - that I must deny the resolution. That is opposed to the value he just agreed to - where he agrees that the death penalty should have an overall benefit to people in order to be valid.
I will say, however that con must establish some benefit of the death penalty to win: pro must be able to show that the resultant harm is substantial. Given the inherent intuition of the harms of innocent people being killed, I think pro is likely to find establishing his position easier, so I am going to take this into consideration in border line cases.
2.) Voire Dire
Con concedes all the issues pro raises with VD here. His rebuttal is in the form of a counter plan.
On a technical note here: While I considered it, I’m going to reject pros objection to offering a counter plan. Pro offers it as a rebuttal to a point in his first rebuttal round, it doesn’t appear to modify his inherent advocacy too much (its more along the lines of an extension), and in the context of the debate I don’t think it’s put undue burden on pro.
While the violation is probably technically true, I’m only going to entertain these sorts arguments when it clearly harms one sides ability to render an argument (it’s too big, too complex or too late), though I will very much take into account the depth and scope of the plan for pros counter.
7.) The WaPo link, and how pro was using it was talking about multiple potential crimes not just the single one you referenced. Even the single one being mentioned in that link is not quite the same as what you or your link described which you claimed isn’t a crime.
8.) Pro showed independent counsels
are considered inferior officers by the Supreme Court, as far as I could tell, and as argued: these only differ from a special counsel in method of appointment rather than power.
9.) If you have evidence or argument that the crimes you mentioned can’t have been the result of the original investigation remit - you should have included that in the debate. Otherwise pro points must stand.
I am happy to explain or clarify the thinking of my vote, or provide you what you could have done to win a given point. I don’t want this to turn into relitigating the debate, as more discussion here about what you meant is normally additional information and separate to what I specifically voted on. If you’re asking because you disagree with me, your not going to end up being happy.
1.) The indictments that pro referenced were being used to show justice is being done. To refute this, it is your burden to show the specific indictments are unjust - otherwise the burden would be unfairly stacked against pro. As you referenced only that there is a general ability of prosecutors to be malfeasant, your rebuttal fell short of showing these examples are unjust.
2.) As neither side contest the definition of the investigation or its purpose that was included in the debate information - I used that definition.
3.) With regards for conflict of interest; in the debate you established the appearance of a conflict - but do not show or demonstrate a specific harm that was done. However this point went your way anyway.
4.) Pro referencing an ethics investigation finding that Mueller has no conflicts MUST be taken as evidence in support of the position that Mueller has no direct conflicts of interest. You can’t simply dismiss it as an appeal to authority.
5.) I do not believe that it is a valid default position that someone simply having an alternative party affiliation is grounds to believe they are being systematically dishonest and unethical against Trump, or Russia - that would give Pro an unreasonable BoP.
6.) Your argument on Boston set up a he-said she said between a “very credible witness”, and a federal judge who said mueller was not involved. I have to weigh the federal judge more credible, as you offered me little additional reason within the debate.
I honestly could go either way - so will score this as a draw.
Conduct: While pro didn’t technically forfeit a round, the outcome was much the same. I see little difference between a small post without arguments a few minutes before the deadline, and a forefeit. - so will award conduct the same way.
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.
9.) scope
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.
Conclusion.
Ugh. I feel neither side covered themselves in glory. I feel both side missed key facts and information, and could have done better.
In general, I feel that on balance pro offered a reasonable explanation of what is to be gained by continuing the investigation.
I feel con offered mostly insinuated the issues and harms that continuing the investigation would produce. I felt that pro did fairly well knocking down the majority of cons harms. With me accepting only one point - that the prosecutors have the appearance of a conflict.
In general - I felt pro missed a lot of oppenings, whilst con failed to justify much of his point and really did not fully exploit cons missed round. But at the end I feel that what I was presented with was a choice between continuing with an investigation that has an appearance of a conflict, that is investigating something that should be investigated, or not.
While I want necessarily feel these clear Mueller on all points, I feel con does not offer a substantial reason not to believe the federal judge here. I feel con attempts to argue by implication rather than specific evidence: if he had offered a reason as to why it’s unlikely the judge would have not seen evidence - I may make another decision here, but I find this argument more of an insinuation than a claim with warrant in light of the federal judge quote.
7.) Getting help From the Russians isn’t a crime.
Pro points out that the resolution is not that crimes were committed, but that the investigation needs to continue. He provides a link that justifies why aspects of known interaction could potentially constitute criminal behaviour.
This is the best part of pros argument thus far. Con argues that pro should provide grounds for continuing the investigation: pro did just that. Con has to provide a good reason why he can discount the potential crime outlines as possible.
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.
8.) Unconstitutional.
Con argues the appointment was unconstitutional. Pro cites a Supreme Court ruling that the independent counsel is an inferior officer. Pro argues the appointment is similar, and thus should be deemed constitutional.
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.
Con argues that pro must give reasons not to accept pros specific issues. In my view the ethics review that Mueller passes is clearly a reason.
Con does better with pointing out that the contributions imply that there may be a secondary interest in the part of prosecutors.
What I find difficult to square here is that con only implies that the individuals behave malfeasently. I find the connection here very tenuous.
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.
I find cons support here very weak. But I have to accept it as pro offers no refutation to this point.
Both sides are implying a lot of their argument, and I’m finding that hard to score arguments better.
6.) corruption.
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.
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.
4.) Corruption Of Donald Trump
Pro points out that Donald Trump appears corrupt, and there are enough dubious links to warrant investigation.
In his conclusion, pro sets up the necessity of the investigation being based on information we don’t know.
Con argues that whether Trump talked to the Russians about anything is irrelevant.
I agree with Con on the part of golfing, and other non Russia related aspects pro brings up.
But I find cons contention that Trump talking to Russians about dirt to not to be relevant to the investigation about Russian election interference to be wholly without justification .
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.
Pro argues that Mueller hasn’t been straying outside of his scope. In my view, it is not clear to me as a voter what this argument is intending to support or not. I can’t view this initial argument from pro as supporting his position, as I can’t tell what it means.
2.) Indictments.
Pro argues that the Mueller probe has a number of guilty please and indictments. Though pro doesn’t not argue why this specifically means the Mueller probe has to continue?
My reading of pros argument is that it is yielding results so should continue.
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.
This was a very tough debate - as both sides were excellent.
I feel that con offered a very strong defense of his framework, which was equally well rebutted by pro. In general, I felt that pro successfully argued that cons framework was not sufficient in appealing to both moral intuition and the adhoc feeling of many of cons points.
I particularly felt that pointing out the ad-hoc nature - and specific animal torture were the primary reasons for this. Pro and con offered me no other real method to judge the frameworks as accurate reflections of reality other than my intuition of the moral issues presented - and as a result, I have to judge the framework on that standard. I did not feel cons arguments were sufficiently convincing to convey exactly why he felt the additional rules and caveats were objectively valid and not simply adhoc modifications.
Pro a framework felt like several frameworks at times to support his position. However, these felt more intuitive - appeals to the infliction of pain to anything is more in tune with intuition with all the moral considerations presented. These did need to be fleshed out more than they were, and wouldn’t have won on their own as a result.
As a result of this, I feel I have to award arguments to pro.
Saying this - this debate was far above average and was excellent on both sides. While I feel pro did win this debate, 3 points does not fully reflect how good Con was. I feel as a result it would be fair to reduce this to two points - as it better reflects the small difference between voters, PhilSam (and the mod team) has graciously agreed for me to alot a single point to con. Note this is not for spelling and grammar, but allotted as an argument point in order to give pro a delta of 2 points.
If meaning is why humans are worth more, comes from rationality - those without rationality (according to R1) have less meaning and are worth less. Con argues that it’s not rationality from which we derive meaning - but the potential capacity for it as a species - Pro provides no argument I can see for why potential (rather than actual) capacity implies worth. This makes me feel that cons argument has a hint of special pleading. However pro appears to concede the logical validity here so I am reluctant to weigh in.
Pro objection to basing worth decisions like this on potential capacity is interesting - that it is absurd to treat this potential of the species as something that must be judged against the individual. It feels on its face a bit of a clunky comparison.
I found pros argument that pros explanation is unduly complex and not parsimonious fairly compelling, pro introduces a new explanation based on individual desire not to be harmed to be much better than his original argument from sentience - but feel his explanation is a bit lacking in depth.
2.) the immorality of inflicting pain is more of a guiding framework than rationality.
This is a potential a third framework (though may be an extension of the desire not to be harmed). While it appears valid on its face, pro does not really advocate strongly for this framework.
However - I found no place where this was satisfactorily addresses by con. Given the implicit way these frameworks are being judged, I’m looking for con to compare the pain example to our moral intuition, and explain why it explains it less well - I don’t think pro does that well, and it is only truly in the final round to which pro cannot respond are the reasons better thrashed out.
3.) Pro argues that cons framework would treat “objectively” immoral actions against animals as perfectly fine.
Con seems to concede these points, and agrees - by concluding that these things aren’t actually immoral.
Arguments: the opening round of this debate neatly dove tails together from both side.
Con is arguing that experimentation is immoral - basing this primarily on the justification used to argue animals are less important can be applied to humans to.
Con argues that simple species membership fails to explain this difference - and that only sentience is a good criteria for assessing moral relevance.
Pro is arguing the converse - that it is moral as the principle of rationality makes humans more important on the grounds of the perception of truth gives rational beings lives more meaning - and thus worth less. In addition that arguing that as animals can’t reason on the basis of good and bad, they aren’t affected by pain the same way - rendering not inflicting pain a preference rather than duty.
On its face thus far, I find pros argument more convincing as they clearly set out value, and provide a more intuitive appeal to morality for me by questioning whether there is any reason to treat animals differently - whilst I find cons argument about objective truth to be, ironically, incredibly subjective. I do feel pros argument from sentience inherently suffers the same issues as he points out - though he uses it to rule animals in rather than out.
So moving on!
1.) Pro reiterates that cons framework means human infant lives are worth less, and do not cover live in a way that is agreeably moral. This is intuitive to me.
Con helps me out by conceding the logical validity of pros case. But then explains it is not the rationality of the individual, but the potential capacity of the species to be rational that allows us to exclude the exemptions that pro points out. I will not lie - the presentation is phenomenal here - but my issue with this as presented, is that in my view con strictly tied worth to meaning of life which derives from rationality in R1- I cannot reconcile how both his rebuttal here and his opening arguments as both true:
A.) there was a lot of long explanation of the opponents side. This often made it harder to disentangle where the real argument was. Summaries are fine, but it’s okay to let your opponent present their position and to focus on only rebuttals - the voters will work it out.
B.) Both side conceded the validity of the other sides logic to some degree in places. This can be dangerous for both sides if one conceded the validity of an argument the voter would otherwise view as unsupported or unwarranted, it can change voting calculus. Be careful on this front - best use language like “if one were to accept this...” unless you’re 1000% sure!
C.) both arguments appear implicitly appeal to my moral compass as a voter, that if I find something immoral that one of your frameworks shows is moral : then the framework is invalid. In the absence of anything else, this is my main criteria for judging morality unless told otherwise - assuming I’m not a psychopath it should be okay!
D) my paradigm - for clarity - is in my profile.
E.) in my view, this is the best debate I have voted on. It was very well written and explained from both sides. Well done.
You’re right, I made a bit of a hash of that. Let me clarify.
The point of this part was that a large aspect of the timeframe argument was that con felt he didn’t know the girl well enough, enough background, whether she’s a cheater, etc.
In my view, not being sure about the person, and whether they’re worthy is a valid concern: especially for him regarding the risks. While you did point out that he likes her, and this is what dating is for - and he knows her well enough to like her - in my view there wasn’t enough for me to be convinced that he shouldn’t take those specific concerns seriously. This kinda relates to my specific vs generic comment to the end.
There was also a short treatise about atonement. I won’t lie, I felt the exchange on both sides were difficult to follow on this ground, so I don’t feel It fair to offer a verdict on that point.
Cons final round appears mostly a reaffirm of the previous information he provided.
Conclusion:
This was a very detailed debate, with a lot of focus on technicalities that was rather difficult to follow at times. I feel that the lack my own detailed knowledge on the core guts of religion and Judaism means I can’t do justice to the effort put into these arguments in my RFD.
However for me, this argument boils down to a few key things:
1.) That Jesus did not fulfill key prophecies. In my view con established enough prophecies that were not fulfilled - where as pro did not do enough to convince me that these could be discounted.
2.) The anointment portion wasn’t the dealbreaker - but was hugely detrimental to pros point, this was very well argued by con.
3.) Most importantly, con outlined the requirements of what a messiah would need to be accepted. These were specific, and detailed - and even pro appeared to concede that they were not fulfilled. Pro argues that these requirements would be full-filled over two comings of the messiah. This is the argument that really swayed this for me. In my view I side with cons argument that there is no mention of two messiahs - and that this implicitly negates the resolution.
This was a really thorough debate, and very time consuming to vote on. I apologize if either feel I haven’t don’t your argument justice - which I’m sure is true to some degree.
Historical: Con had claimed that the Jews need to have been returned, the temple rebuilt, and a multitude other. Pro seems to argue that at least one part of this (previous exile and return) happened. But he appears to drop must of the others.
In his first round, pro appears to argue the opposite of this, that the Jews have given the appearance of being punished, and scattered - I don’t feel I can reconcile both of pros arguments well here.
Round4: Con.
Requirement: Con points out a substantial number of messianic requirements that Jesus doesn’t meet. I find the presentation of the virgin birth and genealogy is actually quite compelling, and agree that pro did not adequately address this.
Role: con points out the issue with the second coming is not addressed by pro. I agree and consider this point dropped so far.
Annointment: con points out jesus was not anointed - con also points out an issue I missed - that pro concedes that if Jesus had been anointed he would have been recognized in an implicit acknowledgement of the importance of actual anointment. With con pointing this out - this point is damning to pros points
Sin an atonement: see next.
Need: I consider this point dropped by Pro too.
Final round:
Pro rounds off his rebuttals with a few extra points:
Jesus was successful. While pro accurately describes the success of Christianity. I don’t believe this warrants his position, success - even in the face of adversity - doesn’t mean the concept it is based on is necessarily valid.
Annointment: even if I accept pros argument that the government was corrupt, in my view this does not in my view provide warrant. That Jesus does not fulfill the prophecy and be recognized by Jews because of corruption seems nonsensical if Jesus was truly the Messiah.
Historical evidence. Con points out some conditions that would indicate the messiah has come. It may just be the fact that I’m totally goy, but this feels more of a rehash of previous points.
Round 3: pro.
Pro offers a detailed treatise in cons translation. I have to take his word that this example is muddied, as I’m even worse at Ancient Greek than I am in Hebrew. Saying that, his argument that we must consider this to have meant a virgin birth because otherwise it wouldn’t have been considered a miracle.
I think here pro has a good argument to support the Virgin Birth on this front.
Mitzvot: pros argument against the Mitzvot continues to be, in my view, outside the remit of the resolution. Importantly pro concedes the possibility that the law is perfect, but simply not fully complete. His argument appears - from my reading - that it is incomplete because it doesn’t cover some moral sin that are also considered moral sin elsewhere.
Again, in my view - even if I accept this as true, at best it confirms that Jews need a Messiah to fulfill the law (which seems not to be an issue to con).
Exclusivity: I feel pros arguement here answers itself. He appears to ask why only Jews reap all the rewards - and non Jews don’t get a reward but are also not subject to wrath. Pro appears to concede it is not exclusive, and appears to argue that not being able to leave is unfair. This does not appear to be a specially compelling argument, nor clear how it satisfies the resolution.
Second coming: pro feels very speculative here. Importantly con pointed out what the Torah said about messianic requirements that the messiah didn’t achieve - which were not covered by cons reply. As a result I’m on cons side here, as it seems that the OT said what the messiah would do - it seems by this measure the second coming would need to be the one considered messiah.
Sacrifice/sin: pro points out why a human sacrifice is acceptable. As con didn’t give me a reason to claim sacrifice is not acceptable at all, I have to side with pro here until it is clarified.
Attonement: I wasn’t fully clear what pro was arguing here - it seemed it was an argument that Judaism is a self defeating religion because atonement was impossible. This argument seems pretty nebulous to me - and doesn’t feel like pro gave me enough warrant to accept this - and even if accepted it doesn’t appear to affirm the resolution.
Round 3: Con
Prophecies. Con counters prophecies - pointing out one failed prophecy fails as the messiah. Con follows on with details of on how many of the major prophecy elements are actually misunderstood. As I’m not an expert in Hebrew, I have to accept cons position until told otherwise on this.
Mitzvot: con counters pros objections to the Mitzvot indirectly - I don’t feel that he addresses the specific insufficiencies raised by pro - by pointing out where they are not. However, what con does do very well is clearly point out three major violations that Jesus made that clearly invalidates Jesus place as the Jewish Messiah. I felt this was rather compelling.
Exclusivity is immoral: con argues that Judaism is not exclusive, and one can become part of the Jewish people through conversion and adherence of the law. I felt this was a good argument, but also that whether exclusive or not, it doesn’t affirm or disaffirm the resolution.
Anointing: con argues Jesus was not an anointed - a requirement of being Messiah. Given the phrasing - con isn’t specific as to whether the phrase “messiah” meaning anointed one was metaphorical, or specific. This would have been stronger had there been a textual requirement for anointment (IE a reference where it said The messiah must be anointed rather than the possibility of it being symbolic)
Lineage: con argues Jesus’ lineage is not correct according to one Gospel source. The weakness here is that con doesn’t argue that Luke is the more accurate gospel. So if Matthew is correct and Luke is wrong, this point would fail.
Did not fulfill prophecy: con lists three examples of major prophecies Jesus fulfills and points out that there is no reference to two messiahs - this is a very strong argument in my view.
Purpose: Con argues that the purpose of the messiah is different from that of Christianity - as more of a king - and due to these properties Jesus can’t have been the messiah.
Sins. Con pointed out that the premise of Jesus as a Christian messiah in terms of dying for sins isn’t supported by the Jewish religion. This on its face seems to be a valid point. These core points, about sacrifice however, do not have a clear warrant, in my opinion, for why they are true.
R2: pro.
Anointing: I feel pro echoed my thoughts on the anointing here, pointing out the symbolic nature of an anointing. I felt this mostly covered cons point.
Lineage: pro did little to resolve the issue here - Pro made statements about prophecy in the opening statements - so it stands to reason a failure of prophecy in this case of lineage would be substantial. I feel this didn’t address the issue con raised
Notes: I would politely request Swag to format better next time, the debate was quite difficult to read and judge as a result of the formatting! I also have to post this in reverse due to writing this on my phone.
Arguments - due to the subject matter being pretty alien, I am going to flow this RFD, rather than vote point by point.
My understanding of the contention (until someone tells me otherwise), is that Judaism defines a messiah, and pro must argue Jesus is that messiah, whereas con must argue either Jesus is not the messiah, or that Judaism doesn’t define one (unless I’m told otherwise)
Round1
Pro: messianic prophecies. Pro provides some justification of prophecies Jesus fulfills - he doesn’t go to great deal here, and does not specify this as a primary point, so I will put a pin in it.
1.) is an excellent argument for why Judaism is not complete, is imperfect, or requires a messiah. In and of itself, I don’t feel this argument justifies the resolution specifically - as it doesn’t explain why Jesus matches the requirements even if I accept it as true.
2.) I feel this suffers a similar issue with the resolution. This argument is an excellent argument for why Jesus completes Judaism (following on from 1), and a primary moral issue with Judaism - but does not, in my view, specifically affirm the resolution.
3.) Much better! This is a good argument - pro argues that Jews were promised prosperity for faithfulness - and yet this is not what happened after Jesus’ death - this strongly implies that Jews were not following the faith properly.
If you really like her, ask her. Life’s really too short. You could be hit by a bus tomorrow and you’ll always regret the not knowing or not asking far more than being shot down.
Yeah you’re fine. I’m thoroughly disinterested in the entirety of your thoughts on judging.
If you feel that debate winners and losers should be decided not by the actual merit or validity of their argument or how well they argued it compared to the other but by the judges opinion on how good or bad the debater was at technicalities and knowledge of the ASDU rulebook - or whoever is able to respond last - you’re very much entitled to that opinion if you wish; but I’m not going to be ruling in that way, as I (and a large number of others) think it fundamentally undermines the whole purpose of what debate actually means. Anally retentive analysis of debate technicalities sometimes stands completely opposed to the nuances of an individual debate, including those where one side offers the most well reasoned and well warranted arguments; and in such cases, arguments should win.
Other than some core tenets of logic, argumentation, and issues bias that I definitely and most assuredly follow, there is no “objectively correct” way of judging, which is why judging methodology in debates, has repeatedly been and continues to be the source of debate and discussion in its own right to this day within the debate community.
You may have a judging style that you favour of prefer. But the only real object fact about judging is that no matter which way a judge votes, and no matter how well reasoned or valid that vote is, a not insignificant subset of debaters are going to find it pant-soilingly unfair that the judge didn’t vote for them. If you want to be surrounded by people who adhere to a strict and anally retentive views on applying the letter of specific vagaries and technicalities rather than an inherent application of fairness, I’d suggest you get a job with the DMV or IRS.
Other than that, I have little more to say on this matter, and will either refer you back to the text above, or failing that, my avatar.
Well yeah, an uncontested argument should be taken as true - but that doesn’t mean it’s not an unwarranted or bad argument. They’re not the same thing. You see, in debates people often make more than one argument or point, and if there is a bad uncontested argument against an excellent, but contested argument - the latter should get the points.
Seriously, look up some judge paradigms. You’ll be kinda disappointed.
So, a judge who is there to cast a vote about which argument is better than another is not allows to actually judge whether either argument is good or bad. Lol.
You should probably google some judge paradigms. You’re in for a shock.
Please let me know if you have additional questions - or if you want any more detailed critique or constructive criticism. I feel somewhat bad voting down the complexity on fiat - as it’s a technicality, and I hate voting on technicalities that both sides may not be fully aware of - but in this case I don’t think it specifically affected the outcome, and it’s worthwhile using it as a means of pointing out the issue.
Well, that escalated quickly!
I appreciate you taking the time to read the debate, and to vote.
Ugh! I have to read through 3 rounds of Kant?
I’ll try and place a vote this week, but I swear I’m going to award Conduct against whoever posts more of his quotes. :P
As a debater, it is your job to provide a convincing argument for judges/voters as to why your opponent is wrong, and your opponents points should be discounted.
If you provide no arguments as to why a point should be discounted, them this is your fault.
Whatever you think my reply should, or should not have been - it’s your duty as a debater to provide some form of valid, logical counter to it.
If you provide no argument at all, then regardless of your reasons, or motivations: you have failed to provide an rebuttal and the original argument must be considered unrefuted.
In the context of formal debate - as this is - drop refers to the argument not being referenced, and no rebuttal to a point being common: it is an exceptionally common phrase used within the context of formal debate, rather than being some vulgar or uncultured term I am using to abuse you.
When someone drops an argument it means that one side has neglected to respond, and the original point must be considered unrefuted.
If you ignore an argument, and do not respond to it, in formal debate, it is very much considered that the person ignoring the point has given up contesting it. That’s what dropping an argument means.
If you felt a detailed scientific argument was rude, or obnoxious - then you should have argued this in the debate, rather than dropping almost every point raised with little or no further reference.
Voters ahould not need to read your mind to appreciate your arguments.
Actually, “dropped” is a debate term that is used frequently to highlight when an opponent has ignored an argument or omitted a rebuttal. In general, debaters draw attention to this in order to highlight important omissions to the judges.
This was actually covered in round 5 (the crazy dousing guy with no credibility), and round 4 - where o pointed out the argument is a red herring.
Feel free to review the debate - where I went through and highlighted each individual point you dropped, I would do it again here, but I am limited by word count.
- if -
Thank you for your polite and gracious feedback.
Just to clarify: pros entire first round - probably at least 12,000 characters was dedicated to Koran and Hadith quotes. Aside from a handful of quotes - which I covered - I never at any point in my RFD, in any way, said that he used one verse that’s non violent to win. He used multiple quotes and examples to demonstrate this:
“Pro offers multiple reasonable Koran verses here to support the idea that the Koran teaches peace.”
I see seal a bit like lizard or fish - they are exclusatoy and paraphyletic. I was actually thinking of accepting this before RM, as this was pretty winnable.
If I take cons side on this point, then the religious teachings of the Koran are mostly irrelevant. While con attempted to justify this by saying the Koran can be interpreted multiple ways, he didn’t show it (as covered above).
If I take pros side then pros side could use the no true Scotsman fallacy throughout.
My judgement here is that if pros interpretation is not mainstream, or not sufficiently followed, it cannot be considered what “Islam” is, however it is up to con now to justify this. This is difficult to judge as the meaning was partially contested and not fully resolved as far as I can see.
IE: Islam is mostly defined by the teachings, but also it must consider the people who claim to follow it.
So.
2.) Islamic wars.
Con says that Islam started out as a brutal war like religion. Pro points out that wars for the purposes of defence and securing long term peace are okay (con agrees). Pro points out that the initial wars for Islam were defensive - and uses cons own source to show this.
Con asserts that Islam is a religion of war, but other than this initial claim, I see little other justification or detail here. Without specifics of the wars, how am I to judge whether they were violent aggressive wars.
The rest is very similar, outside of the Koran’s teachings, con primarily spent his time telling me how violent Islam is, but doing very little to actually justify it over the initial relatively simple claims.
As a result, arguments to pro.
Conduct was tied up to the last round. There were several references that I felt were close to the line. IMO cons final round crossed a line into being a rant with little in the way of advocacy. It was spiteful and angry for no useful or relevant reason, and outright disrespectful.
434 I agree with con that the Koran advocates wife beating, and that’s horrible - however in the context of this debate I don’t feel that is sufficient to proove that Islam is not a religion of peace - as I am interpreting that to be more concerning wider scale war and violence as has been discussed.
I side with pro on 168-174. The verse doesn’t clearly refer to violence and con doesn’t do enough to convince me of how this should be read how he claims.
There are several other examples of where con states the Koran provides justification for stoning for adultery, circumcision: I do not feel this matches the overarching definition of violence as I understand I from this debate, or a reasonable interpretation of it.
As a result of this, I feel that pro has shown that the Koran is on balance appears to advocate a non-aggressive (but not pacifist) approach. Con didn’t attack the Koran well enough to reject this.
So at this point the best I can say is that the Koran can be read to advocate “peace” of a form - or at least non-aggression.
2.) Who defines Islam.
So, one major contention. Is that con argues that the followers define what Islam is, and use the Koran to validate their position. Pro points out that Islam is based upon the teachings of the Koran.
Pro points out that if the teachings are peaceful then anyone who is not peaceful should not be considered a real Muslim. Pro even throws a challenge to con that even one non-peaceful verse would be enough to refute this.
I am challenged to resolve this dilemma, at this point:
Some background points:
A.) Burden of proof.
This is shared BoP. BoP is required for anyone who is arguing for a side that goes against the default position. The default position here imo is undecided.
I’m open to BoP arguments - but you have to convince me where the default position is, and that your opponents contention away from the default position and yours is not.
As a result, I will treat the BoP as shared here.
B.) definitions. Con didn’t offer any specific definitions of Islam, nor did he appear to object to the definition that pro offered covers the religion itself - rather than individuals that follow it.
C.) con also didn’t define what he means by Islam is a religion of Peace, I feel pros explanation is close to what I had in mind that “To prove this claim to be true, [pro has] to show that the religious doctrines of Islam promote peace rather than violence.”
Arguments:
The arguments presented clearly fall down into to broad categories here:
That the Koran teaches war and violence, and that followers of islam are violent.
1.) Koran verses:
Pro offers multiple reasonable Koran verses here to support the idea that the Koran teaches peace.
490 was contested, pro argued it was about political maneuvering, but when reviewing the wording presented before and after in 489/491 this doesn’t appear to be supported and pro points this out.
7.) conclusion: This is really the tale of two plans
I think both sides agree that innocent people need to be protected.
Pros plan does this by eliminating the possibility of death to any innocent person by removing it as an option.
Cons plan does this by trying to reduce the crimes and increase the burden of proof for those crimes. - meaning he goes with pros plan - except for the “worst crimes”.
I was mostly willing to overlook cost, unless it was a tiebreaker. While relevant - it was difficult to rate the impact of cost vs the death of an innocent person, or punishment of someone who deserves execution.
Con has the ability to win here with the counter plan he presented - I think the approach he took was valid, but in my view was so lacking in critical detail, as pro pointed out, that he never gave me a reason to pull the trigger.
I was willing to give a little bit of the ambiguity in favour of con - as I implied at the start due to the inherent burdens: but while I get where Con was going, he didn’t give me enough to believe his plan would truly reduce the number of innocents killed to such a low degree to be in that ambiguous area simply due to the fairly vague definitions of his plan.
Con has to show a fairly clear line, and give me reason to believe so few innocently convicted people are on the other side of the line to make it identical to pros plan, but with evil people punished with death. Con didn’t show me enough of where that line was, and how he could justify it - so as a result I must hand arguments to pro.
All other points tied.
4.) Counter plan - heinous crimes and shorter appeals.
While this would certainly make the process cheaper - and limiting the pool of execution applicable crimes will reduce the number of innocent people put to death, I have to agree with pro here. Con doesn’t give me a line I can draw with any reasonable intuition.
To award this point to con in light of the issues pro raises (innocents being killed), I have to assume that the line is drawn at a place where there is a minimal pool of cases - and to assume that none, of very few of those cases could be reasonably expected to be prosecuted on an innocent person. I get the idea that con is advocating, but I have to make too many assumptions in cons favour to award him this point.
3:0 pro
5.) The death Penalty is just. Hitler.
So, this is a bit complex to disentangle here: but bear with me.
I feel con offers a good argument here to establish his default burden: that there must be some reasonable or tangible benefit to the death penalty. I feel cons Hitler argument, and the argument from justice was good enough to convince me that there is an inherent benefit and, potentially, justification in execution in some cases.
This is to say that pro doesn’t lose this debate on inherent burden.
However, in weighting - I feel pro is corrects; the mostly agreed values seem at odds with cons logic. I find pros general argument consistent with values : that I have to weight the innocent people killed by cons plan - and not just whether the death penalty is justified.
6.) innocent people go free.
I feel pro adequately addressed this in his plan, while there is a tiny chance of a guilty person killing again, pro convinced me this is so substantially small that I can’t consider it benefit of cons plan.
So: with VD pro argues inherent unfairness of the system that will render invalid verdicts. I think both sides agree this is unjust.
Pros main issue raised is the issues to justice caused by racial disparities on juries. I feels cons counter plan addressed that specific issue with the rule to ensure racial setup in his jury pool: to the point where the majority of pros argument about the harms of all white juries is mitigated.
However, pro rightly points out the major issues of skew due to judges - and existing problems.
In this case, pro correctly makes the case that cons CP is as harmful as the SQ, so pros plan is better than cons here on the values of justice
1:0 pro
2.) Public Defenders.
Pro makes the case that lack of public defenders, and lower quality defense is substantially harmful, and that wrongful executions are likely to be at least 4%. I find this argument pretty compelling.
Cons counter case, doesn’t address public defenders at all. Referencing back the “heinous crimes”, for cons plan to have less harm than pros - the pool of crimes have to be so small, and the burden of proof so high to mitigate so as to prevent a substantial majority of the wrongly convicted due to poor prosecuters. I side with pro - I feel con did not offer sufficient detail for me to take his side.
2:0 pro
3.) Cost.
Pro makes a reasonable appeal to purse strings - arguing that it substantially cheaper to house criminals for life than an execution.
Con references a counter plan, to limit appeals and shorten time till death.
On purely financial terms - I would render this point a draw. While no numbers were given, a charitable interpretation of cons plan feels it is a similar cost.
Note: there were a lot of cross arguments in cost, I will be accounting for them separately.
1.) Value/BoP issues
I have to start by outlining the value and weighting I feel is warranted after the debate. Pro appears to argue that I must weigh the consequences to society and individuals, and con appears to mostly agree. So I’ll be using this lens to weigh the plans.
I felt the distinction and argument from should/ought was relatively meaningless, and has little impact on how I view burdens:
That being said, Cons appeal to weighting/burden suggests that if he finds one example where the death penalty is justified - that I must deny the resolution. That is opposed to the value he just agreed to - where he agrees that the death penalty should have an overall benefit to people in order to be valid.
I will say, however that con must establish some benefit of the death penalty to win: pro must be able to show that the resultant harm is substantial. Given the inherent intuition of the harms of innocent people being killed, I think pro is likely to find establishing his position easier, so I am going to take this into consideration in border line cases.
2.) Voire Dire
Con concedes all the issues pro raises with VD here. His rebuttal is in the form of a counter plan.
On a technical note here: While I considered it, I’m going to reject pros objection to offering a counter plan. Pro offers it as a rebuttal to a point in his first rebuttal round, it doesn’t appear to modify his inherent advocacy too much (its more along the lines of an extension), and in the context of the debate I don’t think it’s put undue burden on pro.
While the violation is probably technically true, I’m only going to entertain these sorts arguments when it clearly harms one sides ability to render an argument (it’s too big, too complex or too late), though I will very much take into account the depth and scope of the plan for pros counter.
7.) The WaPo link, and how pro was using it was talking about multiple potential crimes not just the single one you referenced. Even the single one being mentioned in that link is not quite the same as what you or your link described which you claimed isn’t a crime.
8.) Pro showed independent counsels
are considered inferior officers by the Supreme Court, as far as I could tell, and as argued: these only differ from a special counsel in method of appointment rather than power.
9.) If you have evidence or argument that the crimes you mentioned can’t have been the result of the original investigation remit - you should have included that in the debate. Otherwise pro points must stand.
I am happy to explain or clarify the thinking of my vote, or provide you what you could have done to win a given point. I don’t want this to turn into relitigating the debate, as more discussion here about what you meant is normally additional information and separate to what I specifically voted on. If you’re asking because you disagree with me, your not going to end up being happy.
1.) The indictments that pro referenced were being used to show justice is being done. To refute this, it is your burden to show the specific indictments are unjust - otherwise the burden would be unfairly stacked against pro. As you referenced only that there is a general ability of prosecutors to be malfeasant, your rebuttal fell short of showing these examples are unjust.
2.) As neither side contest the definition of the investigation or its purpose that was included in the debate information - I used that definition.
3.) With regards for conflict of interest; in the debate you established the appearance of a conflict - but do not show or demonstrate a specific harm that was done. However this point went your way anyway.
4.) Pro referencing an ethics investigation finding that Mueller has no conflicts MUST be taken as evidence in support of the position that Mueller has no direct conflicts of interest. You can’t simply dismiss it as an appeal to authority.
5.) I do not believe that it is a valid default position that someone simply having an alternative party affiliation is grounds to believe they are being systematically dishonest and unethical against Trump, or Russia - that would give Pro an unreasonable BoP.
6.) Your argument on Boston set up a he-said she said between a “very credible witness”, and a federal judge who said mueller was not involved. I have to weigh the federal judge more credible, as you offered me little additional reason within the debate.
I honestly could go either way - so will score this as a draw.
Conduct: While pro didn’t technically forfeit a round, the outcome was much the same. I see little difference between a small post without arguments a few minutes before the deadline, and a forefeit. - so will award conduct the same way.
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.
9.) scope
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.
Conclusion.
Ugh. I feel neither side covered themselves in glory. I feel both side missed key facts and information, and could have done better.
In general, I feel that on balance pro offered a reasonable explanation of what is to be gained by continuing the investigation.
I feel con offered mostly insinuated the issues and harms that continuing the investigation would produce. I felt that pro did fairly well knocking down the majority of cons harms. With me accepting only one point - that the prosecutors have the appearance of a conflict.
In general - I felt pro missed a lot of oppenings, whilst con failed to justify much of his point and really did not fully exploit cons missed round. But at the end I feel that what I was presented with was a choice between continuing with an investigation that has an appearance of a conflict, that is investigating something that should be investigated, or not.
While I want necessarily feel these clear Mueller on all points, I feel con does not offer a substantial reason not to believe the federal judge here. I feel con attempts to argue by implication rather than specific evidence: if he had offered a reason as to why it’s unlikely the judge would have not seen evidence - I may make another decision here, but I find this argument more of an insinuation than a claim with warrant in light of the federal judge quote.
7.) Getting help From the Russians isn’t a crime.
Pro points out that the resolution is not that crimes were committed, but that the investigation needs to continue. He provides a link that justifies why aspects of known interaction could potentially constitute criminal behaviour.
This is the best part of pros argument thus far. Con argues that pro should provide grounds for continuing the investigation: pro did just that. Con has to provide a good reason why he can discount the potential crime outlines as possible.
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.
8.) Unconstitutional.
Con argues the appointment was unconstitutional. Pro cites a Supreme Court ruling that the independent counsel is an inferior officer. Pro argues the appointment is similar, and thus should be deemed constitutional.
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.
Con argues that pro must give reasons not to accept pros specific issues. In my view the ethics review that Mueller passes is clearly a reason.
Con does better with pointing out that the contributions imply that there may be a secondary interest in the part of prosecutors.
What I find difficult to square here is that con only implies that the individuals behave malfeasently. I find the connection here very tenuous.
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.
I find cons support here very weak. But I have to accept it as pro offers no refutation to this point.
Both sides are implying a lot of their argument, and I’m finding that hard to score arguments better.
6.) corruption.
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.
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.
4.) Corruption Of Donald Trump
Pro points out that Donald Trump appears corrupt, and there are enough dubious links to warrant investigation.
In his conclusion, pro sets up the necessity of the investigation being based on information we don’t know.
Con argues that whether Trump talked to the Russians about anything is irrelevant.
I agree with Con on the part of golfing, and other non Russia related aspects pro brings up.
But I find cons contention that Trump talking to Russians about dirt to not to be relevant to the investigation about Russian election interference to be wholly without justification .
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.
Arguments:
1.) scope.
Pro argues that Mueller hasn’t been straying outside of his scope. In my view, it is not clear to me as a voter what this argument is intending to support or not. I can’t view this initial argument from pro as supporting his position, as I can’t tell what it means.
2.) Indictments.
Pro argues that the Mueller probe has a number of guilty please and indictments. Though pro doesn’t not argue why this specifically means the Mueller probe has to continue?
My reading of pros argument is that it is yielding results so should continue.
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.
Conclusion:
This was a very tough debate - as both sides were excellent.
I feel that con offered a very strong defense of his framework, which was equally well rebutted by pro. In general, I felt that pro successfully argued that cons framework was not sufficient in appealing to both moral intuition and the adhoc feeling of many of cons points.
I particularly felt that pointing out the ad-hoc nature - and specific animal torture were the primary reasons for this. Pro and con offered me no other real method to judge the frameworks as accurate reflections of reality other than my intuition of the moral issues presented - and as a result, I have to judge the framework on that standard. I did not feel cons arguments were sufficiently convincing to convey exactly why he felt the additional rules and caveats were objectively valid and not simply adhoc modifications.
Pro a framework felt like several frameworks at times to support his position. However, these felt more intuitive - appeals to the infliction of pain to anything is more in tune with intuition with all the moral considerations presented. These did need to be fleshed out more than they were, and wouldn’t have won on their own as a result.
As a result of this, I feel I have to award arguments to pro.
Saying this - this debate was far above average and was excellent on both sides. While I feel pro did win this debate, 3 points does not fully reflect how good Con was. I feel as a result it would be fair to reduce this to two points - as it better reflects the small difference between voters, PhilSam (and the mod team) has graciously agreed for me to alot a single point to con. Note this is not for spelling and grammar, but allotted as an argument point in order to give pro a delta of 2 points.
If meaning is why humans are worth more, comes from rationality - those without rationality (according to R1) have less meaning and are worth less. Con argues that it’s not rationality from which we derive meaning - but the potential capacity for it as a species - Pro provides no argument I can see for why potential (rather than actual) capacity implies worth. This makes me feel that cons argument has a hint of special pleading. However pro appears to concede the logical validity here so I am reluctant to weigh in.
Pro objection to basing worth decisions like this on potential capacity is interesting - that it is absurd to treat this potential of the species as something that must be judged against the individual. It feels on its face a bit of a clunky comparison.
I found pros argument that pros explanation is unduly complex and not parsimonious fairly compelling, pro introduces a new explanation based on individual desire not to be harmed to be much better than his original argument from sentience - but feel his explanation is a bit lacking in depth.
2.) the immorality of inflicting pain is more of a guiding framework than rationality.
This is a potential a third framework (though may be an extension of the desire not to be harmed). While it appears valid on its face, pro does not really advocate strongly for this framework.
However - I found no place where this was satisfactorily addresses by con. Given the implicit way these frameworks are being judged, I’m looking for con to compare the pain example to our moral intuition, and explain why it explains it less well - I don’t think pro does that well, and it is only truly in the final round to which pro cannot respond are the reasons better thrashed out.
3.) Pro argues that cons framework would treat “objectively” immoral actions against animals as perfectly fine.
Con seems to concede these points, and agrees - by concluding that these things aren’t actually immoral.
Arguments: the opening round of this debate neatly dove tails together from both side.
Con is arguing that experimentation is immoral - basing this primarily on the justification used to argue animals are less important can be applied to humans to.
Con argues that simple species membership fails to explain this difference - and that only sentience is a good criteria for assessing moral relevance.
Pro is arguing the converse - that it is moral as the principle of rationality makes humans more important on the grounds of the perception of truth gives rational beings lives more meaning - and thus worth less. In addition that arguing that as animals can’t reason on the basis of good and bad, they aren’t affected by pain the same way - rendering not inflicting pain a preference rather than duty.
On its face thus far, I find pros argument more convincing as they clearly set out value, and provide a more intuitive appeal to morality for me by questioning whether there is any reason to treat animals differently - whilst I find cons argument about objective truth to be, ironically, incredibly subjective. I do feel pros argument from sentience inherently suffers the same issues as he points out - though he uses it to rule animals in rather than out.
So moving on!
1.) Pro reiterates that cons framework means human infant lives are worth less, and do not cover live in a way that is agreeably moral. This is intuitive to me.
Con helps me out by conceding the logical validity of pros case. But then explains it is not the rationality of the individual, but the potential capacity of the species to be rational that allows us to exclude the exemptions that pro points out. I will not lie - the presentation is phenomenal here - but my issue with this as presented, is that in my view con strictly tied worth to meaning of life which derives from rationality in R1- I cannot reconcile how both his rebuttal here and his opening arguments as both true:
Notes from the voter:
A.) there was a lot of long explanation of the opponents side. This often made it harder to disentangle where the real argument was. Summaries are fine, but it’s okay to let your opponent present their position and to focus on only rebuttals - the voters will work it out.
B.) Both side conceded the validity of the other sides logic to some degree in places. This can be dangerous for both sides if one conceded the validity of an argument the voter would otherwise view as unsupported or unwarranted, it can change voting calculus. Be careful on this front - best use language like “if one were to accept this...” unless you’re 1000% sure!
C.) both arguments appear implicitly appeal to my moral compass as a voter, that if I find something immoral that one of your frameworks shows is moral : then the framework is invalid. In the absence of anything else, this is my main criteria for judging morality unless told otherwise - assuming I’m not a psychopath it should be okay!
D) my paradigm - for clarity - is in my profile.
E.) in my view, this is the best debate I have voted on. It was very well written and explained from both sides. Well done.
You’re right, I made a bit of a hash of that. Let me clarify.
The point of this part was that a large aspect of the timeframe argument was that con felt he didn’t know the girl well enough, enough background, whether she’s a cheater, etc.
In my view, not being sure about the person, and whether they’re worthy is a valid concern: especially for him regarding the risks. While you did point out that he likes her, and this is what dating is for - and he knows her well enough to like her - in my view there wasn’t enough for me to be convinced that he shouldn’t take those specific concerns seriously. This kinda relates to my specific vs generic comment to the end.
I hope that helps clear things up a little.
There was also a short treatise about atonement. I won’t lie, I felt the exchange on both sides were difficult to follow on this ground, so I don’t feel It fair to offer a verdict on that point.
Cons final round appears mostly a reaffirm of the previous information he provided.
Conclusion:
This was a very detailed debate, with a lot of focus on technicalities that was rather difficult to follow at times. I feel that the lack my own detailed knowledge on the core guts of religion and Judaism means I can’t do justice to the effort put into these arguments in my RFD.
However for me, this argument boils down to a few key things:
1.) That Jesus did not fulfill key prophecies. In my view con established enough prophecies that were not fulfilled - where as pro did not do enough to convince me that these could be discounted.
2.) The anointment portion wasn’t the dealbreaker - but was hugely detrimental to pros point, this was very well argued by con.
3.) Most importantly, con outlined the requirements of what a messiah would need to be accepted. These were specific, and detailed - and even pro appeared to concede that they were not fulfilled. Pro argues that these requirements would be full-filled over two comings of the messiah. This is the argument that really swayed this for me. In my view I side with cons argument that there is no mention of two messiahs - and that this implicitly negates the resolution.
This was a really thorough debate, and very time consuming to vote on. I apologize if either feel I haven’t don’t your argument justice - which I’m sure is true to some degree.
Historical: Con had claimed that the Jews need to have been returned, the temple rebuilt, and a multitude other. Pro seems to argue that at least one part of this (previous exile and return) happened. But he appears to drop must of the others.
In his first round, pro appears to argue the opposite of this, that the Jews have given the appearance of being punished, and scattered - I don’t feel I can reconcile both of pros arguments well here.
Round4: Con.
Requirement: Con points out a substantial number of messianic requirements that Jesus doesn’t meet. I find the presentation of the virgin birth and genealogy is actually quite compelling, and agree that pro did not adequately address this.
Role: con points out the issue with the second coming is not addressed by pro. I agree and consider this point dropped so far.
Annointment: con points out jesus was not anointed - con also points out an issue I missed - that pro concedes that if Jesus had been anointed he would have been recognized in an implicit acknowledgement of the importance of actual anointment. With con pointing this out - this point is damning to pros points
Sin an atonement: see next.
Need: I consider this point dropped by Pro too.
Final round:
Pro rounds off his rebuttals with a few extra points:
Jesus was successful. While pro accurately describes the success of Christianity. I don’t believe this warrants his position, success - even in the face of adversity - doesn’t mean the concept it is based on is necessarily valid.
Annointment: even if I accept pros argument that the government was corrupt, in my view this does not in my view provide warrant. That Jesus does not fulfill the prophecy and be recognized by Jews because of corruption seems nonsensical if Jesus was truly the Messiah.
Historical evidence. Con points out some conditions that would indicate the messiah has come. It may just be the fact that I’m totally goy, but this feels more of a rehash of previous points.
Round 3: pro.
Pro offers a detailed treatise in cons translation. I have to take his word that this example is muddied, as I’m even worse at Ancient Greek than I am in Hebrew. Saying that, his argument that we must consider this to have meant a virgin birth because otherwise it wouldn’t have been considered a miracle.
I think here pro has a good argument to support the Virgin Birth on this front.
Mitzvot: pros argument against the Mitzvot continues to be, in my view, outside the remit of the resolution. Importantly pro concedes the possibility that the law is perfect, but simply not fully complete. His argument appears - from my reading - that it is incomplete because it doesn’t cover some moral sin that are also considered moral sin elsewhere.
Again, in my view - even if I accept this as true, at best it confirms that Jews need a Messiah to fulfill the law (which seems not to be an issue to con).
Exclusivity: I feel pros arguement here answers itself. He appears to ask why only Jews reap all the rewards - and non Jews don’t get a reward but are also not subject to wrath. Pro appears to concede it is not exclusive, and appears to argue that not being able to leave is unfair. This does not appear to be a specially compelling argument, nor clear how it satisfies the resolution.
Second coming: pro feels very speculative here. Importantly con pointed out what the Torah said about messianic requirements that the messiah didn’t achieve - which were not covered by cons reply. As a result I’m on cons side here, as it seems that the OT said what the messiah would do - it seems by this measure the second coming would need to be the one considered messiah.
Sacrifice/sin: pro points out why a human sacrifice is acceptable. As con didn’t give me a reason to claim sacrifice is not acceptable at all, I have to side with pro here until it is clarified.
Attonement: I wasn’t fully clear what pro was arguing here - it seemed it was an argument that Judaism is a self defeating religion because atonement was impossible. This argument seems pretty nebulous to me - and doesn’t feel like pro gave me enough warrant to accept this - and even if accepted it doesn’t appear to affirm the resolution.
Round 3: Con
Prophecies. Con counters prophecies - pointing out one failed prophecy fails as the messiah. Con follows on with details of on how many of the major prophecy elements are actually misunderstood. As I’m not an expert in Hebrew, I have to accept cons position until told otherwise on this.
Mitzvot: con counters pros objections to the Mitzvot indirectly - I don’t feel that he addresses the specific insufficiencies raised by pro - by pointing out where they are not. However, what con does do very well is clearly point out three major violations that Jesus made that clearly invalidates Jesus place as the Jewish Messiah. I felt this was rather compelling.
Exclusivity is immoral: con argues that Judaism is not exclusive, and one can become part of the Jewish people through conversion and adherence of the law. I felt this was a good argument, but also that whether exclusive or not, it doesn’t affirm or disaffirm the resolution.
Round2: Con.
Anointing: con argues Jesus was not an anointed - a requirement of being Messiah. Given the phrasing - con isn’t specific as to whether the phrase “messiah” meaning anointed one was metaphorical, or specific. This would have been stronger had there been a textual requirement for anointment (IE a reference where it said The messiah must be anointed rather than the possibility of it being symbolic)
Lineage: con argues Jesus’ lineage is not correct according to one Gospel source. The weakness here is that con doesn’t argue that Luke is the more accurate gospel. So if Matthew is correct and Luke is wrong, this point would fail.
Did not fulfill prophecy: con lists three examples of major prophecies Jesus fulfills and points out that there is no reference to two messiahs - this is a very strong argument in my view.
Purpose: Con argues that the purpose of the messiah is different from that of Christianity - as more of a king - and due to these properties Jesus can’t have been the messiah.
Sins. Con pointed out that the premise of Jesus as a Christian messiah in terms of dying for sins isn’t supported by the Jewish religion. This on its face seems to be a valid point. These core points, about sacrifice however, do not have a clear warrant, in my opinion, for why they are true.
R2: pro.
Anointing: I feel pro echoed my thoughts on the anointing here, pointing out the symbolic nature of an anointing. I felt this mostly covered cons point.
Lineage: pro did little to resolve the issue here - Pro made statements about prophecy in the opening statements - so it stands to reason a failure of prophecy in this case of lineage would be substantial. I feel this didn’t address the issue con raised
Notes: I would politely request Swag to format better next time, the debate was quite difficult to read and judge as a result of the formatting! I also have to post this in reverse due to writing this on my phone.
Arguments - due to the subject matter being pretty alien, I am going to flow this RFD, rather than vote point by point.
My understanding of the contention (until someone tells me otherwise), is that Judaism defines a messiah, and pro must argue Jesus is that messiah, whereas con must argue either Jesus is not the messiah, or that Judaism doesn’t define one (unless I’m told otherwise)
Round1
Pro: messianic prophecies. Pro provides some justification of prophecies Jesus fulfills - he doesn’t go to great deal here, and does not specify this as a primary point, so I will put a pin in it.
1.) is an excellent argument for why Judaism is not complete, is imperfect, or requires a messiah. In and of itself, I don’t feel this argument justifies the resolution specifically - as it doesn’t explain why Jesus matches the requirements even if I accept it as true.
2.) I feel this suffers a similar issue with the resolution. This argument is an excellent argument for why Jesus completes Judaism (following on from 1), and a primary moral issue with Judaism - but does not, in my view, specifically affirm the resolution.
3.) Much better! This is a good argument - pro argues that Jews were promised prosperity for faithfulness - and yet this is not what happened after Jesus’ death - this strongly implies that Jews were not following the faith properly.
Congratulations!
I built robots and watch Star Trek during high school - before all this geek cultural appropriation today - I got shot down a lot
As an addendum to my RFD:
If you really like her, ask her. Life’s really too short. You could be hit by a bus tomorrow and you’ll always regret the not knowing or not asking far more than being shot down.
https://www.debateart.com/debates/new?contender=WisdomofAges
Yeah you’re fine. I’m thoroughly disinterested in the entirety of your thoughts on judging.
If you feel that debate winners and losers should be decided not by the actual merit or validity of their argument or how well they argued it compared to the other but by the judges opinion on how good or bad the debater was at technicalities and knowledge of the ASDU rulebook - or whoever is able to respond last - you’re very much entitled to that opinion if you wish; but I’m not going to be ruling in that way, as I (and a large number of others) think it fundamentally undermines the whole purpose of what debate actually means. Anally retentive analysis of debate technicalities sometimes stands completely opposed to the nuances of an individual debate, including those where one side offers the most well reasoned and well warranted arguments; and in such cases, arguments should win.
Other than some core tenets of logic, argumentation, and issues bias that I definitely and most assuredly follow, there is no “objectively correct” way of judging, which is why judging methodology in debates, has repeatedly been and continues to be the source of debate and discussion in its own right to this day within the debate community.
You may have a judging style that you favour of prefer. But the only real object fact about judging is that no matter which way a judge votes, and no matter how well reasoned or valid that vote is, a not insignificant subset of debaters are going to find it pant-soilingly unfair that the judge didn’t vote for them. If you want to be surrounded by people who adhere to a strict and anally retentive views on applying the letter of specific vagaries and technicalities rather than an inherent application of fairness, I’d suggest you get a job with the DMV or IRS.
Other than that, I have little more to say on this matter, and will either refer you back to the text above, or failing that, my avatar.
Well yeah, an uncontested argument should be taken as true - but that doesn’t mean it’s not an unwarranted or bad argument. They’re not the same thing. You see, in debates people often make more than one argument or point, and if there is a bad uncontested argument against an excellent, but contested argument - the latter should get the points.
Seriously, look up some judge paradigms. You’ll be kinda disappointed.
So, a judge who is there to cast a vote about which argument is better than another is not allows to actually judge whether either argument is good or bad. Lol.
You should probably google some judge paradigms. You’re in for a shock.
Wait, what? Since when do I need to treat a bad argument as if it’s better than it actually is to be Tabula Rasa?
Are you willing to wait to say/sun to post your opening argument? If so, I’ll accept.
Please let me know if you have additional questions - or if you want any more detailed critique or constructive criticism. I feel somewhat bad voting down the complexity on fiat - as it’s a technicality, and I hate voting on technicalities that both sides may not be fully aware of - but in this case I don’t think it specifically affected the outcome, and it’s worthwhile using it as a means of pointing out the issue.
EDM all the way.
You forgot to throw in a couple of words in all-caps there. How else are people to understand you really mean what you’re saying?
And Bilfokals too, I mean no one so far seems to have even referenced moral commands
Well, I seem to get either “excellent, well balanced RFD”, or hundreds of PMs about how unfair my vote was.
Guess what each of those two categories have in common!
Well, somehow I feel offended and left out :(