Wylted 100th Debate: The United States should implement caning as a punishment for criminals.

I think my opponent misunderstood my case. "wylted now chooses to argue that judges make the decision to allow caning or not while considering the "human element" and statistics." I refer my opponent to my round 1 statement; "I propose judicial caning as an alternative to sentencing as a punishment for criminal convictions. It will be optional for criminals who are not a grave an imminent threat to society" Clearly I was outlining a system that keeps the human element in the decision making, which is something we do now. Caning is the default option allowed to criminals as an alternative to sentencing judges would be required to evaluate whether a criminal is a grave and imminent threat to society. The judge would have to use a mix of raw data and common sense to determine if somebody is a threat and should have the default option removed. My opponent then goes on to quote Scott Alexander. ".ever-increasing prison terms are unfair to inmates and unfair to the society that has to pay for them." My case is the one that offers a solution to long prison sentences.Giving judges a guidelines as to how to avoid letting the most dangerous criminals go. "judges would not give criminals a pass using caning for the same reasons that judges continue to hand down long prison sentences" This is simply not true. Judges would have to violate the law by refusing to use the guidelines mandated by the new caning policy. I think after watching the caning video that judges on all sides of the political spectrum would be on board for the new policy. Not that their personal opinion matters in this regard. They're still obligated to follow the guidelines. The hard on crime conservative judges won't see caning as a slap on the wrist(Again watch the video). While their liberal counterparts will see caning as the lesser of 2 evils which again is optional for the criminal while also being better for society as a whole in terms of recidivism rate, social considerations and cost to the public. My opponent argues that society should have reduced incarceration rates and times. Even going as far as providing expert and peer reviewed studies to back up his opinion. However when I give a suitable bipartisan alternative to this he argues that judges would simply refuse to follow the law in implementing this, which would require a judge to consider every criminal a grave an imminent threat to society. This is absurd and it's very unlikely that those judges would be the norm should they even exist, which means my alternative is still better than anything he suggested. "Who decides, the judge or the jury?" This is rather obvious and I was tempted just to skip over it to save space. In jury trials the jury decides based on the standards I presented in round 1. In non jury trials the judge will decide. RHETORIC Rhetoric- language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content. (Google definition) All good debator's use rhetoric to win debates, but Thett is going overboard and is depending almost entirely on it and other persuasion techniques that actually have nothing to do with who made a more logical argument. My opponents repeated statements along the lines of; "You're voting con" And several variations of this. It's a variation of argument ad populum or a propaganda technique known as bandwagoning. Bandwagoning basically assumes victory as it uses subtle social pressure to convince you to vote in his favor. He also uses an informal type of rhetoric that politicians like to use that I call taking a stance without taking a stance. Thett opposes my argument in every possible way. That states argues that my position is bad because it ends up causing increased prison sentences. This is a statement that is completely without foundation but it's also one in conflict with his other argument. His other argument against my position is that it let's criminals off easy (again refer to video). What's your argument Thett? Is increased punishment for criminals caused by this a good reason to oppose this? Or, is decreased punishment for criminals a good reason to oppose this? My opponent uses other rhetorical techniques such as referring to caning as a spanking, but those are relatively harmless. I really just take issue with the 2 I mentioned. COSTS My plan is clearly superior to my opponent's here and is more cost effective as well as humane an also more effective at reducing crime rates as both me and my opponent's sources reveal. When judging this category the voters have to weight this in my advantage. As all my opponent's case does is mitigate my advantages, while the advantages still stay in place. FELON UNIVERSITY "Wylted then shoots himself in the foot. In his attempt to show how bad the prison system is, he mentions that there's significant evidence to suggest that keeping people under house arrest using electronic monitoring reduces recidivism. Let's do that instead of doing caning and hoping it works." We can't and for the same reasons you mentioned in round 2 under the section titled MORAL ABOMINATION. Unlike caning, this is a slap on the wrist. In this section as in most me and my opponent are using the same rhetorical device of agreeing with a lot of each other's premises. Unfortunately for him the premises do more to support my case than his. We saw under cost that his case doesn't save as much money as mine. In this section he argues that his case seperates small time criminals from big time criminals and stops them from getting worse. Sense I agree with him about legalizing drugs my case actually keeps more small time criminals from mingling with the worst of the lot and is more effective. His whole case is built around mitigating the premises of my case, but that's all they do mitigate. My case still provides bigger benefits than his. I think my opponent made a huge error in accepting my premises and trying to find a more reasonable approach, and that's because my approach is tailor made to address those problems, while his is just made from some preset political ideology (libertarianism not that ther is anything wrong with that). SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS "It is indeed unfortunate that some children have to suffer because of their parents actions, but this is no reason to let their parents off without punishment." This statement is absurd. Caning is punishment. As far as everything else is concerned my opponents proposed change to the status quo only mitigates the benefits my case has in ending the punishment of these children, families and communities that took no part in this crime. CON'S CASE MORALITY OF PUNISHMENT "Wylted shows a video of a person being caned and says it's really painful. First of all, there's no way that caning petty criminals in such a way that all of the skin on their buttocks is removed would be allowed under the 8th amendment" Honestly the entire reason why I proposed to make this voluntary was to get around the 8th amendment issues. Also saying this is cruel and unusual while saying you'd prefer it to life in prison is an oxymoron. If the status quo is allowed under the 8th amendment and you'd prefer caning to it, than I'd say that caning is less "cruel and unusual" than the status quo. Also this concept of justice is being served with the action of the caning. Also I can't find anything wrong with caning a murderer and letting him go if he is unlikely to reoffend. Maybe I'm dense but if the punishment is there and the offender isn't likely to murder again I can't see the benefit of killing him. Is it just to satisfy this outdated eye for an eye philosophy? Or, is it something worse? Justice is being served by caning, so is this just some primal vengeful lust for blood, that needs satisfying? Feel free to answer that with some sort of appeal to emotion. He was punished for his crime and learned his lesson. What else does society want? THE DEATH PENALTY "For one, he suggests with eagerness that since we now have caning as a punishment juries would be okay with discarding the ancient, sacred, and immutable legal principle that the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in order for juries to convict." I kinda knew this could easily been misconstrued as something other than what I intended. The term reasonable doubt is kinda fuzzy it's self. We all instinctively know it's easier for a jury to find reasonable doubt in a murder case than any other type of case. This means that jurors are essentially expanding their definition of the word reasonable to avoid the massive guilt that would come with wrongfully sending somebody away for life. I was essentially saying that it would be reasonable to believe that jurors would have a more consistent view (and therefore more fair view) of reasonable doubt. In certain cases where the jury has expanded their definition of reasonable doubt, it might be reasonable to expect that with caning on the table they'll be more inclined to give a consistent and fair verdict, and criminals who otherwise would have gotten away with murder are now punished. CONCLUSION Thett has merely mitigated the positive effects of caning with his counter plan. Caning would be a huge improvement under the status quo and works better than his plan alone if implemented along side it. Con has also given an inconsistent and incoherent attack on caning calling it too brutal when it benefits his case to do so and mocking it as a spanking or slap on the wrist when that's convenient to his case. Thank you Thett for participating in this debate and thanks to the readers and voters for taking the time to read it.