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| Debate Round 2 |
Topic: This house believes that a weak democracy is superior to a strong dictatorship
Gov: Bailey
Opp: igaboj
Judges: jinrfts and DarthYoshi |
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Vassar
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Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: j
« on: Jul 2nd, 2005, 10:11pm » |
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This is the thread where the debate between sunilonln and igaboj will take place.
Participants should indicate within this thread when they are ready for the resolution to be announced.
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Vassar
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Re: sunilonln [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: jinrfts,
« Reply #1 on: Jul 2nd, 2005, 10:12pm » |
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igaboj, since you just finished your last round, if you need a day or two off, feel free to take it. The other round 2s won't be starting for a few days anyway since the other debaters are out of town. Please announce in this thread whenever you're ready for the topic, though.
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igaboj
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Real name: Vincent Huynh
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Re: Rd. 2: sunilonln [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: jinrfts, DarthYoshi)
« Reply #2 on: Jul 3rd, 2005, 9:09am » |
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Ready here.
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sunilonln
Newbie
On that point!
  
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Real name: Sunil
Location: Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Rd. 2: sunilonln [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judge
« Reply #3 on: Jul 4th, 2005, 9:54am » |
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I'm ready.
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Vassar
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Re: Rd. 2: sunilonln [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: jinrfts, DarthYoshi)
« Reply #4 on: Jul 4th, 2005, 11:57am » |
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Topic: This house believes that a weak democracy is superior to a strong dictatorship.
Take it away, Sunil!
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Vassar
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Re: Rd. 2: sunilonln [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: j
« Reply #5 on: Jul 7th, 2005, 7:27pm » |
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Since I've been completely unable to get in touch with Sunil, and since the show must go on, Bailey will be substituted into this round. Please post your PMC ASAP, Bailey.
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Bailey
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Re: Rd. 2: sunilonln [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: j
« Reply #6 on: Jul 9th, 2005, 5:17pm » |
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The resolution originally read: This House believes that a weak democracy is superior to a strong dictatorship. The government has defined “This House” as the American public. “Democracy as the system of government employed by America and “Dictatorship” as a country under the total rule of one person. All other words will be defined as we know them. So the resolution now reads. The weighing mechanism for this round will be the social welfare of America.
The government’s first point is that power poisons. No matter how noble someone seems when you give them unlimited power over a country that will go to their heads. Let’s say that you have Joe who is the president of the US and John who is the dictator of the United States. Now for Joe to get into office has to represent the needs of at least 51% of the US. After coming into office Joe has to continue to represent the US and try his best to please everyone. If Joe does a bad job of this American public will kick him out. Now if we look at John the dictator to come into office all he needs to do is force his way into it. There is no need for him to even pretend to represent that 51%. Therefore since he isn’t at all worried about pleasing anyone else, he can do whatever he wants to without worry of being kicked out like Joe. Which leads me into my next point.
You can’t get rid of a bad dictator. Now Joe is doing a substandard job of running this country, because he is publically beheading people who don’t agree with him. Since we have a democracy the people can impeach him and stop the beheading. Now along comes John, he has decided that he wants to behead not only everyone who disagrees with him but also anyone who has extra-long fingernails. Understandably the America wouldn’t want this to be going on, but they don’t have a say in it because they didn’t vote him in, and can’t impeach him.
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igaboj
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Real name: Vincent Huynh
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Re: Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: j
« Reply #7 on: Jul 9th, 2005, 8:18pm » |
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1. When you speak of societal welfare, do you mean societal welfare for the American people?
2. When you say " You can’t get rid of a bad dictator." Wouldn't you agree that "bad" dictators can and are overthrown?
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Bailey
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Re: Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: j
« Reply #8 on: Jul 10th, 2005, 5:24pm » |
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1. Yes, when I said: “social welfare of America” I suppose I should have been more clear, I meant the social welfare of the American people.
2. Yes, I would agree that “bad” dictators can and are overthrown, but, especially in this case, where we have a “strong” dictatorship it would be much harder, and cost many more lives to overthrow the dictatorship then it would to impeach a president.
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igaboj
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Real name: Vincent Huynh
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Re: Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges:
« Reply #9 on: Jul 11th, 2005, 4:25pm » |
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I would like to start off by thanking everyone for being at this debate today. First off, the opposition would like to accept the definitions and value. given by the government team. Now, to my oncase arguments.
My opponents first point is that power corrupts the people whom take posession of it. He also provides quite an intellegent hypothetical situation to prove his point, however, in the real world and in history; this wasn't always the case. For quite some time in history, we have been shown that dictatorships do indeed work. My first example comes from Asia. During the Chin dynasty, rule was by dictator; however it wasn't all corruption and poor leadership as my opponent may have tried to show you. The dictator was sucessful in starting the construction of the great wall, helping the Chinese people flourish and live quite well. My 2nd example of dictatorships being able to work is Queen Elizabeth. During the beginning of her reign, England wasn't the most powerful of nations, unlike Spain, which was dominating at the time. However, under her strict rule, England was able to flourish and finally conquer the almighty Spanish. My final example is Germany during the 1920's-1940's; under the rule of Hitler. Most will consider this a bad point, but for the German people, under the rule of Hitler, the country prospered; as the war machine of Germany raged on, the economy was doing great and the Germans had the luxuries such as underground plumbing and indoor toilet facilities the French people under the weak democracy would have dreamed of, even living under their own ruler. Not very good for the societal welfare of the French.
The 2nd point my opponent brings up is that dictator's can't be taken down from power, but again, as history has shown in the past, dictators have been taken down from power, as in my examples stated above, China hastaken it's corrupt dictators regardless of how strict the dictatorship is, alogn with England; it can be done.
Now, to oppositions case. The system of government employed by the United States, is a democracy, but it's a very strong democracy, where the voters only have the ability to elect the leaders, but, when you take away the control that the government in the US has, by weakening it, it turns into a near Athenian-democracy, under which the Greeks perished very quickly. If the governments control over the nation was weakened, it would basically be complete rule by the people. The things that citizens hate, but must abide by in order to create a stable and prosperous nation would be gone, laws extending from the basic speed limit, all the way to copyright infringement and patent laws would not exist when at the hands of the every day American. Taxes would be brought down to so low of a level that the government wouldnt' be able to function as a government and the system as we know it would be non-existant.
For all these points, I strongly urge an opposition vote.
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Bailey
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Re: Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: j
« Reply #10 on: Jul 14th, 2005, 11:27am » |
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Sorry it took so long!
Would you agree that there have been multiple examples, in history, of corrupt dictatorships that don’t work?
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igaboj
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Real name: Vincent Huynh
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Re: Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges:
« Reply #11 on: Jul 14th, 2005, 7:59pm » |
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Yes, they didn't work as many of the corrupt dictatorships were overthrown and replaced by better rulers, such as the last dynasty of China, and as some English dictators that briefly followed the reign of the Elizabeth.
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Bailey
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Re: Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: j
« Reply #12 on: Jul 16th, 2005, 11:13am » |
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I would like to start off by giving a road map. First I will go over my opponents refutations to my case, then I will talk about his case.
First off, I will not deny that at some points dictators do work. But I can come up with multiple examples of them not working as well. If we look at current events and Saddam Hussain’s reign of terror that was a fairly strong dictatorship that didn’t work for the people of Iraq. And in fact was more dangerous to them then the weak democracy that is available to them now. There are multiple other examples as well, such as Mussolini, a dictator in Italy who also had a reign of terror. There was also the genocide in Cambodia under Pol Pot’s rule.
I also never said that “dictator’s can’t be taken down from power”. I said that it costs many more lives then it would to kick a president out of power. And there have been dictators who’s reign has ended only after they died, as in the case of Pol Pot.
Onto the oppositions case. Most of this I believe is irrelevant to the topic because we aren’t talking about taking away parts of the US democracy, in fact within the confines of this case the definition of “democracy” is the US system of government so what I am comparing is the possibility of the US still having the basics of their democracy (president the people elect, president and congress creating the laws that we don’t like but need, etc, etc) but perhaps in some way it is being severely weakened, or having a dictator. And the government believes that the American public would prefer the weakened democracy.
For all of the reasons above I urge a vote for the government.
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igaboj
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Real name: Vincent Huynh
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Re: Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges:
« Reply #13 on: Jul 16th, 2005, 8:02pm » |
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Seeing as this is my very last speech, I would like to thank my opponent for making this debate possible, our wonderful judges to decide the victor in this round, and the peanut gallery.
In all of the examples brought up by my opponent, the dictator is overthrown in the end, for being corrupt, much like I have also shown in various examples brought up in earlier speeches. The good dictators on the other hand, stay in power for much longer and benefit the nation which they rule greatly; as shown in the 3 examples earlier in my speeches.
The second and final point my opponent makes is about my definition, and how it doesn't apply; however, I would believe it does apply, when you think of a "weak democracy" you think of the current democratic reublic, where the actualy ruling body of the democracy is weakened, making it an Athenian democracy. As I have stated in an earlier speech, the Greeks perished quickly under their Athenian democracy. Why? The People had far too much control. This would mean there would be more power to the people; something they could abuse easily. If there's something the people don't like; for example, speed limits, they could abolish it just by voting on it; as every law would be under the control of the people. Laws that were created to protect humankind from humankind would be gone in a shorty time, and quickly, it would become an anarchy; where societal welfare doesn't exist whatsoever.
Now, onto my case. As I have shown in the previous speeches, dictatorships have the ability to work, unlike the anarchies that would become under a weak democracy. Strong dictators in the past have done great things for their nation, as in the multiple examples I have shown; which contributes to societal welfare along with the strength of the nation, which brings me to my final point of voting issues, aka, "Why you should vote for which side".
Now, in the beginning of the round, my opponent brought up the value of Societal Welfare, which I have agreed to. This means, whichever side shows that their side (weak democracy or strong dictatorship) better achieves societal welfare, specifically the well being of the nation under which the weak democracy or strong dictatorship is ruled. Now, I have brought up multiple examples in which strong dictatorships worked very well, and my opponent brought up a point about how sometimes strong dictatorships don't work; though that point doesn't stand. Now, at this point, things are going decently well; the opposition has argued why strong dictatorships provide for the well being of the nation under which the dictatorship rules. Now, when we move to the Government sides arguments; we see.. nothing. All the government has stated is that the current system of government works; which it does. The government mentions nothing about how weak democracies contribute to the societal welfare of it's people in it's previous speech, meaning they drop all arguments pertaining to the societal welfare of a weak democracy. Since the government side has dropped it's side of societal welfare; they cannot bring it up in their final speech, so please disregard any arguments of such sort if they appear in the governments final speech.
And for winning the value, I strongly urge an opposition vote.
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Bailey
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Re: Rd. 2: Bailey [Gov] vs. igaboj [Opp] (Judges: j
« Reply #14 on: Jul 18th, 2005, 7:40pm » |
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As this is also my last speech I would like to thank everyone for being here.
The opposition has brought up multiple examples of how a strong dictatorship sometimes works. But my examples also show how many times a strong dictatorship doesn’t work. For example in Iraq, Saddam Hussain had an arguably strong dictatorship, but it only worked for him and a few other elite people, whereas under their arguably weak democracy the majority of the population will benefit from it. This also seems as good of time as any to point out that even though I do not come out a hit you over the head with it in my last speech I did argue for societal welfare. I’m sorry if I didn’t come out and say that dictators slowly (or not-so slowly) killing off their people isn’t good for societal welfare. But I will make the assumption that the judges can draw that conclusion on their own and don’t need me to connect the dots for them.
The next point that my opponent makes is that a “weak” democracy is like the Athenian democracy. But people having control is good for societal welfare as well, because having control makes the general population happy and therefore much less likely to overthrow their president or dictator or ruling body which is good for the country. Also people have a certain need for survival and therefore the majority of the population is not going to abolish speed limits and say that everyone can start stealing everyone else’s stuff as that wouldn’t benefit them. After all what is democracy but the idea that “more then half the people are right more then half the time”.
As for my voting issues these are as follows:
1. Power Poisons: This has been argued back and forth under what was said about dictatorships working and not working and I have proved that dictatorships are iffy at best and that many times in history people in power with no check to that power have done horrible things to the people that they have said power over.
2. Getting Rid of a Bad Dictator is extremely difficult: I have shown that it costs many more lives to even try to get rid of a bad dictator especially a strong one and in some cases the reign doesn’t end until the dictator has died. This doesn’t happen in democracy’s their requires no loss of life to get rid of a bad president.
3.Societal Welfare: I have shown many times that the people having control is best for societal welfare and also that not having an abusive dictator is also very good for societal welfare.
In closing I urge a strong vote for the Government.
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