BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Resolved: The US federal goverment should pass a term limit ammendment

Term limit: a statutory limit on the number of terms an official may serve: the Twenty-second Amendment, which imposed term limits on U.S. presidents. http://dictionary.reference.com... limit The definition we will use for ammentments is: an alteration of or addition to a motion, bill, constitution, etc. http://dictionary.reference.com... Also it takes a 2/3 majority. The debate is is they SHOULD, not if they can. So do not use the "it wont pass" argument. C1: makes it harder to become a career politician. This is irrefutable, the refutable part is why these career politicians are "bad" or less favorable then not. Getting rid of these career politicians will let new people take their place, and add in new ideas to the wash. Our system now has many career politicians, Barney frank (he's retiring), ron paul. etc. Although some career politicians are adequate, having the new people helps fix problems in new ways, not just the old. Consider Mitt Romney's latest line, a none-too-subtle jab at Texas Gov. Rick Perry: "Career politicians got us into this mess, and career politicians can't get us out!" Sarah Palin took a similar swipe in Perry's direction, inveighing against a "permanent political class." He makes a good point, if these knuckle head's got us into it, how can they get us out in the same way they got us in? So to conclude this point, career politicians aren't always bad, but new ones circulating in once in a while is beneficial. C2: Limits the amount of special interests and connections The breaking of the cozy connections between long tenured pols and their various special interests and lobbying organizations will force those interests to try to reconnect with a new breed of legislator who is not a career politician, but one who thinks differently, and more often with common sense and integrity, and is less often concerned with reelection. [1] So they happen, but it makes them less permanent, so a company or a person will not have control for 30 years like they can now. C3: encourages competition: challenger v. challenger, less incumbent advantage. Seniority systems now in place in Congress discourage truly talented individuals from running for office, because even though they can win, they know they will have to wait years before they will get any recognition for their bills, or a seat on a good committee (much less a chairmanship!). With term limits in force, all legislators will be relatively new arrivals, and therefore seniority will be meaningless. Merit will become the selection method of choice. [1] This explains itself. It enhances democracy because it is less incumbent experience, but merit of arguments and beliefs. C4: if the president has a term limit, why can't congressmen? f the president gets only eight years to serve, why should senators and representatives be allowed other term lengths? In my opinion, this is the single biggest cause of the problems in Washington. I will expand later and add more contentions as well, but for now this is it. http://tenurecorrupts.com... [1] http://www.usatoday.com... [2]
On balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the United states

I'm quite glad we've had the opportunity to discuss this issue and find it beneficial for numerous reason. Firstly, the current economic climate has led people to believe that unions are innately bad and demonize the practise without considering the true form of unionized labour. Secondly, Unionized labour has many aspects which people legitimately find unfair and against their personal values, for this reason it's always enjoyable to see where personal values lie and hear logical defences of them. Finally, the free exchange of ideas is integral in making any forward progress within a society. Only by discussing these issues can we hope to find amicable solutions to them. I'd urge you to vote for PRO in this argument because it has been demonstrated that despite the effects that unions may or may not have on the tax system, the contracts they negotiate are legal and fair. They have been negotiated through proper channels with the approval of elected officials. If the argument is to be made that union employees make too much, that is merely a single point in an argument against governmental philosophy and it's affect on society. What can clearly be seen is that a union protects workers from being oppressed by their employers and ensures they have basic rights such as danger pay and an objective wage structure. Police officers, fire fighters, coal miners, and many other fields owe their development and their safety record to the efforts of unions while the Industrial revolution occurred during the inception of unions which was responsible for a massive growth in economy. It has been demonstrated that government employee labour unions have a positive impact on the United States and thus, I urge you to vote PRO. Thank you for reading.
On balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the United states

Resolved: On balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the United States. I thank my opponent for taking this debate. High wages/benefits. There is good evidence that public employee unions have successfully pushed for wage and benefit increases that far exceed those that are available in the private sector. The most significant area for attack is pensions, the salaries that employees essentially get for life once they have reached retirement age. More and more evidence says that public employees are retiring in their 50s with pensions that they can keep for the rest of their lives and that the pensions often pay upwards of $100,000. Since the investments that retirement money is often put into are not very good, the taxpayer often ends up footing the bill since the pensions are guaranteed. Deficit spending. The imbalance between pensions and wages is resulting in higher deficits and, when necessary, cuts in government services. Since most states cannot run deficits, cuts in services or tax increases become inevitable. Higher taxes. Government salaries and benefits are largely paid for out of taxes (with some of the costs paid for by investments). As government costs for wages and benefits increase, so will taxes. Teams should argue that tax increases are bad, they undermine they ability for businesses to invest in new products, they discourage people from moving into particular areas, and they undermine the amount of money that is available to invest in the private economy. Future generations. If governments do run deficits, taxes need to finance and pay down the deficit are passed on to future generations. Most consider it inequitable/unfair to force today's expenditures on to future generations. Corruption/Snowball. The basic argument here is that union power continues to grow because the unions give money to politicians who support unions, creating a snowball effect. For example, many people argue that the unions gave heavily to Obama and that Obama is in turn spending stimulus money in ways that help unions. This creates a snowball effect because unions that have more money can subsequently give more to campaigns that support them. Thank you, and please post your arguments so I can make a rebuttal in the final round and also back up my points in the final round of this debate. I would like to say that you are doing a very good job of debating for the first time on debate.org, and I would like to welcome you to the site as a friend. You don't have to rebut my points posted above, just post your own arguments. Please vote for CON!!!
On balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the United states

Resolved: On balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the United States. My partner and I stand in firm negation to the resolution. My first point is while the private sector might offer better upward mobility and perhaps better benefits while employed, the private sector doesn't get pensions, and the public sector does. The increase in public sector pensions over the last several years has made it very difficult to justify spending as much as we do on government employees. Further, the federal government is underfunding the pension plans because there is very little money reserved for them. The Pew Center on the States recently released a survey detailing the pension plans of the public sector in all fifty states. Some states will be subject to "high annual costs that come with significant unfunded liabilities, lower bond ratings, less money available for services, higher taxes and the specter of worsening problems in the future," said the study. As of 2008, states had $2.4 trillion to meet $3.4 trillion in promised pension, health care and other post-retirement benefits, according to the report. http://www.foxnews.com... … nsion-gap/ Second, we should not support anything that advocates the taxpayers spending more money in a time like this. Right now, there is no way that these unions could have net positive impact on the entire United States, because the majority of Americans don't have the money to be pouring into someone else's job. As the benefits and salaries for public sector employees increase, so do taxes. And right now, no one can afford that. Third, public sector labor unions are adding to the corruption of government. Public sector labor unions gave to the Obama campaign in overwhelming amounts, as they have with all democratic candidates for president for decades. Many argue that this only buys loyalty to the labor unions and that these politicians are simply becoming hands of the public sector labor unions. You can argue that having such huge influence in elections is a threat to democracy and decreases the voting power of the average citizen. Fourth, any increase in benefits that is granted to the public sector because of the fight given by their unions will only increase the deficit. If we choose not to increase the deficit, the only thing that will happen is a cut to services. In order to satisfy the desires of unions for higher pay, states might have to cut down on welfare benefits or state provided health care. None of which is fair to private citizens. Thank you, and I look foward to your arguments. :)
Model Debate : Hot Girls

Win or lose, this is going to be awesome! ==C1: Candice Swanepoel== Height: 5' 10"Weight: 128 poundsHotness factors: Blonde hair, blue eyes, South African. As we can see here, Candice knows how to wear a bikini on a beach! Exhibit B. Epic bathingsuit! She can also pose as a complete hottie! Oy! On to you, Mikal!
Model Debate : Hot Girls

Note : This was an idea that either bsh or annie came up with, but I liked the concept. Each round each user will post 5 pictures of a model. All the pictures that are posted in one round must be of the same model. Meaning there will be 4 different models used throughout the course of this debate, with 20 pictures total. The name of the model should be included with their age, height, and weight. Con Will start the debate in round 1, and pass in round 5 to even out the rounds. Judges will vote based off of looks, pose, etc.
Model Debate : Hot Girls

OK, there is literally no room left in my pants after that model.==C4: Nina Agdal==Height: 5 ft 9 inWeight: 121 poundsHotness factors: Epic tan, perfect chest, blonde hair, green eyes! That is natural beauty. This is absolute perfection- look at that smile! She's so hot, she burns the sun. Why should you build a sand castle? Exhibit A! We're going to need bigger pants... and a towel.Back to you, Mikal! xD
Model Debate : Hot Girls

Never heard of her before... but me GUSTA!==C3: Scarlett Johansson=Height: 5 ft 3 inWeight: 125 pundsHotness factors: Blonde hair, hazel eyes, 36D...D! She's not a water person, but... Going retro, and she still looks hot! Looks like she is good in bed... Look at her hair... it's the best thing in the photo!Oh wait... 0____0 OK... you walk in, long day from work, and you see this. Ba-boom!Back to you, Mikal!
Model Debate : Hot Girls

Oh damn that's nice!==C2: Kate Upton==Goin' with the best trouser arouser!Height: 5 ft 10 inWeight: 141 poundsHotness Factors: Blonde hair, blue eyes, little brown freckle above lip! And 36D... Au Natural pose. For a hot girl, she sure has balls... laying in the snow in Antarctica! This girl loves beaches. THAT IS JUST UNFAIR! Look me straight in the eye and tell me that isn't awesome.===FOR YYW AND BSH1=== Back to you, Mikal!
Iggy Azalea is a superior rapper to Nicki Minaj.

Nicki isn't that good 1. Nicki has a fake butt 2. Nicki raps about dick to much 3. NIcki was a crappy judge on American idol Iggy 1. She displays uniqe ideas like in black widow going off the perspective of what a black widow does. The female devours the male after they yeah. So she connects this concept to eh song and compares it to real life situation. 2. Iggy can rap a certain way if she wanted to she was trained a bit by king los.
Iggy Azalea is a superior rapper to Nicki Minaj.

Observation: personally I have only listened to 6 or so of Iggy's songs so I don't have much knowledge on these 2 rappers but based off what I hear from both I believe Iggy is better so will be a kind of troll debate I guess. Cont 1: Iggy has better lyricism then Nicki Both have made pop songs and we have heard their verses but Iggy's are more uniqe and have more of an impact. Nicki wasn't bad when she was making mix tapes but her music is becoming very strange and out there one major example is Anaconda. Cont 2: Iggy's music has more meaning then Nicki's Nicki is making terrible songs with little meaning like "bees in a trap" Anaconda" etc. Iggy at least has some songs that mean things and represent who she is even fancy which was just a sort of club/party song had more meaning then NIcki's songs. COnt 3: Nicki got dissed by lil kim Lil kim dissed Nicki bad and put her in her place. Conclusion: Personaly like I said I don't know much about these 2 artist I have listened to Nicki longer then Iggy but agan I usually listen to male artist like Logic, drake, or childish Gambino. So this is just a troll debate for fun.
Religions are just arbitrary theories to understanding God

As I said, precognition is impossible because, again, it violates the laws of the universe [i. e. physics, math, etc]. In other words, "the existence of precognition, as with other forms of extrasensory perception, is not accepted by the mainstream scientific community" (. http://en.wikipedia.org...). Con said he doesn't see how precognition has anything to do with my argument. So i'll reiterate: precognition is the fundamental basis in virtually all religions because each religion offers a specific account of the afterlife. To Con's statement "since religion is immaterial and cannot be tested from a material (Scientific) method", I'd like to offer the following reply. That which is immaterial is an abstraction--the cognitive process in which we make INFERENCES from OBSERVATIONS [2 steps in the SCIENTIFIC method]. And observations are evidence and vice-versa. Con backhandedly pointed out that religion can be verified scientifically since the scientific method involves observations and observations are considered evidence. However, Con was correct when he said "to make the claim there is no correct religion lends to the view that all religions are essentially the same". This is another one of my points. At the most basic level--the most fundamental level--all religions share the same RELIGIOUS identity just as we humans share the same fundamental HUMAN identity. It's much easier to prove that humans created religion [i. e. via historical records] than it is to prove that non-human(s) created religion. I never said that all religions are WRONG, as Con presumes. I said it's impossible to determine if a religion is wrong [or right] in its account of an afterlife. Therefore, no single religion can be considered the correct religion. And the evidence for my claim is physics and math--the laws of the universe. Because, again, these laws render precognition--predicting the future--impossible.
Religions are just arbitrary theories to understanding God

This is clearly a side-step. There is absolutely no confusion in the matter that your original quote was a bold, assertive statement of fact. In fact, besides yourself, I don"t know of anyone else who would see it any other way, unless they were floating around in your precognition hypothesis. By the way, I don"t even see how precognition has anything to do with this argument whatsoever. "The existence of precognition, as with other forms of extrasensory perception, is not accepted by the mainstream scientific community," http://en.wikipedia.org.... Ergo, I think it"s a no-brainer to say that we test the accuracy of theories with either one or two methods: Scientifically or logically. Since religion is immaterial and cannot be tested from a material (Scientific) method, the only way a religion can be verified is with evidence in the world prescribed by the tenants in said religion (i.e., creation lends evidence to a Creator), historical evidence, and lastly subjective evidence (known by the believer based upon the relationship they have with their God.) To make the claim there is no Correct religion lends to the view that all religions are essentially the same. But this is a contradiction. For example: If Jesus was not the Messiah, then Christians are wrong and the Jews were right. If he is the Messiah, then the Jews are wrong and the Christians are right. If neither are right, then that makes the Muslims right. If the Muslims are wrong, then either the Christians or the Jews are right, and we already covered the difference between them. This could go in circles to every religion on the face of the earth. At the end, you would have one that is right and all the rest being wrong. For this reason, not all religions can be argued as being the same or all wrong. Furthermore, the very principles of material evidence pointing toward a religion, historical evidence, and subjective evidence need to be taken into consideration in that research. So I go back to my original though / query concerning your statement: What evidence do you have which can prove that all religions are essentially the same in being wrong, and that they are all simply human creations?
Religions are just arbitrary theories to understanding God

"This is a very bold, assertive statement" ACCORDING TO CON. According to others, that may have been an apprehensive and non-assertive statement. Because, you see, perception is reality. This actually illustrates my point. The truth of the claim, "this is a very bold, assertive statement" cannot be proven with evidence but, importantly, it cannot be proven to NOT be evidence. The same principle applies to the existence of God. Con says for me to "TEST the validity of [my] claim"--he wants the EVIDENCE for such a claim--akin to many people who want the EVIDENCE for the claim that God exists. These people say that there's no evidence that God exists. But what if YOU and ME are the evidence--what if the UNIVERSE is the evidence and we're simply unaware that it's evidence. We cannot prove that the universe is evidence, but by the same principle, we cannot prove that it's NOT evidence. This illustrates the validity of my claim: there's no CORRECT religion--no TRUE religion. may be Now let's address the validity--the relevance--of my claim: there's no CORRECT religion, no TRUE religion. I can prove that there's no correct religion by disproving all religions because precognition violates the known laws of our universe (for more on precognition, refer to Michio Kaku's book "Physics of the Impossible"). Precognition is one of only two things that violates such laws--rendering it impossible--it's impossible to know that heaven is held in the future. How selfish is it to think that THIS isn't heaven? With that said, I'm excited to see where Con takes the argument.
Abolishment of Veto Power

Yes I was just making my arguments and stating my stance. I will first rebut Pro's point. Pro stated that the permanent five nations have been abusing the power they were given to protect or attack countries according to their interest. I believe that this statement is flawed. First of all, the veto power does not grant them power to attack other nations. It simply means that they can stop any resolutions from being adopted. Secondly, it is difficult to simply veto a well-supported resolution for its allies. There are numerous aspects of wielding a veto power. Especially in highly supported resolution, the nation who vetoed the resolution will be under high political pressure. Despite being few of the most powerful countries in the world, they are not free from ignoring the ideas and wills of other nations. Severe criticisms that follow the veto have deterred the permanent members from vetoing some of the resolutions. Pro has stated that the United Nations is supposed to be a democratic system. I ask the Pro to cite this information as I failed to produce such information from the charter. In fact, UN is semi-democratic. All of the agencies and committees are operated through democratic system and even the Security Council it self is somewhat democratic. The non-permanent members are elected. To clarify, the veto power can only be used in the Security Council. This means that the majority of resolutions drafted by numerous specialized agencies are free from being vetoed. As long as two-thirds of the members vote in favor of the resolution, it will pass. Observing this aspect of the United Nations, Pro should recognize the limitations of veto power. As for Pro's statement that "this power should be equal for all of the countries," it is impractical. First of all, if all nations were to possess veto power, the problem mentioned by Pro will worsen along with numerous others. Nothing will get passed and the United Nations and its Security Council will lose their efficiency and their status in the international community. Secondly, providing all nations with veto power is synonymous to saying that permanent members no longer have influences as they used to have. This will provoke the permanent members, undoubtedly the strongest and the most influential nations in the world, to leave the United Nations. Also, I would like to pose some questions to Pro. Is it not understandable and indubitable that ALL nations support resolutions that would benefit their countries? There is absolutely no country that will support a resolution that will pose any harm to it. Permanent countries are no exceptions. It is ludicrous to ask them to be altruistic because of their achievements. I ask the Pro to rebut my arguments and to further justify his stance.