Santa Claus probably could not deliver presents to the U.S on Christmas

Merry Christmas to you as well.Opening StatementI would like to point out immediately that my opponent has shifted goalposts in this debate. I will be arguing for my position as detailed by the title and original post of the debate and will ignore Pro's attempt to restate the issue in terms more favourable to him. My position is that this Santa Claus could deliver presents to the U.S. on Christmas starting from the North Pole without being seen and having only the superhuman ability of flight at speeds of 22 mph. However, nowhere in R1 or in the title did my opponent specify that Santa must deliver presents to more than one state or to 50 million homes. This is clearly a goalpost shift, a tangent and red herring, and is not relevant to the debate. Reading the title, it is clear that the condition is simply that "Santa deliver presents to the U.S. on Christmas." I do not think it proper conduct to intentionally or unintentionally attempt to change the guidelines of a debate after someone has accepted the terms of debate. My opponent's position as detailed by his R1 statement is simply that Santa could not deliver presents to the U.S. "Presents" can clearly be taken to mean the plural of "present" or "more than one present," so to claim that I will have to argue that Santa could deliver enough presents for 50 million homes is fallacious. I will simply be arguing that Santa Claus could deliver at least two gifts to somewhere in the U.S.Wikipedia describes that a goalpost shift occurs when "evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded"[0]. My opponent's argument can be seen to be fallacious in this regard because my part in this debate is to meet the burden of proof that Santa probably could deliver presents to the U.S. for Christmas, but my opponent is now attempting to get me to provide evidence for the much more extraordinary claim that Santa could deliver presents to a large number of the homes in the U.S. If Pro dismisses the argument I present and claims that I need to provide evidence for the new goalpost he has set for me, the reader should not accept his claim as valid. "The problem with changing the rules of the game is that the meaning of the end result is changed too."[0] Again, there is absolutely no sentence or phrase in my opponent's R1 statement that says that Santa must deliver presents to 50 million homes or to any large percentage of U.S. inhabitants. I will not be forced to argue for this new position my opponent has created in an attempt to make my side harder to argue for.I will also point out that my opponent said nothing about airplanes or Amazon in his opening statement. I will not, however, use Amazon for my argument as it violates the condition that Santa cannot use helpers to deliver his presents. In the context of this debate, "helper" can be taken to mean any individual who delivers presents for Santa (like members of a shipping company); Santa must deliver each present personally. This is what was implied in the opening statement. Also, to say that Santa could use a sleigh as a method of travel and it not be considered a "helper" but could not use an airplane as a method of travel is a fallacy of special pleading [1].Distance IssuesFirst of all, my opponent specified no time frame for departure and admits that Santa could leave early. I would also point out that my opponent has made the statement that Santa cannot, in fact, encounter distance problems: "Aside from the distance problems that Santa can not possibly encounter..." I assume this to be a typo, but it should be noted. Similarly, I assume that he meant Santa must be flying as he travels even though this was not made perfectly clear: "He must flying from the North Pole."I will point out that there is no reason that Santa would have to use a sleigh. The use of a sleigh was not brought up in the opening statement and should therefore not be considered a valid constraint. Furthermore, there was no condition in the opening statement that Santa could not fly using an airplane or something else like a helicopter. It was stated that by himself he only has the ability to travel at 22 mph. There was no rule that he could not travel faster through technological means. Since he can do anything a human can do, he must be able to travel by helicopter since this is possible for a human to do. Claiming that this is not the case results in a paradox: "Santa can do everything a human can do. Santa cannot travel by helicopter even though a human could do this."As for the being seen issue, "seen" can be defined as seeing someone's actual appearance clearly. This would mean that if someone saw something in the sky that was Santa but could not make it out clearly, Santa would not have been seen. The North Pole is not permanently inhabited [2] greatly decreasing his chances of being spotted, and Santa could simply travel by helicopter by himself or use a system where he has a special compartment to himself in the airplane so he is not seen by the pilots. Either way, nothing of him would be seen. Furthermore, he could simply wear a full body suit so that nobody would actually see him. Any of these means of flight would significantly cut down on the time it would take for him to reach Alaska. There are other possible travel methods including ships as well. Because a ship would not involve flying like an airplane would, Santa could simply hover/fly everywhere he went on the ship in his bodysuit to meet the condition that he must fly. The crew members might even worship him as a god and do his bidding because of it. It is well within human ability to disguise one's identity and appearance.Since all he has to do is deliver at least two presents to people living in the U.S., the distance to Alaska is the only one that matters. He has no need to visit anywhere else, and as I pointed out, he could simply travel by human means (helicopter) instead of by sleigh. Even if he had to travel by sleigh, he could simply leave early, as my opponent pointed out.Number of HousesSince Santa only needs to deliver at least more than one present, he could visit a single household and give multiple presents. My opponent's point is irrelevant to the debate.Weight of PresentsAgain, since Santa only needs to deliver 2 presents to meet the requirements, the weight would not be an issue. These two presents could even fit in Santa's wallet in the form of two gift cards, for example.On Any Further TwistsNo logical debate can be had when a participant can simply change conditions halfway through a debate. If my opponent tries to impose any further constraints on my argument not listed in his opening conditions, they should not be accepted. In his last argument, he tried claim that Santa must travel by sleigh. I could just as easily claim that the sleigh must be invisible and travel at the speed of sound. I could also say that Santa has the ability to make other things fly as well and could therefore make presents fly to a great many more houses in the U.S. if he wanted to with no risk of being seen. It is just as ridiculous for my opponent to introduce a new constraint that is contrary to his opening statement as it is for me to try to introduce these new abilities.ConclusionI conclude that Santa could probably deliver at least two presents to someone in Alaska from the hours of 12 to 6 without being seen. Also, he would have a chance every year on Christmas Day, greatly increasing the likelihood of success if he made a mistake the first time. Based on my previous arguments, Santa could easily reach the U.S. in time and deliver the two presents without being seen and then be done with it. This is well within the realm of human possibility.[0] http://en.wikipedia.org...[1] http://rationalwiki.org...[2] http://en.wikipedia.org...