This is becoming really annoying. Can you stop putting words in my mouth? Thanks.
I know your tricks - you were bragging about them before. Find a block of text, and dump it in front of me. For me to begin to want to read those LUMPS of text, you need to be fair and format it in such a way that's easier on the eyes and more concise. It's simply proper debating etiquette. Also, can you stop refering to me in the third person? Speak to ME. You are debating against ME. State your points at ME. None of this "he completely ignores..he concedes..his language infers.." etc.
Firstly, you don't ever have an answer for Dublin. You may have been rushed, but there was 12 hours for you to come up with one before I even posted my response, but instead you didn't even mention it - you made a mistake and I capitalized on it. You didn't even address Dublin's warrants, pretend like it wasn't there - that's a concession. Silence is compliance because when you don't argue back, don't resist, ignore it and pretend it isn't there and maybe it'll go away, the judges have nothing else to evaluate the round on, and they have to default affirmative on presumption.
Secondly, you criticize my style of debate...allow me to do the same. You say that I have tricks; there are no tricks here. I think what you're refferring to is when I said I had a shady strat for the negative if I ever had to debate against gay marriage (it involved a kritik, a disad, and a counterplan...none of which are seen here) but alas I am affirmative and there is no deception. You say my arguments need to be easier on the eyes, however, I do a lot of work for you. Before each of my sources, I provide a brief tag that sums up the argument in one or two sentances, then I give a citation that generally includes qualifications of the author, and then, just so you know where their arguments end and mine begin, I set them apart by putting them in quotes. While my arguments are complex and critical, I make the best effort to dumb them down without destroying their essence. Don't blame me for your laziness - the Gewirth argument, not only being a basic principal of moral philosophy, is extremely self explanatory (I'll get to this later on the flow) and even includes a nice example to illustrate the concept. Just because you're not taking the time an effort to analyze the warrants of my evidence doesn't mean I should be punished for my style (which we are free to determine) and how prepared I am for my debate (after all we did have an entire week to research, and we were free to pick a topic we [presumably] had an interest in already and should have some base knowledge) and it means you shouldn't criticize me for what I do in the round - I've been debating on a national circuit for 4 years and now judge debate for extra money - I know more about debate etiquette than you because I know there is none. You call my arguments cheap and that I have to 'resort' to these 'tactics'? We're in a tournament and I'm here to win; it's the same logic that justifies Peach chain throws on Fox. It's not like I'm doing something that is just so mind blowingly awesome you can't beat it - there are two sides to every argument.
Third...my overviews and underviews are directed towards the judges primarily, and therefore not towards you...hence why I refer to you in the third person.
---
On to the line by line: (I'm moving some of his quotes together, like grouping all of his arguments on Dublin/forecasting)
You realize the outcomes you just came to were hypothetical. Congratulations on calling me on something you continue to do yourself.
Wow, just wow. Silence != compliance. First of all, I posted that at school, during my 2nd period spare, and I was running out of time. Second, it had nothing to do with gay marriages! All it was was insight on to people who make forecasts. It was a ridiculous generalization, DoH, and you know that. As I've said for the third time now, you're hearing what you want to hear, believing what you want to be believing, and applying knowledge from outside sources which were not intended to be used the ways you are using them, and a lot of times have no meaning or base into this topic.
Take global warming. Are you telling me to completely ignore the forecasted harms before we completely solve the systemic ones first? Like seriously, foresight is key in elements to every debate, issue, topic, etc.
I've already answered why silence does equal compliance above. Cross apply that argumentation here.
You fundamentally misunderstand Dublin's argument. He's not saying we ignore any forecasted calculation, he's saying that these kind of prophecies that are heavily laden with the values of the prophets (which the slippery slope argument is a perfect example of, because who came up with it and argues it? Rick Santorum ("bigamy, polygamy, incest, adultery") and Antonin Scalia ("bigamy, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity"). These right wing conservatives whose agenda is clearly anti-gay are the ones making these prophecies. Even if Delorted isn't homophobic, he still uses their thought processes, which means his arguments are tainted with anti-gay agenda, which as Dublin warns is dangerous because it encourages us to behave in 'narrow, selfish, self-defeating ways' and act as 'legitimators of programs that unleash forces of abandonment, neglect, irresponsibility, destabilization, and
exploitation.'
Also, just because Dublin doesn't specifically mention gay marriage doesn't mean his analysis isn't good - at the point where your whole reason to negate is because of these ridiculous impact scenarios, his justifications are in full force.
And in response to your global warming argument, global warming is happening right now - polygamy isn't. Therefore the problem of global warming is inherent and only getting worse, meaning its impacts are systemic.
And finally, my argument isn't to ignore forecasting entirely, just that we should critically examine the sources of these predictions and evaluate them as such. At the point in which your arguments are so heavily laden with the values of their creators and so far out there, then they should not be evaluated in the same framework as my systemic impacts; thus when the judges look at impacts at the end of the round they evaluate mine first, and if I meet that burden, I win.
And yes, I'm sorry. THE NEXT HOLOCAUST? HOLOCAUST. Are you sure you wish to use that word? HOLOCAUST. COMPLETE DESTRUCTION. BY FIRE. Do you think there will honestly be death camps for gays? Gay methodical extermination? OF COURSE NOT. What you said was clearly a huge exaggeration. So yes, it is complete and utter bull**** what you posted. Never will such a travesty occur on American soil.
Once again you don't read all of my author's argumentation. He contends that gay politics and identity serve as a foil that helps deconstruct the masculine paradigm for violence and subordination everywhere - not just in America. Tatchell argues that the values of patriarchy that perpetuate violence in all sectors of the globe are subverted when gays are liberated, because violence and oppression are only subjected onto populations that have bought into the cult of heteromasculinity. Nowhere in the text does it argue that there will be a holocaust on American soil, but rather that this hyperfueled masculinity was the contributing factor to the Holocaust that demanded eradication of dissentors to the cult; since gay liberation actively breaks down this mindset of domination and subordination, it is a key alternative to prevent this kind of mindset from happening again.
Sorry if you took my previous boat statement the wrong way. The boat which you are all in, is none other than the S.S. Can't Marry. The groups mentioned all currently cannot marry.
I'm not casting all the non-heterosexuals into a boat due to fear of them, or due to threat. Moving on.
I still feel that your essentialization of anyone who falls outside the realm of normativity is an attempt to destroy the gay movement. By placing us all together, there is no way each of our individual struggles could ever be achieved, as gays would forever be bound to the polygamous dog rapists. By lumping us together, it seems to be disasterous politics, putting all the Others together so we can infight and not achieve any of our ends. This kind of critique is fratricidal and political suicide. I see this essentialism as another form of Otherization, a direct impact of homophobia, and an independent reason to reject his discourse, along with Dublin.
You take "winning" a paragraph to be the end all and be all of this debate. Slow your roll.
You're the negative. All you have to do is win one argument that outweighs my case and you win. One paragraph could make the difference in this debate, I'm just covering my bases.
Try to stick to a more easily accessible and less arrogant debate system then, kay? What's the meaning of posting your entire argument in font that fills my screen so I have to continue scrolling like a beast? Why the tiny font sized paragraphs? You have to be fair to me.
I'm not sure what you mean, but on my screen it shows everything in Verdana (the standard SWF font on my skin) size 2, or Times New Roman in size 2 or 1, depending on if I copy/pasted it from my backfiles or not. And even if your computer has my arguments posted in wingdings, you can always copy paste into a word processor and change the font to something more easily accessible.
My style isn't arrogant, it's experienced. I'm using how I debate, which works pretty well seeing its a national standard that most high schoolers can comprehend.
Never once did I ever say that. I'm speaking to YOU, remember that. "But you might say that for it.." - A preemptive statement. I don't conceed. I'm simply going along with your instinctual thought process, ending with the "Right, that would make sense."
Your argument is that gay marriage wouldn't work in a utilitarian framework because it opens the door to other things...however at the point in which I prove that isn't true, then I win the utilitarian framework because you said so.
Haha - I never give you a warrant why you need to encompass polygamists, etc? Okay. Here's one. Oh wait, why don't you say it? You've been saying it all along.
Why do you deserve to marry, DoH?
Now I know this is hard DoH, but you'll have to take that juicy bit of emotional reasoning and apply it to the other groups in question. Because you see, they have the exact same reasoning as you do, and failing to recognize them as a group nullifies your entire arguments on rights and freedoms - You can't expect to get equal rights and freedoms and then deny them to others. Stop this hypocritical nonsense. I've been saying this all along, so stop saying I haven't given you substantial warrant or reason.
HAHA. Tell me something DoH, what outside of "well the straights can do it", do you have in the ways of independant justifications? THE VERY SAME OF THE OTHERS! You are no better than the polygamists, etc. They have just as much right as you do, if you do!
I've totally been waiting this. And you may call me a sneaky *******, but here's where the trap that I set up in the first constructive comes into play.
Haha. There's no argument. I'm not going to pick a side, because I'm on the fence - there's evidence on both sides. But that in itself is a side.. just as being an agnostic is a side in the main trifecta of views on God. (Theism, atheism, agnosticism)
Let's get this straight (ironic for a gay marriage debate, no?). Delorted says that he doesn't have a side or a central advocacy on whether being gay is natural or not, but rather just says there's evidence on both sides. But not only does he not offer opposing evidence, he doesn't even take the time to advocate that being gay is purely a nurtured trait or a choice.
However, I present you with several documented cases where homosexuality is present and a naturally occurring phenomenon. There are also other scientific discoveries, like when fruit flies were made gay through genetic manipulation, or the fact that gay men have a smaller hypothalamus than straight men. Also there's my personal testimony that gay men are wired differently than straight men - I can bump and grind with my *** hags all night in a club and no arousal occurs - but when I'm surrounded by Daniel and Lee rather than Danielle and Leigh, there's definate a change in altitude. At this point, it's pretty blatant that there is at least a biological difference between gay and straight people.
So why does that mean I deserve the same right as everyone else? Biological necessity. Some very large percentage of gays (possibly all) cannot pursue happiness under a heterosexual mandate. They must seek their relationships among their own gender. To deny gay people the right to seek this happiness, by barring them from
the most basic of human institutions (one that predates agriculture) constitutes a discrimination that approaches that of
Dred Scott. Even the laws against interracial marriage (voided 35 years ago in
Loving vs Virginia) did not present this fundamental issue. One *could* find happiness with another, unjust as the laws were.
But a gay person denied the legal right to marry the whole class of persons to whom they are attracted is utterly denied this basic human bond.
Andrew Sullivan likens interracial marriage to the present issue. He's wrong. No one needs, biologically, to marry a person of a different race -- there are alternatives. That restriction is wrong on other grounds, notably no-good-reason. Polygamy, incest, etc are also devoid of this biological need -- these are simply
wants, and there are very good reasons to bar these unions. While a truly bisexual person may want to marry "one of each", they can marry one or the other, or remain single, as they choose. All married people struggle at times with monogamy -- this is simply a difference in degree, not in kind. Pedophilia and bestiality do not apply to marriage, for reasons of consent and permanence. If your "bright line" is biological need without alternative, there is no slippery slope with respect to gay marriage.
Secondly, the hidden assumption of the argument which brackets gay marriage with polygamous or incestuous marriage is that homosexuals want the right to marry anybody they love. But, of course, heterosexuals are currently denied that right. They can not marry their immediate family or all their sex partners. What homosexuals are asking for is the right to marry, not anybody they love, but
somebody they love, which is not at all the same thing.
Heterosexuals can now marry any of millions of people; even if they can't marry their parents or siblings, they have plenty of choice. Homosexuals want the same freedom, subject to the same restrictions. Currently, however, they have zero marital choice (unless, of course, they try to fool heterosexuals into marrying them — a bad idea for a lot of reasons). To ask for a comparably, but not infinitely, broad choice of partners is not unreasonable.
Do homosexuals actually exist? I hope so, and today even the Vatican accepts that some people are constitutively attracted only to members of the same sex. By contrast, no serious person claims there are people constitutively attracted only to relatives, or only to groups rather than individuals. Anyone who can love two women can also love one of them. People who insist on marrying their mother or several lovers want an additional (and weird) marital option. Homosexuals currently have no marital option at all. A demand for polygamous or incestuous marriage is thus frivolous in a way that the demand for gay marriage is not.
Suppose, though, that someone insists that he can't be happy without several spouses, and that this is a basic constitutive need for him. Or suppose he says he can't be happy unless he marries a close relative. For argument's sake, let's say we believe him. Shouldn't at least this person be allowed to marry two people, or his father?
No. The reason is that, from society's point of view, the main purpose of marriage is not, and never has been, to sanctify love. If the point of marriage were to let everybody seek his ultimate amorous fulfillment, then adultery would be a standard part of the marital package. In fact, society doesn't much care whether spouses love each other, as long as they meet their marital obligations. The purpose of secular marriage, rather, is to bond as many people as possible into committed, stable relationships. Such little societies-within-society not only provide the best environment for raising children, they also domesticate men and ensure that most people have someone whose "job" is to look after them.
Polygamy radically undermines this goal, because if one man has two wives, it follows that some other man has no wife. As Robert Wright notes in his book
The Moral Animal, the result is that many low-status males end up unable to wed and dangerously restless. Over time, a society can sanction polygamy only if it is prepared to use harsh measures to repress a menacing underclass of spouseless men. It is no coincidence that no liberal countries have been polygamous, and no polygamous countries have been liberal. In that respect, the one-partner-each rule stands at the very core of a liberal society, by making marriage a goal that everyone can aspire to. Gay marriage, note, is fully in keeping with liberalism's inclusive aspirations. Polygamy absolutely is not.
Incest, of course, may produce impaired children. But incestuous marriage is a horrible idea for a much bigger reason than that. Imagine a society where parents and children viewed each other as potential mates. Just for a start, every child would grow up wondering whether his parents had sexual designs on him, or were "grooming" him as a future spouse. Holding open the prospect of incestuous marriage would devastate family life by, effectively, legitimizing sexual predation within it.
The rather peculiar idea underlying the "If gay marriage, then polygamy" argument is that, at bottom, there really is no very good reason to be against polygamy other than tradition — you just have to be blindly against it, and ditto for gay marriage. But there are ample grounds to oppose polygamous and incestuous marriage, grounds that have nothing to do with whether gay people will be allowed to partake of society's most stabilizing, civilizing institution. I don't ask to break the rules that we all depend on. I just want to be allowed to follow them.
Don't even get me started. You know this is confusing and you're doing it on purpose. If you want to summarize that for me, go ahead, because as it stands now you cannot under any circumstances expect me to read that in its entirety. I would literally have to draw a flow chart to understand this in its current form. I should not have to do that.
And you know, I'm not afraid to say that I found it confusing. I think by now people don't see me as an idiot, so don't try and fool me, DoH. I just think its sad you have to resort to that. Hopefully the judges will see that, too. Quoting large blocks of texts and acting like you adopt and understand it all will only get you so far..and it doesn't inherently make you sound smart and/or correct.
So basically you're attempting to throw out my argument because you won't take the time to read it? I take the time to read each of your arguments and then multipoint them for their flaws, at least take the time to read my arguments.
Gewirth's principal of intervening actors is really simple, especially if you read the example in the text about MLK's protests being held accountable for race rioting. But here it is, nice and simple. If a hobo comes up to you and demands a cookie but you don't give it to him, and then he turns out to be a suicide bomber and then blows up a bunch of people because you didn't give him a cookie, are you morally repsonsible for the deaths of the victims? Gewirth argues no, you are not, because the suicide bomber is outside of your control.
Apply this to the debate - gay marriage gets passed. Other people want their ridiculous marriages sanctioned, and unfortunately the Supreme Court all did lines of cocain (or at least 5 of them, because that's the only scenario I can think of where delorted's impacts could actually occur) and now polygamy, incestual marriages, and beastial marriages are now legal. Is the blame to be placed on those who legalized gay marriage? No, because it is not them who make the decision - it would be the court that did. Therefore, even if his impacts could happen, that's still not a reason to negate because I have no control over them and can't be held responsible for their results.
Want to tell me how it could lead to those outcomes? Hypothetically, of course. Oh wait ... (did you see what I did there, DoH?)
Yes, I did see you fundamentally misinterpreted my author. All the impacts that come from the tyranny of survival are emprically proven, as per the historical examples Callahan illustrates. All of your impacts are empirically denied - we've had gay marriages in other countries without having to legalize your impacts, so they're just blind forecasts without any backing, internal link as to how you get from gay marriage to beastiality, or logic as to how it ever could happen.
This is why I call you sensationalistic. You act as if denying gays the right to marriage is the end of humanity as we know it. You actually, ACTUALLY, made a reference to the Holocaust! What's next? Bush is Hitler? What the hell are you talking about?
Remember way back in the beginning of the debate, when I said it's not what we do, it's what you justify, and you agreed, because you tried to hold me to this standard by saying it's not that I legalize gay marriage, but I also justify incest. Well this is what
you justify - racism, genocide, slavery - all in the name of survival. Your utilitarianistic view that we have to suppress rights to maintain the institution of marriage is just another form of the tyranny of survival; in this case the survival is that of the cult of heteronormativity. In order to protect this worldview, any atrocity can be justified. This serves as a complete impact turn to his arguments. What's worse - a world where people go around loving whoever they please or one where a brutal suppression of those who don't fit the paradigm of what is normal is not only public policy but an accepted commonality, and we would lose our humanity - a Pyrrhic victory.
Also, this doesn't really matter because he doesn't have any argument against Callahan's warrants (they're super amazing and historically jusitified) except that 'it's sensationalist.' Not only does he not really define what this means, but he never tells you why this is bad, or gives a warrant as to why exactly Callahan is sensationalist aside from the fact that he mentions the Holocaust.
Haha. Nice try. You see, in Canada, gay marriages were only up until recently banned as well. The thing you have to remember is that the full effects of social changes often take generations to manifest themselves.
If they take generations, then you'll be long gone and you won't have to deal with the polygamists. Also other countries have had gay marriage and civil unions for a couple of years and people aren't clamouring for polygamy there; and you still have no internal link as to why gay marriage automatically makes this happen (because as evidenced above, that argument is empirically denied) or reason as to why courts have to recognize the marriages of people to sisters or snakes.
This is just pathetic. First of all, none of those cases indicate that those marraiges are legally recognizeable (just recognize within the tribes themselves) because they don't invovle two consenting parties. Second, the dog-girl wedding isn't legally binding and so frivalous she doesn't have to even divorce the dog before marrying a human, and it's a based on a supersition and religious practice. Third, the only one that takes place in a first world country is the dolphin one, which the woman admitted to being a joke.
How come? How can the courts actually stand there and fully contradict themselves? I fully see it as a realistic possibility that only gets more possible with each day.
They do it all the time. You have freedom of speech (such as black armbands as a sign of protest) as long as it doesn't have a negative impact (such as the '**** the draft' jacket). The same principal applies...and you can't show that gay marriage has an inherent negative impact, but polygamy, incest, and beastiality all do. That's why the court can 'contradict' itself - each of these cases would have to have independent warrants to justify their cause.
That's funny. The gay guy all of a sudden is trying to define marriage rather than leave it open ended? Wow. Too bad for Fluffers.
Animals don't have legal standing and can't sign a contract. Because they're not sentient. How many times must I reiderate this? Leaving it open ended could carry some of the negative consequences you imply.
Also your violence impacts belong in the category of forecasted and empirically denied - there were no mass instances of violence when they lifted the ban on interracial marriage, why gay marriage?
And here's one more reason not to evaluate the slippery slope - in the 80's we gave reparations to Japanese families who were interned during WWII. This raised the question of reparations for African Americans who were enslaved. The US payed $20k to the Japanese; for Africans it would total over $400 billion dollars. And yet we still haven't given them reparations, because it would carry a negative consequence - even though it's justified by the same logic.
With that all said, judges, I want you to sincerely look at my position when facing DoH's posts - they are intended to be confusing to read and hard to follow, so it's easier to catch a slip-up, as he did with me "conceeding."
I ask that you think why he needed to resort to such tactics, and why he can't just simply give a fair debate, and that you don't inherently side with DoH because of the impressive looking quotes.
Judges - don't give him an easy out here. My posts are generally very clear and I have explained them all to the best of my ability without completely dumbing down the gist of the argument. I use authors to back up my own conclusions because their analysis is more qualified than my own; just because he is too lazy to read a few paragraphs doesn't make it an unbeatable nefarious tactic. Take your time and read through my arguments. He has had way more time than any real debater would have in a real debate tournament.
Here are a few reasons why you should vote for the affirmative:
1. The negative has no offensive reason for you to vote for him. At the point in which he conceedes Dublin, Callahan, and Gewirth, and he never can provide you an inherent problem with gay marriage itself, nor an internal link to his impacts, you're always going to value the affirmative's ability to solve the problems of the status quo.
2. He conceeded the framework of the round, set forth by Dublin. When his prophet's motivations are clearly biased, you're always going to evaluate the systemic harms the plan solves above his forcasted harms, especially because he justifies a whole host of problems with his logic, and you can't hold the affirmative ethically responsible.
3. Education - it's the only thing that actually happens post round. If I win, gay marriage doesn't actually happen. But I have made a clear effort to attack each of his points from various different view points and bring in interesting sources and scenarios - to which is response is that it's too much to read. I'm the one providing the greatest education in the round.
