BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
never ever using an atomic bomb ever

you claimed that the tens of thousands of lives where OK because there were chemical factories in japan the majority of the people in those cities had no part in the war what so ever. you also said that i thought we got pleasure out of cruelty, i only meant the 3rd definition. and i dont know anyone that wouldn't think that a long painful death due to radiation poisoning isn't cruel. millions of people felt the effects of that radiation. life is to precious to have weapons of mass destruction when more effort can simply be put into peace negotiations.
Sound Money is better than Fiat Money for the average citizen.

The term "sound" as an adjective is accurate in context with money. It means: "in good condition," "in good shape," "reliable," "trustworthy," "stable," "well grounded," "sustainable, "dependable". Having a sound mind or sound health doesn't mean you are perfect in every way; it means you are at a steady state of health. I do not claim that sound money is perfect. There is no currency in existence that can fit that description. However, money whose value is connected to a rare commodity such as precious metals is very sound, very dependable, historically ideal, and the closest thing we have to a currency without defects. Although, I will readily admit, that tying the value of one's currency to anything has its drawbacks, it still is the most stable form of currency. I am not talking using gold and silver coins to buy groceries but having the paper dollars we use redeemable for a set amount of gold/silver. In contrast, fiat currency has no redeemable or intrinsic value, and because of that huge defect it is easily manipulated. The temptation for governments to use the printing press to create more money is historically too great. Inflation is the result and not just a little. The most classic case of fiat money being abused is in Zimbabwe where the inflation rate was 79.6 billion percent. See link below: https://en.wikipedia.org... In the US and around the world central banks will perform what is called QE (quantitative easing). A core provision of QE is increasing the money base or money supply. In layman's terms that means intentional inflation. As Con pointed out in his very brief and incomplete synopsis of 16th century Spain's fiscal policy problems, the currency in use was being inflated faster than it could be used to pay off the nation's debts. Clearly Spain's fall had more to do with its spending/debt habits than its choice of currency. But that topic is for another debate. Con even provided evidence on behalf of my case (thank you very much) that supports the cause of having a currency whose supply does not change significantly over time. In essence, Con showed that as the amount of a currency in circulation is increased, terrible things happen to that nation and it's citizens. This is precisely what happens with QE. The money in circulation is increased by hundreds of billions or in some cases trillions of dollars. The consequence is high levels of inflation. Since 1913 the value of the US dollar has dropped 95%. See chapter 6 of Thomas Woods book - Meltdown (linked below). http://www.amazon.com... In the 16th century, gold was the most stable form of currency even with people finding it everywhere in the Americas. Today, since there is such a large pool to draw from, any new introduction to the gold pool from new gold mines has little effect on its value. Unless a huge asteroid made of solid gold falls from the sky, the value of gold will only grow and increase in worth, as will any currency tied to it.
Sound Money is better than Fiat Money for the average citizen.

I disagree that a sound currency can be achieved by connecting its value to any type of rare commodity. The argument "Sound Money is better than Fiat Money for the average citizen." is disingenuous as the definition of sound as an adjective is "free from defect." [1] I think most would find it hard to disagree with the claim that a currency without defects is better than a currency with defects. Seeing as how Pro says "Sound Money" can be achieved by connecting money to a rare commodity I will interpret "Sound Money" to be a "Commodity Money" that is backed by rare metals. [2] A currency backed by a commodity is not free from defects nor is it even sound in Pro's definition. Commodity money is commonly thought of as gold or silver coins. It is typically described as having value other than as a medium of exchange. Commodity money is not a sound currency because a commodity's perceived value is tied to it's rarity, not intrinsic value. According to Niall Ferguson in the book "The Ascent of Money" the Spanish Empire defaulted on it's debts four times from 1557-1596. During this time period Spain was getting large amounts of gold from colonies in the New World. As the supply of gold in Europe increased it lost value, which led to the inability of Spain to pay its debts. [3] This demonstrates a commodity currency does not have imperceptible changes in value over long periods of time. The paper "The Sustainable Debts of Philip II" by Mauricio Drelichman and Hans-Joachim Voth on pages 7-8 state that the defaults resulted in the King of Spain levying new taxes on his citizens in 1576 and again 1591 to appease his creditors.[4] I posit that these taxes were harmful to the average citizen. 1. http://dictionary.reference.com... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org... 3. http://www.amazon.com... 4. http://eml.berkeley.edu...
Sound Money is better than Fiat Money for the average citizen.

A sound currency is the foundation of a truly strong economy. By sound I mean to say the currency is dependable, consistent, only imperceptible changes in value over long periods of time, and cannot be easily counterfeited. Typically this is achieved by connecting its value to some rare commodity. Fiat money is typically paper currency that is not redeemable for any sort of commodity. Because it is inconvertible, the preceived value is ever changing in a way that can be very tragic for average citizens. Indeed, history bears the sad tales of many nations becoming ruined due to a difficiency in discretion when considering the state and health of the country's legal tender.
Standardized Tests

While an understanding of subject matter is necessary, subjective testing of the matter is often unfair and can make students weary of the subject altogether. I speak from personal experience. Standardized admissions testing has also been criticized very often. Its critics love to quote Einstein "Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, then it will live its whole life believing it is stupid." This quote, I believe is misused. Let us extend the metaphor in the quote. Imagine the people judging the fish need someone to climb trees and pick bananas. No matter how good at swimming the fish is, he is of no use to them. Similarly, when colleges use standardized tests to filter their pool of applicants, some students claim that they have different strengths. That they are artistic, or musically talented. This is a poor excuse since more often than not the college they are applying to needs students strong in academics. For these reasons standardized testing is an near ideal tool for separating the students among a pool of applicants.
Standardized Tests

While I do understand the tactics of standardized testing I can hardly agree that it is a justifiable determination of a students academic achievement. Perhaps the fact that the US has rated lower than that of other countries in our competency to test well has been largely attributed by the fact that students are less engaged because they are less excited to learn. If you give a student a specific date, equation, or formula they will copy it into their notebook and use it to study for a test. In this process I would say they are in effect removing the actual knowledge of these said dates, equations, or formulas and remembering them solely for the fact that they may be tested on them at a later date. In this regard I do believe students are becoming detached from education and henceforth scoring lower on exams. If I might add, Finland does indeed use tests for student competency but there is one large difference between their form of a test and ours. Students in Finland are encouraged to learn actively and apply the information they learn to situations in real life. This I believe is a more effective tool for growth and development then racing against the clock, filling in bubbles with a no.2 pencil and in turn learning that questioning why something is "Correct" is invalid.
Standardized Tests

While standardized testing has long been criticized in all sorts of manners, but the fact of the matter remains that standardized testing is one of the only objective, unbiased methods of comparing college applicants. Standardized testing has no biases because there is no interpretation of correct and incorrect, what is correct is correct and what is not is incorrect. In other types of assessment there is room for error. One scorer can be more favorable than another and give higher scores. The odds of admission are then skewed towards the students who's assessments were scored by aforementioned scorer, and it is purely by luck rather than by skill or hard work. Critics claim that standardized tests are harmful to the educational process. In practice, this does not seem to be true. Countries like Finland, Korea, and Germany consistently place higher than the US in OECD Educational rankings, yet are more highly focused on standardized testing than the US. Rising powers like China and India also focus greatly on standardized testing. In fact a single important standardized test determines your college in India. Look where their educational models have taken them. Clearly the US is not teaching to the test well enough. Even with the largest educational budget in the world, the US ranks 33rd out of developed nations in English reading, our own language! Standardized testing has been unjustly vilified in America. Just as an aside though it has no bearing on the debate, I am a high school student.
Standardized Tests

Standardized tests are not an effective method to determine a student's academic success. Standardized tests simplify the learning process to multiple choice answers and discourage students to think outside of the box. Students, especially those of a young age deal with a great amount of stress from test taking because they become nervous and overwhelmed with not only the testing process but the studying beforehand. Instead of enjoying school they are losing sight of the most important part of education: learning. Students are indeed learning which answers are "correct" or "incorrect" by multiple choice. Yet, isn't it most important that students are learning to understand why these answers are correct or incorrect? Don't we want our children to question and understand the information they are being taught as well as the world around them? Is that not the purpose of education in the first place? Consider the troubles these students are encountering when dealing with standardized tests and how this affects the learning process.
THW become Vegetarians

In our society, we now have vegetarians. Humanity sees every good side in vegetarians. However, not everything good is good. I believe that becoming vegetarian has much more harms rather than benefits. THW become vegetarian Definitions: This house- America Become- begin to be in the next 3 years Vegetarian- a person who does not eat meat, and other animal products. Rules apply: 1. Forfeiting results in a loss of conduct or possibly the debate 2. Sources should be within the character limits 3. No round structures apply. However, no new arguments in the final round 4. Maintain a civil and decorous atmosphere (No trolling, swear words, conceding on purpose, etc.) 5. My opponent accepts all of the following definitions and waives his/her right to challenge these definitions 6.BoP is shared Round 1 -Acceptance and/or questions regarding the resolution. (NO ARGUMENTS PRESENTED) Any questions, please ask in the comments.
War movies should be banned/regulated in America.

Although Wikipedia is not known for being a reliable source, it had been give a bit of a bad rap. Also, it was the source that best articulated my point. We often assume too much. You cannot exclude and accuse a great number of people based on personal experience. If you continue down this path you can run into trouble. For example anecdotals or other literal fallacies. You then make a paragraph about white privileges. How are whites better off than the rest? The paragraph does not list any proof or explanation of these privileges. You have nothing to back up your point. White privileges seem to me like a non-existent liberal tactic of making white people feel guilty. Do you think an Iraqi jihadist would hesitate to kill Kyle if given the chance? Kyle was fighting radical Muslims in Iraq. Trying to make radical Muslims look innocent is like trying to push a rope up a pole. Lerner and Sterling were infringements upon the first amendment, which you seem to be advocating. They are relevant because cases like these are continually coming up, and will only continue with increased censorship. I don't think it's very hard to interpret the verses that I have listed.A devout Muslim is supposed to follow the teachings of the Quran. Therefore, a devout Muslim should participate in the killing of infidels. Islam is far from perfect, it would seem. I submit my closing argument saying to the voters, that my opponent is advocating censorship. If we were to adopt my opponent's plan, what else could it lead to?
War movies should be banned/regulated in America.

Wikipedia as a source? Really? I've never known CNN to be a biased source, seeing as many people view it, but I've listed a different source at the bottom. (1) Yes, I admit I have nothing that can support my assumption of the people who made those tweets. The only thing that let me to those conclusions were my own experiences. I lived in a rural/southern area for a very long time, one that was predominantly made up of white Republicans/conservatives. It's just a behaviour that I would expect from that demographic, something that I'm used to. White privileges are not something I made up just for this argument, they are a very real thing. In almost all cases, the group of majority -- in this case, white people -- have privileges in society. It is often hard to notice privileges unless they are pointed out to you -- things that are just taken for granted, in a sense -- but that does not null their existence. (2) Well, the movie is at least partially falsified. It does not tell the whole truth, in order to make Kyle seem like a better person. As Lulzy pointed out in the comments, there were fictional scenes added into the movie to make him seem "sympathetic", when in reality, in his book he says he regrets not killing more Iraqis. So, it does not simply recount his career. I did not mention Lerner because I did not look into it. This debate is not about them. And once again, white privileges are not "mysterious". Okay, no religion is perfect. And as with many other religions, the holy book of Islam is about context and interpretation more than anything. When looked into a bit more deeply at the verses you mentioned, they're more about self defense than anything else. (3) (1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... (2) http://www.nymbp.org... (3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com... (4) https://medium.com... (more on propaganda of the movie)
War movies should be banned/regulated in America.

Sources for first rebuttal: (1)http://en.m.wikipedia.org... (2)http://www.thereligionofpeace.com... Your first point makes little sense to me. Yes, the amount of radical Muslims are a minority, however it's far from an outlier(as stated earlier). You then pull up a bit of obscure data from the leader of all botched polls and statistics: CNN itself! How am I to believe a bit of information from a news corporation that, undoubtably, has a liberal bias? The key part of the terror attacks in the US bit is the words "in the US." The only reason that that number is not higher, is due to the minuscule amount of Muslims living in the US compared to the rest of the world. 70% of terrorist murders in 2013 were caused by terrorist Muslims(1). Doesn't really seem like a peace-loving religion after all. The Quran contains 109 verses of violence(2). Allah urges His followers to join the slaughter of infidels(2). Even condemning those who don't kill to Hell(2). Your next paragraph goes on about "white privileges." How do whites have any more privileges than any other race?" You then make a un-supported statement about how "LIKELY Christian Republican men made the tweets. How do you know that? And does that mean that only republican men did this? Snarky comment avoided, this is a poorly put-together paragraph. "The US is known for propaganda." How is this film propaganda? It tells the story of the life of a soldier. It doesn't tell people to go and kill Muslims. It simply recounts the sniper's military career. I see you did not mention Louis Lerner, and how the emails "disappeared." They both were obvious encroachments on our rights. You then make this argument: Germans=White. White=White Privileges. Therefore since Germans have white privileges, they're not killed. I'm sorry but you're basing your argument on these mysterious "white privileges." Yes people are blaming the entitreity of the Muslim population for the actions of a minority. However, Islam is not the harmless, peace-loving religion that you paint them out to be. (1)http://m.cnsnews.com... (2)http://www.thereligionofpeace.com...
War movies should be banned/regulated in America.

It does not mean that we should accept what some are doing, but the problem is that many either do not understand or reflect that it is only some people, not all, that do these things. And, seeing as Kyle was white himself, it is likely he would've felt more remorse. It's much easier to feel remorse for pain to your own race than that of another. (1) The only reason I and many others are pulling the "race card" is because it's a real problem. Yes, and doesn't that seem at least a little strange? We hardly ever see terror attacks committed by white people on the news, or if we do they're hardly ever called such outright. But really, only about 6% of terror attacks in the US are committed by Muslims, according to a list of all US terror attacks from 2002 to 2005, released by the FBI and then formatted into a chart by Princeton University's "Loon Watch" . (2) (3) (4) If the movie were about killing Christian terrorists, of course there wouldn't have been a fuss about it. It probably wouldn't have existed in the first place. Christians have privilege in this country, not to mention that it's likely most of the post-movie tweets about killing Muslims came from white, Christian, republican men. (I'm sure you know the type.) With Christians making up approximately 77-78% of the population, there's no way anyone would put out a movie that demonized Christians in the way that American Sniper demonized Muslims. It just wouldn't sell. (5) (6) Yes, the movie tells the story of his life, but it is censored in the first place, in the form of propaganda, something the US is known for. With your mention of Donald Sterling, yes, I agree that that was an abuse of rights. What people say in private is their business, but if it is made public, people should be prepared to deal with the backlash. That's the way the world works. You just have to deal with the consequences of your actions. And your analogy about Germans is in no way the same as Muslims and the AS movie. First of all, Germans are mainly white, and therefore subject to white privileges. Also, people now understand that all Germans are not responsible for the actions of some Germans in WW2. That's the main problem, that people don't make that connection when it comes to Muslims. And the fact that no Germans were harmed after the release of WW2 movies, but Muslims received death threats after the release of American Sniper, should be proof enough that it is not the same logic. Ok, I admit my original wording was a bit harsh. Perhaps they shouldn't be outright banned, but yes, regulated in some way. Perhaps being released at a later time, like in the case of WW2 movies, by which point people generally understand that is wrong to blame an entire group for the actions of some. There's a much bigger underlying issue here, the issue of prejudice towards Muslims. (1) http://www.cnn.com... (2) http://www.fbi.gov... (3) http://edition.cnn.com... (4) http://www.loonwatch.com... (5) http://religions.pewforum.org... (6) http://www.census.gov...
gay marriage should be allowed

My opponent states, "By banning gay marriage it would be going against the the 14th clause of equal protection. " However this is actually the opposite of what is true. The 14th Amendmant Section 1 states, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. "[1]. The most important part of this section is where it states,"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;", in a nut shell this states that every citizen in the united states will have equal rights, and privileges no matter who they are. However there are 1,138 benefits, rights and protections the are for strictly for married citizens[2]. This in itself in fact causes marriage in its entirety to be illegal based upon the constitution. If citizens are truly to have completely equal rights and benefits then married citizens would have no more rights then non-married citizens. So in fact not only should gay marriage be illegal but straight marriage should be illegal as well. [1]. http://topics.law.cornell.edu... [2]. http://www.hrc.org...
gay marriage should be allowed

Gays should be able to marry whoever they want, just as a straight person can. if you are in love you should not be told you can not get married based on your sexuality. by banning gay marriage it would be going against the the 14th clause of equal protection. America is suppose to be a free country that is what we fight for that is why people come here. how is banning gay mariage freedome? it is not freedom at all, because it is telling you that you may not marry the person who you are in love with just because they do not like the fact that you are gay. There is so much contorversy on weather or not we should allow the gays to marry well i say let them. let them be happy, after all you are not around them all the time they are just regular people like you the only difference is that they happen to like the same gender. BIG DEAL get over it it their life not yours who are we to say you cant do that your gay? that is just immoral and wrong. Many people say well the bible says marriage is between a man and a woman. yes the bible may state that but does it matter? i dont think so i think that we should base our decision on what is right..I mean honestly it is not like it is going to effect you at all if gays get married. i say let them get married and get over it they deserve happiness juat as anyone else does.