pre-pay pumps after dark

My opponent starts out by admitting that she does, in fact, agree with some of my points. Can I get a Pro vote, what, what?! She furthers her argument about how it is not only she that is annoyed, but she shifts her argument to say that 'many' other people are also annoyed; first of all, my opponent failed to provide any statistics to back up her claim; second of all, the claim that "many people are annoyed by prepayment, therefore it should not be mandatory' is backed up by little else but the ad populum fallacy. As far as the stealing argument is concerned, my opponent is now falling victim to the slippery slope fallacy, as she assumes that, because prepayment is being put in place as a measure to prevent thievery, there will inevitably be an infinite number of additional anti-theft measures put into operation; however, this is backed up by neither logic nor evidence, thus the argument must be thrown out. Furthermore, my opponent admits that prepayment does indeed require "less than 5 minutes"; as much of my opponent's case is based on the 'inconvenience' factor, this eliminates a good portion of the Con's thesis. Also, though my opponent gives us a website [http://gastheft.com...], she makes an interesting omission from the list of safety measures: "Change ALL pumps, or high-risk far pumps to pre-pay only." Her sole source does not mention any specific inconveniences for mandating prepayment, and actually lists this as a "Simple Way to Reduce Gas Theft". As my opponent and I have agreed that prepayment is hardly an inconvenience (taking less than 5 minutes to complete), I fail to see exactly how so many people would become annoyed, that gas stations would actually lose enough revenue through enforcing prepayment to cause a serious issue. My opponent's next argument all rests on the idea that, with prepayment, people are paying for something before they know what they want. However, it is not as if a person has to pay some arbitrary fee just to gain access to the gas pump; after determining how much money one wants to spend on gas, one simply slips in a card, or pays a certain amount of cash, and gets the corresponding amount of gasoline; with a pump-then-pay system, the amount of money one spends is dependent upon how many gallons of gas one pumps; however, with a pay-then-pump system, one can pay a predetermined amount of money, and pump accordingly; clearly, there are options, as one can choose how much money to spend, so this autonomy isn't taken from us, as Con leads you to believe. Furthermore, when I say that people will be 'forced' to adopt self-control, I don't mean this in the sense of holding them at gunpoint; I was arguing that, if mandatory prepayment is instated, people will be 'forced' to be responsible in the sense that they will be put into a situation in which it's far simpler to make responsible decisions, and it's less beneficial to step outside of the boundaries of self-restraint than it would have been under a pump-then-pay system. My opponent's argument here is a large appeal to emotion, as she discusses a supposed loss of personal freedom, and an offense against the foundation that America was built on. Clearly, this is backed more by passion than by logic, and must be disregarded. "pics or you're lying" (918) 440-9664 ;) Just saying... I want to give you a fair chance to prove your claim. I'm all about fairness. :D I really like my opponent's next self-contradiction. She likes the idea of carrying extra cash as a wise precaution, but quickly corrects herself by saying that she still doesn't agree with prepayment; however, if prepayment leads to one carrying more cash as a precautionary measure, and my opponent agrees that carrying this money is a good idea, she must also agree with the prepayment that leads to carrying the extra money. Resolution affirmed. "just because something works to decrease a crime, does not mean it should be in place." - What? So, my opponent agrees that prepayment decreases gasoline theft "tremendously", yet still refuses to allow mandatory prepayment because it's a minor annoyance. Clearly, reduction of crime trumps personal convenience. Once again, resolution affirmed. "if people are more concerned with instituting law after law that declines crime, then by all means... vote pro." - You heard it from my opponent: if you want to cut down on crime, vote Pro. But, if you want to ignore crime for the sake of personal convenience, pretending like criminals don't exist, then vote Con. I know it may seem like a difficult decision, voters, but I'm sure you'll make the right one. Normally, my debates are far more serious than this, and I thank my opponent for instigating it, and I thank Kleptin for inspiring me to take a more humorous approach. I very much enjoyed this, and I have one last thing to say to my opponent: If you come over, I will make you some Fettuccine Alfredo. Text me. :)