Week 1 - Lee vs. MRC

[FromTheSouth]

This thread will be judged by Tastycakes.

This thread will be open until 6PM CST Sunday

Lee will affirm the topic:

Resolved: An individuals right to discriminate outweihs society's goal of inclusiveness.

 

[Lee]

NB just a note, I honestly disagree with the motion.

Funny you should give me this topic, it's been a hotly debated one in the news over here recently. In fact just last week a new law was passed in Scotland is called the Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act. It will mean that homo/biphobic, transphobic and disability-prejudice crime is properly recognised as hate crime. Now that is apparently the first transgender-inclusive hate crime legislation in Europe.

Good that's the way it should be. We hear the word 'discrimination' and we assume it's about gay rights, or race or religion or whatever. However discrimination can be on completely different levels. To start with I'm going to throw a few really trivial examples just to get the ball rolling and then I will take a more serious stance once I've had time to do some research.

Lets start with one our judge will know about. If an English man goes to a shop in Wales, what does he hear? Not English, but Welsh, he leaves the shop and the customer and shop keeper go back to speaking in English. Ultimately that's discrimination, but is that a bad thing? Far from it, for every time we ask for directions to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch I also get to say "Hey what's occurring" it's discrimination, but playful at its heart.

The Women's Institute is a world wide group for women that (wait for it) is just for women. No men, just women. Now imagine a world where men are allowed in the women's institute because of 'inclusiveness' that would be outrageous and probably cause the end of time. This is another example where it's obvious it should still be in place.

Lets take our wonderful forum as another example. What level of discrimination do we have? We have the TNA fans discriminating against the WWE fans, and vice versa. We have rules in play that would discriminate against new users (ie e-fed needs 50 non spam posts). Yet we have one of the best wrestling forums on the internet. Discrimination in this way is a good thing.

Anyways I shall leave on that for now, expect a more serious one once I get some time to research.

 

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

I'll be honest with you Lee, I really feel for you. Obviously, discrimination is something that is generally frowned upon in modern society, and I suppose you drew the short straw. However, it in no way implies I am going to win just because people agree with the idea. My argument could be awful

On with the topic, and lets identify the key terms:

An individuals right to discriminate outweighs society's goal of inclusiveness.

I'd like to point out the term "society". What does that mean to us? When you think of society, you think of one things. No it isn't CM Punk and two bald people posing at the top of the entrance ramp, you think of all people. Society in my eyes encompasses all of humanity, and while you might have "Western Society" or "Upper Class Society", the crux of the idea is the same. People make up societies. Me, you, everyone reading this post.

The goal of inclusiveness? you might interpret this in your own way, but modern society is quickly becoming more socialized, as ridiculous as that sounds. Equality is the new black, and since the human and civil rights movements in the middle of the 20th Century, people are slowly becoming more tolerant of all peoples. The goal of many great humanitarians throughout recent history has pushed for the idea of inclusiveness. Take your pick, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. to that Declaration of Independence those Americans seem so fond of, all point towards the idea of non discrimination, inclusiveness, and if I may take a key excerpt

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal

So what does this mean? Why is societies goal to be inclusive so important? It is because mankind has come in leaps and bounds in the last 100 years. The amount of progress made has been astounding, our own renaissance in something that took medieval period Europe the better part of a Millenia. How much more do we know about the world now than we did in 1910? We have entered almost a new age of enlightenment, if thats not being too hyperbolic. We are now aware of so much around the world, and mankind is truly advancing.

So how much of this would be possible if man's right to discriminate had taken reign, had outweighed societies goal of inclusiveness. What if discrimination had kept nations xenophobic, has kept races cloistered and genders firmly inequal? Can you imagine how far regressed we would be from this point without inclusiveness, without equality? That is why society's goal for inclusiveness outweighs a persons right to discriminate. One man's own prejudice, his own spite is merely a speck in the face of human progress, of mankind.

Short and sweet until a reply I guess. sorry for the late reply Lee and FTS.

 

[Tastycles]

Lee

Well, you picked on the Welsh there, so bad form. In all honesty, I empathise with you for having to debate a side of the argument that is certainly not the most popular and that doesn't support your own beliefs on the matter. That being said, you argued by example, and I think that is probably the best way of attacking your side of the coin. It's easy to show we actually allow discrimination quite freely by doing so. What I would say though is you should have put the WI example first, as it was probably your strongest one. That is a minor point though. Meddwliwch am hwn fel wy pasg.
Roeddwn i yn mynd i wneud yr post hwn mewn Cymraeg, ond dw'i wedi anghofio yr rhan fwyaf o'r iaith.


Persuasiveness: You argued by example, and some good ones at that, which makes us as readers reassess exactly what discrimination means. 12 out of 15

Punctuality: It says in the rules that you needed to make at least two posts. You didn't, but that was mostly your opponents fault, so I am going to give you 8 out of 10

Grammar, spelling, punctuation: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is one word, but you got the spelling right. In all seriousness, mostly top drawer, though there were one or two areas where it didn't read as easily as it perhaps could have done at first read, as I expect you were typing as you would say it. Again though, minor bone of contention, I score you 9 out of 10

On-topic-ness: Kept on topic throughout, but I'm deducting a mark for admitting you hadn't done research. That didn't come across in your actual post, and it didn't need to, and I feel it is something that I would have pounced on, had I been your opponent. 9 out of 10

Quality of responses: You didn't get the opportunity to make any. 0 out of 5

Total score is 38 out of 50

Mantaur Rodeo Clown

I feel you gave a good account of the history of discrimination and the lack thereof in society, but I'm not sure you attacked the bare bones of the argument as well as you should have done. Lee's argument wasn't fundamentally flawed, but you could have perhaps pounced on some of his arguments there, especially as he didn't necessarily explicitly say why discrimination was good in those instances. That's not a criticism of Lee, but it is where the argument had the opportunity to bounce between you, I feel.


Persuasiveness: You built up the notion of inclusiveness in society pretty well and you used emotive language in the latter portion of your argument to drive what you where trying to say home. These are excellent techniques, and you certainly get style points, but I felt it lacked substance. Yes, xenophobia is bad, but why is it bad? By a similar token inclusiveness may be the way forward, but why? You had some good ideas, but you really needed to expand them. 8 out of 15

Punctuality: Your post was due on Tuesday, and you posted on Saturday. You also failed to make a second post, and though that was because your opponent didn't make one, that was largely on you, I'm afraid. 3 out of 10

Grammar, spelling, punctuation: Excellent throughout, though you used a smiley and missed a capital at the start of the last sentence. 10 out of 10

On-topic-ness: I felt you spent far too long defining your terms. The question makes out as a given that inclusiveness is society's aim, yet you spent half your post establishing that. You never got out of the blocks until later in the post. It wasn't entirely off-topic, but I felt if you were going to be concise in your response, you probably should have focussed a bit more on the matter at hand6 out of 10

Quality of responses: You didn't attack Lee's argument at all, really. 0 out of 5

Total score is 27 out of 50

Overall

A decent outing from MRC, but he was forced to pay the price on punctuality. There was a rushed feel to his debate, and ultimately, that is what cost him the match, because what he had written was written very well. Lee kept it simple, but kept it on topic and argued by example. Very human response to the question, which is good because it made the reader realise their own prejudice.

Lee wins by 38 points to 27