BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Legitimacy of the government

Radical shifts in the government must be evaluated through elections. Team Estonia believes that elections are a mechanism through which people legitimise the decisions made by this government and elect the best representative according to their views. Since a prime minister can make or break the party for voters, there is a likelihood for an altered result if there would have been a different candidate. As citizens have a fundamental right to elect the politicians that govern them (to determine the results of the elections), by-elections must take place. Secondly, even if it was probable that the the next prime minister represented similar views, the ideal of democracy does not allow this to be presumed-- there is a value in both the result of the elections and the mere fact that the result came through elections. This means that people need to feel that they are behind the state and legitimise all the actions the government takes. Legitimacy is important for both moral and practical reasons-- not only is it part of people’s right to agency, in practice the new prime minister who was not elected, might feel restrained (especially if the predecessor was highly unpopular) and not make the most effective decisions.
Definitions:

The first problem brought in by the opposing side about by-elections is simply a question of terminology. We concur that the debate is about extraordinary general elections, but they are sometimes also referred to as by-elections. Obviously the debate is limited only to parliamentary democracies as it is stated in the motion. However, we would like to limit the motion only to the parliamentary democracies that also are Western liberal democracies (and not for example developing countries with several problems regarding elections). Thirdly, it is definitely possible for prime minister to step down for external reasons. While in a majoritarian electoral system the next prime minister is likely to be from the same party, proportional electoral systems tend to favour a multi-party result. Therefore several parties make up a coalition-government and if that coalition falls and disassembles, it is likely that the prime minister’s party also changes (as in many Continental European governments, for example Germany, Spain and the Netherlands)
It would create instability and logistical problems

Foremost the arguments about developing nations and assassinations do not fall under this debate, since we are only discussing Western countries (and it is our right to reasonably set the debate as the Proposition). If we would talk about the developing world, both systems would be equally unsound since they are probably not implemented properly in any case. Regarding the death of the prime minister—this is not a part of our new policy, but is the status quo (at least in many Continental European systems, e.g. the Scandinavian countries) that demonstrates how changes in the person of prime minister triggers elections. We are truly happy that the Opposition would like to consider the death of the prime minister as a variation of our case, because that is working perfectly and without the harms presented by team Australia in numerous countries. Also the example of New Zealand falls for the aforementioned reasons. Even if it would not be defeated, it is still not an argument against our system. The Opposition has not proven how biased media is in any way more present in case of extraordinary elections then ordinary elections (and hence an argument against our proposal). If the media truly is extremely biased, it can manipulate democracy anyhow and is equally regretful in all systems and we should tackle the problem of media instead of our policy. Secondly, the Opposition has a peculiar understanding of extraordinary elections. It is not as if elections are organised at the same day and public outcry prevails. There still is a reasonable amount of time for parties to campaign. Also, it is good for political discourse, because if prime minister really failed at some issues, these issues are not likely to be forgotten and people would be more active in discussing them. This not only increases the quality of political engagement, but also deals with the issues that caused the resignation. Therefore these important issues could not be marginalised for the next electi
Framework of the debate

We the opposition strongly take issue with your definition. The topic cannot reasonably include 'by-elections' since it clearly states 'general elections', i.e. elections in which an entire government is put to a ballot for possible re-election. Secondly, it is not reasonable to scope the debate to all Western liberal democracies. A parliamentary democracy differs from other forms of Western democracy in several ways, most importantly from a representative democracy. They differ on the role of the Prime Minister and on the basis of elections; representative democracy emphasises votes for the leader, parliamentary for the party. It would therefore be unreasonable to make such a generalisation when the topic clearly states otherwise. We also disagree that a change of Prime Minister could happen externally. By nature, a mid-term change of Prime Minister could only happen in such a way that his or her successor is a member of the same party - either their deputy takes over or an internal vote is taken that decides who the next leader will be. Additionally, such changes are not brought about arbitrarily, rather, they occur for the benefit of the party or nation. Outside influences would never force the change. We also reject that the general result of the vote would have changed if electors knew about it beforehand because the key idea here is that they would not have known and that public perception changes significantly overtime. We can see this in many examples - take the approval ratings of Kevin Rudd, for example. In March 2007, his satisfaction rating was 67%, but by the time he had announced his mining tax, there was a sharp decrease in his ratings [[http://au.acnielsen.com/news/200512.shtml]],[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2010]] Similarly, after 9/11 Bush was at 90% but by late 2008 he was at 25%.[[http://www.gallup.com/poll/116500/Presidential-Approval-Ratings-George-Bush.aspx]] Politics is hardly a static business.
The concept overestimates the role of the Prime Minister

Importantly, Team Australia conceded that most people elect the leader of a party and not the party itself. That the party leader also is influenced by party line is irrelevant if we have shown that leaders still make a difference. There is a big difference e.g. when having the choice between Bush Republicans and John McCain Republicans. As they agreed, for a significant number of people, the leader and front-runner of a party is the primary voting issue. The opposition claimed that „in a parliamentary democracy one is essentially voting for the party, not the personality“. We believe that the fact that parties have been the leading actors in democracies is not an argument for having them as a structure in the first place (e.g. there are several political scientists predicting the death or decline of party structure). Also the idea of democracy is not that idealistic. In reality voters can elect on whichever issues they like—the virtue of democracy. If people are allowed to elect politicians based on their charisma, beauty or any characteristic of the politicians (and not of the party), people also should be allowed to only choose the leader and as Australia concurs, vast majority of people do that Lastly, the Opposition made a ridiculous claim that leader ought not to be popular. If this is true, there is no point in having a democracy in the first place, because the tendency to strive for popular policies is present in all democratic systems. To balance this, we have a professional civil service system in place and laws that are there regardless of party change, hence this argument falls. By this logic, it was claimed that this would lead to especially bad campaigning. We disagree—it is likely to hurt the government even more if they continue running policies under the perception that people are not supporting them. E.g. the new leader then is seen as a continuation of the same bad administration and faces turmoil in next elections as well (as Gordon Br
Implementation and focus of ideas depends on the personality of the Prime Minister rather than the party

The argument brought forth by the proposition is disturbing, where they suggest that an entire democracy rests upon the shoulders of a single individual. A Prime Minister's personality hardly determines the direction of parliament. Substantive policies determined by the parliament themselves are what determines their direction. Team Estonia attempts to create a false reality where a PM singlehandedly implements the entire agenda of an administration- which is simply hyperbolic and unfounded. It is fine to simply throw out the name Tony Blair, yet they have failed to actually show how he as an individual was able to steer the entire nation onto a political course based solely on his personality. They fail to prove their own false assertions. The personality of a PM is hardly genuine, thanks to the buffering and polishing of public relation groups, speech writers and personal advisors. The PM has been designed to represent the party, embodying their ideals and values. The entire reason that they have been elected as PM is because of the malleability of their own thoughts and ideas. To claim that they have an agenda they bring with them to government is simply wrong, as they have to please the people in parliament who elevated them to power. Their personality was tailor made to sell the party's agenda to the electorate. Even if we were to take into account the impact of personality on the direction of government, we can see how it has been fabricated so it reflects the party and its beliefs. Whilst we agree that the framework will change, we believe that the change is only trivial, because of the reasons we have already stated. This framework pales when we look at the other issues that a government must deal with, such as finance, the welfare system, and foreign relations. It is for this reason that while electors may be dissatisfied, the electors know it is not beneficial for the nation to have an impromptu election every time a change is made.
Logistics

A party is voted into power in a parliamentary democratic nation by the nations’ people for the policies and the party as a whole, therefore not merely its’ leader who is responsible for the making and execution of decisions. If a general election is held whenever there is a change in leader we must then consider the financial detriments that would result both to the nation and its people. An election is already extremely costly, we can see that in 2005, a general election held in the UK cost more than £80m GBP(140m AUD) to organize. It has also been recorded that before 2005, political parties in the UK had never spent below £250,000 on a political campaign. It is inevitable to consider that the public funding for candidates to achieve at least 4% of the first preference vote costs a party $2.10 per vote (2007 Australian election). Finally we saw in 2004 that the Australian election cost was estimated at approximately $75 million dollars. This spending is at the detriment of the nation’s financial situation and as such an increase in general elections would mean that this spending has the potential to almost double when the money should be spent in areas that the party was voted in for in the first place. In the 2007 Australian election, 70,000 temporary staff was employed on short-term contracts. This shows the sheer manpower it takes to run an election. It is simply illogical and inefficient to use this manpower as well as money to run an election every time a party wants to shift leaders whom have the same policies (as a single party fundamentally would). Again, it is the policy of a parliamentary democratic nation(s) to vote in parties for their policies which is imperative for all party members to have the same goals and notions within. Despite who the leader is, the effect overall on the party and the nation wouldn’t be drastic enough for the need of so much expenditure and manpower which should be used on the policies that were first preached.
Legitimacy

Team Estonia continues to make generalisations that do not represent reaity. When they say PM's "don't resign that easily", they are not talking about rare situations. This is most evident in two nations which are parliamentary democracies- Japan and Australia. It would be chaotic to have a general election EVERY time that there is a change of Prime Minister, which is a commonplace event in nations that only threatens to increase if the proposition had its way. In Japan since 2001 Ryutaro Hashimoto, Keizo Obuchi, Yoshiro Mori, Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda, Tara Aso, Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan have been Prime Minister. That is a change of seven times over a period of nine years. How can the proposition honestly believe that it would be practical to have a nation wide general election every time there is a new PM, where a nation like Japan would have its government reshuffling every 14 months? And even if we were only to take into account the "western nations" Estonia focuses on, we can see how easy it is to depose a PM. In Australia, Kevin Rudd was overthrown as PM over the course of 12 hours, with no previous warning. There was not even a caucus meeting of the Labor Party to vote on whether or not he should resign, due to internal political pressures at forced his resignation. Team Estonia must cease to argue that reshufflng is uncommon and hard to do, due to the instability and political infighting which all nations suffer from. It must take into account the devious political environment governments exist in.
The Estonian Summary

One of the most important features of democracy is representation. Citizens inherently should have power over their country and through that their own lives. It is practically impossible to vote for each and every issue (direct democracy). Therefore in parliamentary democracies voters elect the legislative power who then forms the executive power. The biggest party in the country gets the right to form the government. Therefore through legislative power citizens elect the executive power (government and the prime minister) No one would dare to claim that a party should have the right to appoint a new member to represent a certain constituency without elections in that constituency. There are numerous reasons for that. First of all people have not elected the new candidate. The new MP has a different personality. Some people vote for personality and there is a big chance that they might not like the traits of the new MP. The group of people that vote for ideas would also be disappointed, because even candidates from the same party do not have identical minds, hence their understanding and focus of ideas might be different. This is especially true if the new candidate would be from a different wing of the party. Therefore a new appointed candidate would simply alienate voters. Also it would not be a legitimate act, because citizens have not legitimized the appointment by voting. There is a big question in this debate to which Team Australia has never properly answered. Why is executive power that much different from the legislative power? Team Estonia has claimed throughout the debate that there is no such big difference. De facto people always elect the leader of a party, because the executive power always influences the legislative power. Obviously a share of the vote is for the MP they elect, but another share belongs to the leader of the party and Australia actually concurs to that. On these grounds Team Estonia is tremendously proud to stand in the proposition!
It would create instability and logistical problems

To simply allow a general election to occur with a change of leader would lead to a political system that undermines the very democratic nature of what is a parliamentary democracy. The proposition seems to want to scope this debate to “western liberal democracies”, and forget that of the roughly 30 parliamentary democracies in the world, over half are developing nations with extreme poverty and inner political turmoil, such as Haiti, who had its Prime Minister Réné Préval in 1991 exiled after a military coup d’état. When nations in these types of situations suddenly have an instant general election after the death of absence of the Prime Minister, is it not obvious how easy the political system could be manipulated through assassinations and force? The thought is frightening when the death of a political leader becomes an incentive for certain groups to attain power. A valid, legitimate government could be completely wiped out by the death of a single individual. This is not democracy. This is anarchy. Although on a lesser scale, this effect could continue to be seen in the minority of affluent parliamentary democracies. The removal of a PM from office triggering a general election could still be manipulated by a biased media. What if the New Zealand parliament that passed the Carbon Tax, which is being installed in increments in their nation were to suddenly be brought to election if John Key, their PM were to die or leave office? A general election would suddenly take place where the electorate places their faith in the success of the Tax by the speculations of the media, which would not necessarily represent reality. This gives the media incredible power, which has the ability to use their own personal, subjective opinions to shape the electorate- thus shaping the parliament and its future policy course. Regardless of the stability or affluence of the nation, a general election in the event of a PM leaving would subvert the entire democratic process
Free trade might lead to domestic redundancies, but the universal good of efficiency out-weights thi...

Free trade might lead to domestic redundancies, but the universal good of efficiency out-weights this. We shouldn’t subsidise wastefully uncompetitive industries, we should redeploy those workers in another field. Subsidising inefficiency is not sound economic practice. Moreover, the jobs we subsidise in the West are more needed in the developing world, whence they would inevitably flow if free trade was observed.
Maximum global efficiency, and the cheapest prices, can only be maintained by a tariff free internat...

International economics isn’t as simple as increasing the efficiency of global resource allocation above all else. Tariff revenue is a perfectly legitimate and useful source of government income. Second, without tariffs governments cannot protect the job security of their citizens. US steel companies might not be able to provide steel as cheaply as other companies, but the US has a clear interest in protecting its own jobs.
Free trade might lead to domestic redundancies, but the universal good of efficiency out-weights thi...

Job security is a legitimate value to want to protect – the destruction of job security in such a competitive arena would be a clear case against free trade serving a “universal good.” Pro-free trade arguments which condone domestic job losses fail to factor into the equation the very real consideration of political power; a starkly utilitarian conception of the “universal good” may dictate that theoretically the best thing to do is let jobs flock to the developing world, but political action is constrained by domestic opinion and its conception of the “good” will invariably be much more localised.
The growth of the developing world is a universal good, because the improvement in the quality of li...

Defending pure, unadulterated free trade is a pointless exercise. The ideas of the text-books are always mediated by practical constraints. The reality of free trade is that the conditions and criteria developing countries must meet just to join the “not quite free trade” WTO are severe and cost the equivalent of an entire humanitarian budget for a year. There are pressing priorities that must be addressed first.
Spare Parts

It is easier to get a greater range of spare parts for a PC than a Mac. For Macs, you often only have one choice at one price (like a command economy), for PCs, there is a greater range of choices and a range of prices and qualities. "...A video card not recognized in OS X will however be recognized when using Windows in Boot Camp..." Why not then just buy a pc for 1/3 the price and never have to deal with losing your main OS because of a dead piece of video equipment that is no longer available? Mac OS X is not optimized, this is a misconception spread by Apple, they use the same Kext based drivers as linux, which are less reliable than the Shell based drivers of Windows.
Macs are more performance than pc's

Better performance is created by the mainly by the hardware, not the software. PCs and Macs both use the same parts, but when Apple sells the same parts in their computers, they charge a lot more for them. In terms of Desktop performance, Apple does not have "startup" programs, thus it outspeeds windows 7 by 13% startup, 2% runtime, and 20% shutdown. Strap a windows with a solid state drive (PC + Solid State $1500) and it outspeeds a 2011 Macbook Pro startup by 120%, 100% runtime and 190% shutdown. Mac users do not understand the concept of Price:Performance ratio. This ratio is used by all computer hardware enthusiasts to gauge the value of thier computer. Currently Hewlett Packard has the worst, Gateway the best. Apple is 3rd last in Price:Performance. Reliability % apple is midway, Hp last, Gateway second last, Sony third and Asus first. My last PC died (i blame it on PC because i believe that HP has lost its quality department) and i spent $600 on a new desktop and my computer has the looks and the performance to put any mac to shame. (And my computer doesnt have malware! :P)
Macs are hassle-free

Everything on a Mac works out of the box. Since Apple produces their software to work with specific hardware of their designation, consumers don't have to worry about drivers, upgrades and compatibility issues. Everything just works out of the box. Most Macs now ship with built-in, high-quality microphones and webcam. This reflects on the ease of use and hassle-free experience that Apple strives to provide its customers. No device, be it a computer or a washing machine, is ever 100% reliable, but Apples are much more reliable than most, and having the whole computer hardware and software package come from one supplier reduces problems when trying to work out which company is at fault. Applecare is fast and covers most hardware and software issues, and Mac 'Geniuses' provide a great service to customers on a personal level, that cannot be found in retailers such as PC World.