BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Military force is an appropriate weapon for the US to use against enemies that may develop nukes

Sorry to have postponed this debate even longer, but I have been extremely busy. Also, I can't wait to see (and beat) you at Yankton, lol, just kidding. Now on to the debate. I will first start by stating my arguments, then moving to my opponents. 1. Nuclear proliferation will create stability and safety The Nuclear Peace Theory is a theory that states that with more and more nukes, the more and more a leader, or controller of a nuke, would think before detonating said weapon. This theory is based on the deterrence of firing one nuke for the next. Every man, no matter how evil, understands that there would be no point in firing a nuclear weapon, starting a nuclear war, and essentially ending the world as we know it. 2. The Pakistan and India example of the NPT In 1999, while Pakistan and India had been feuding, nuclear weapons were acquired on both sides, yet none were fire. They had both known that it would've been pointless to fire because they were afraid of the retaliation. This real life example of the Nuclear Peace Theory proves that it prevents nuclear war. Now, moving on to your arguments. 1. The Nuclear Peace Theory takes over the entire first argument. In no way can military force have the same effects as the NPT(I'm tired of typing the theory). Military force will most likely result in death on both sides of the conflict. However, no death will occur from NPT. 2. Even Kim Jong Il himself is not so irrational to fire nuclear weapons at the United States or anybody else for that matter. People like him needs people to rule over and, also, he's not suicidal. We have over 22,000 nukes and they had between 1 and 10 in 2006. You don't have to be a math major to know that you are outnumbered there. Besides, he would be lucky to even launch a nuke before we could retaliate. He knows that he can't win if he tries and would thus, not fire any of his nukes. 3&4. I would like to extend my previous argument from my 2 point above. If the example I provided above between India and Pakistan isn't good enough, I'll go in to some detail on the Cold War, but we'll save that for another time. Btw, I would like to wish you good luck, both in this debate and at Yankton this weekend.
Military force is an appropriate weapon for the US to use against enemies that may develop nukes

The United States frequently uses military force to prevent any possible future conflicts. However, rarely is the soft-power technique used before resorting to military force. I stand that soft-power is much more useful and progressive than resorting directly to brute force. Also, because nukes are becoming the weapon of choice in the world today, I believe that soft-power will prevent the accidental firing of nuclear weapons, essentially ending the world as we know it. The only solution to nations that are posing threats to the US would be to use soft-power. Thank you. Also, this would make the US look better in the eyes of the rest of the world.
School uniform: good or bad

The school uniforms are good because it doesn't show whether you're poor or rich. People will not know if you are in uniform. Uniforms allow people to focus less on what they are wearing and more about learning. Plus, if you buy 5 shirts and 5 pants you are good for a week... You don't have to go out and shop for hours on end! Uniforms also would be cheaper than having to go and shop at 5 different stores just for a shirt or jeans. You might actually save money! Plus, instead of getting creative with clothes, how about we get creative with art and machines. Bring back American ingenuity and thinking! Things like that are more challenging for the brain than just pulling something out of the closet and making it match. Unless you are making your own clothes which is very creative, don't say your being creative when your just pulling something out of the closet that you didn't make! Just wear uniforms!
School uniform: good or bad

I think that kids uniforms are boring kids want to be unique they want to be their self no uniforms is one way to do that. Kids want at least a little bit of freedom and that's the way to give them the little amount of the originality they have but they can't use because they have uniforms. It's not like money or something like that but it is the ability to be your unique and original self. I think that you should consider to stop the uniforms in exchange for originality and with the originality kids can stay in their child hood for as long as they are a child. It's bad enough that kids have a lot of home work they should at least have this. Uniforms are a big part in the kids life but if they don't have them that's even better. Kids need to be silly, funny, Joyful, happy, and most importantly they need to have fun. Before you vote listen to me just consider that kids need to be original, unique in themselves a vote for yes is a vote for no freedom and for me It is just mean.I think the kids should not have to wear uniforms and I think you should too! Thanks!
That test scores a good indication of a student's competency

Test score is not the better indicator to assess a student. Before I conclude my debate, let me make some rebuttals.Rebuttal #1: We don't need to show that what type of way is the absolute best one. You cannot show me that the alternatives to tests are better than tests itself, so this motion must fall.Now back to my case. Test score is not the better indicator to assess a student. Tests give too much pressure and too much expectation to students and making the study scope smaller.Test scores do not reflect how a student performs.Thus,test score is not the better indicator to assess a student and the motion must fall.Dear opponent, you didn't explain that tests is a better indication than the alternatives above, thus this motion must fall.Voters, please account that1. My opponent had not answered that tests is a better indicator than the alternatives to tests. Test scores are not the better indicator to assess a student.This motion must fall.Thank You!
That test scores a good indication of a student's competency

Dear ladies and gentlemen, test score is not the better indicator to assess a student.Before I continue the debate, let me make some rebuttals.Rebuttal 1: My dear opponent has stated that tests are helpful to monitor a student's progress. I agree that test is an indication of a student, but is not the best one clearly. Tests make students "feel an inordinate amount of pressure to be successful on tests"(Alicia Anthony) and makes students learn just because of the pressure it gives to students.Now back to my topic. Test score is not the better indicator to assess a student. As tests give too much pressure and too much expectation, alternatives to tests had been rising. For example, some schools have been instructing teachers to take the presentation test, which is testing the knowledge of the students via doing a presentation. This can make the testing not being too simplistic while not subjective. Also, there are schools that test students by doing a research on the scope taught. These are better that test to test the ability of the students.We have some alternative to tests. Dear opponent, if you cannot show that tests are better then the examples I mentioned above, then this motion must fall.Test score is not the better indicator to assess a student. This motion must fall. Thank You! Sources:1.http://everydaylife.globalpost.com...
That test scores a good indication of a student's competency

Dear ladies and gentlemen, test scores is not the better indicator to assess a student. To begin the debate, I'll firstly define the words."test" means that for anyway of discovering, by questions or practical activities, what someone knows, or what someone or something can do or is like."Indication" means a sign for something that's true.Test scores are not the better indicator to assess a student. I'll explain that test is harmful to students in its own, but still do not reflect the student's work in this post, and give some examples not using test scores to assess a student in the second post. I'll conclude the debate in the third post.Test scores do not reflect how a student performs. According to Fairtest, the problem of multiple choice test is "students do superficial question, which rewards students for a quick answer, but do not measure the ability to think deeply or creatively in any field. It also encourages a narrowed curriculum, outdated methods of instruction, and harmful practices such as grade retention and tracking"(Fairtest). Also, essay type question rewards students with a higher level of writing skill over the ones do not, thus test cannot actually reflect a student's performance. Also, these scores can be easily altered, according to USA TODAY research, a Washington school is being scrutinised because of the allegations that the school altered the answers to the test. This is also a problem that shows tests scores do not represent how students performs. Tests is making the study scope smaller.According to Patrick Ledesma, these tests are making the teacher "narrows the curriculum", and "fails to measure higher level thinking such as creativity"(Patrick Ledesma). This is also a side-effect of tests, making the ones who just remember the whole curriculum but is not creative wins the tests.We have some alternative to tests.We can have some series of quizzes instead of a high-stake test, and presentation can also be the alternative to tests. Dear opponent, if you cannot explain that tests is a better indication than the alternatives listed above, then this motion must fall.Test scores are not the better indicator to assess a student.This motion must fall.Thank You!http://fairtest.org...;http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...http://blogs.edweek.org...;
The government should not decide how many children a woman can have.

It seems today women have been encouraged to have vast amounts of children and the taxpayers or the government will take care of them. Maybe with reality shows like John and Kate plus eight,18 and counting, and now Table for 12, young women might be thinking they too will have a show, a book deal, or maybe Oprah will step in and finance there life. Look at this latest women with 6 children at home and her doctor inseminates her with 8 more. What where they thinking, 14 kids who's going to support them? Her parents , the government!!!! Even with all this I still think its a personal choice, we still live in a free society and government control over this issue is not an option.
The government should not decide how many children a woman can have.

First let me apologize for not posting links to the shows I was referring to. I should not have assumed that everyone was familiar with them,first time debater. Well you do have Internet so this is the link where you can view the shows.http://tlc.discovery.com... As for the the woman with 14 children just Google Nadya Suleman. I am not going to pretend to know the lifestyle of a person living in a communist country, the day to day restrictions but I can tell you that living in a country as beautiful as Canada, with our freedom and diversity of her people is wonderful. You do make very good points on the effects of too many people on the environment. Let me just point out that the populations are so different that we can't fairly compare those effects on the two countries. Although the land mass is very close, Canada's being slightly larger, the population of China is 1.3 billion with 138.6 people per square kilometer and Canada's population 33 million with only 3.3 per square kilometer. http://www.mongabay.com... Since your response I have read a few articles on Communist China and it seems that there are several groups that oppose the government making choices for them. http://en.wikipedia.org.... A few people making decisions for a whole country with no input from her people. It just seems to much like slavery for me. My point is, even though I feel it is not right to bring children into this world if financially and emotionally you can't afford it, its still your our choice to do so. I will state again that I am not familiar with the way of life of people in China. Maybe there are some good things about communism for some people. After watching the news, about the Olympics, where people were removed from their homes and watched while they were torn down. Their way of life destroyed so the world would see a better China. I really can't think of any benefits to communism compared to freedom. So now your thinking I have really gone off topic. However, I do not want my government, and I emphasize MY government, that I elected to work for me and not to dictate to me,how many children I can have. If I give them that much power over my life , what comes next!
Which lie is worse?: The lie to self or the white lie

"I have two cats." "My favorite color is blue" "I love women" "I like video games" "I have a Home tomorrow" Which is the lie and why? If you cannot tell what the truth is then how can you know that you lied to yourself? Wouldn't you prove to yourself that you don't know what the truth is? I disagree with "Knowingly" lie to yourself. It doesn't make any sense for it to be "Knowingly" for once you know it then you are truthful that you lie which turns into truth. If your ignorant of the lie that you can be better than me, then why is it worse than you consciously lying to simply make someone feel better? And if you lie to someone how you feel which only brings resentment, then aren't you worse for taking that built up resentment out on someone that doesn't deserve your wrath? How can you live with yourself knowing that you harmed another with undue discipline? So you don't care about your lie to yourself, but you care about the one you love? Then from your own perspective, how is the lie to oneself worse than the white lie?
Obamacare

"That being said, more Americans insured under the same health insurance company will only result in more problems". Second you have no sources for this section, I am unsure where this information is coming from. The ACA does require insurance companies to spend more on medical expenses which is a good thing, before that 30% was mostly profit. Reducing their profit doesn"t translate to a cut in funds for their operation. If anything it will help decrease costs because the insurance companies will have to be more efficient in order to make the same margin of profit that they used to. Also just because they have patients with pre-existing conditions doesn"t mean they"ll just pay the doctors less, they have plenty of money and with all the new people being added they"ll have even more. The regulation is needed; without regulation government gets cheated out of their money which is shown by countless examples such as during the civil war people would sell shoddy equipment to the government for inflated prices. If there were no regulation then insurers would just increase their costs because the government would be paying for it expanding the cost past the billions that would go to tax relief. That is exactly what happened before the ACA was passed with a very inefficient system. The ACA is trying to make healthcare and insurance more efficient and keep costs down. In addition there are thousands of unnecessary deaths every year just because people don"t have health insurance. Buzenberg, Bill. "Obamacare facts separated from spin by Wendell Potter, FactCheck.org." www.publicintegrity.org. 15 Aug. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. Johnson, Avery. "What You Need to Know About the Affordable Care Act." online.wsj.com. 28 Sep. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. Lazo, Luz. "Left Behind: stories from Obamacare's 31 million uninsured." Washington Post. 8 September 2013. Politics. Web. "The Impact of Obamacare." Heritage Foundation-Leadership for America. 2013. Web. 16 October 2013. G. F. Anderson and P. Markovich, Multinational Comparisons of Health Systems Data, 2010 (New York: The Commonwealth Fund, July 2011.) Docteur, Elizabeth; Oxley, Howard (October 19, 2004). "Health-system reform: lessons from experience". Towards high-performing health systems: policy studies. The OECD health project. Paris: OECD. pp. 25, 74. Woolhandler, S.; et al. (September 12, 2012). "Despite slight drop in uninsured, last year"s figure points to 48,000 preventable deaths". Physicians for a National Health Program. Retrieved September 26, 2012. Kavitha A. Davidson (29 August 2013). The Most Efficient Health Care Systems In The World. The Huffington Post. Retrieved 01 September 2013.
Obamacare

No point was made that Obamacare would put all Americans under the same insurance company. The point was to take any individual insurance company, public or private, and use it as an example to break down the cost of insurance from all angles. Using this example, specifically a private insurance company, it is important to understand that when the Affordable Care Act required private insurance companies to accept patients with pre existing medical conditions, they were doing exactly the opposite of "leaving them alone." Private insurance companies would have a pool of available funds that would go towards medical expenses for the insured, usually around 70% of their gross income. The other 30% was needed to keep their business running and pay employees. With the ACA, these insurance companies were suddenly forced to spend 80% on medical expenses, and run their companies off of the remaining 20% while accepting all of the new patients applying for their service. This translates to a 33% cut in the insurance company's funds for operation. On top of this, the new applicants with pre existing conditions would take more money from the pool than add to it - the exact reason they were denied in the first place. In order to cover for these new patients, insurance companies put the extra 10% to the pool to begin with, but the rest of the margin is taken out of the hands of the doctors, hence the difference from a 70% reimbursement to 56%. If the government would take the billions of dollars they spend on trying to regulate the private market for insurance, not to mention enter the market themselves, and put this money towards tax relief for those denied coverage, they would not only save a huge percentage of their current healthcare spending, but they would also give their service to citizens in need much more efficiently.
Obamacare

Obama care provides a variety of benefits to the American public including getting insurance for 25 million uninsured Americans by 2014. Also Obama care prevents insurers from refusing to cover or raising their prices for people with preexisting conditions. Furthermore Obama care has expanded numerous programs like Medicare and Medicaid to benefit more people. In addition to that Obama care is also reducing the cost of health insurance because it was too inefficient. Our healthcare system needs reform, out of the developed world it costs the most and is the most inefficient. Obama care is also upgrading numerous health centers and building new ones which will produce more jobs. Also children can now stay on their parents insurance until the age of 26 which is beneficial because of the rising cost of college loans so this step might help people start off without crippling debts. Furthermore states are required to set up insurance exchanges where people can find the best deal on insurance. In addition to that if someone is denied medical coverage there is now an external appeal. In the end those are just some of the variety of benefits that Obama care provides to the American Buzenberg, Bill. "Obamacare facts separated from spin by Wendell Potter, FactCheck.org." www.publicintegrity.org. 15 Aug. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. Johnson, Avery. "What You Need to Know About the Affordable Care Act." online.wsj.com. 28 Sep. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Death Penalty (redux again)

1. Horrible Crimes (defense) Again, 76.6% are repeat offenders. Is it true that they can change, but again, these are the common criminals in that stat. Those who have committed death penalty crimes are even less likely. One of the men on the crosses with Jesus even confessed his faith while undergoing the death penalty. 2. God Himself has Administered the Death Penalty (defense) King Herod II, again. 3. God is a God of both mercy and justice (defense) Justice was a thing in The New Testament, even Jesus spoke of it.
Death Penalty (redux again)

1. People Can Change (rebuttal) Maybe, but not likely. 76.6% of criminals are repeat offenders. https://www.nij.gov... 2. The New Testament (rebuttal) False. Even after Jesus was born, God still administered the death penalty to the wicked. This is King Herod II's death. https://www.biblegateway.com... Even so, we still die today, The Lord said "The wages of sin is death.", and He even said all humans will eventually die in the Garden of Eden, that somewhat counts as a death penalty. 3. Forgiveness of Sins (rebuttal) Just because you forgive them doesn't mean the punishment vanishes. Discipline is still needed.
Death Penalty (redux again)

1. Horrible Crimes (rebuttal) People can change. In fact, if we show them mercy, they may be touched by it, and more easily be brought to the Lord. 2. God Himself has Administered the Death Penalty (rebuttal) Only in The Old Testament. 3. God is a god of both Mercy and Justice. Again, justice was barely a thing in The New Testament, but mercy was.
Death Penalty (redux again)

1. Horrible Crimes Some people deserve it. Take Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11. Or Saddam Hussein, who is also guilty of horrible crimes. The man who drove a truck through Paris, the Boston Bombers, the Denver Theater shooter, Dylann Roof, John Wilkes Booth, the list could go on and on. Do you really think they don't/didn't deserve to die? 2. God Himself has Administered the Death Penalty God saw how evil mankind was when He created the Flood. No to mention that He sent His own Son, Jesus, to take the Death Penalty for us. During the time of Moses, God gave out the death penalty to Egyptian Soldiers in the Red Sea, rebels by having the Earth swallow them up, more rebels by having them bit by venomous snakes, and even Moses himself when he directly disobeyed God. 3. God is a god of Both Mercy and Justice Many of those who oppose the death penalty cite God and everything merciful he has done to back up there claims. However, the seem to forget everything God has done in the name of justice. God is a merciful god, but He is just as well.
Death Penalty (redux again)

1. People Can Change. If we give people a second chance at life, they may change in life there are numerous events of this happening. 2. The New Testament In the Old Testament, the death penalty was common, but notice how the only death penalties given out in the New Testament were by those who didn't believe in Jesus. 3. Forgiveness of Sins "But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." -Matthew 6:15 In other words, instead of having them die, forgive them.
Proper flag retirement procedures should be legal

Since my opponent has failed to post the next argument, I will respond to Duconihilum's comment below. I would do exactly as you said, Duconihilum, but I chose to debate what dthmstr254 had written in his first argument as opposed to the title of the topic. It also seemed as if dthmstr wanted to show that although flag burning is currently illegel, we should make it legal in order to properly retire a flag: "We need to re-legalize the prober retirement of the American flag," i.e. "first cutting each stripe from the flag, from bottom to top, and burning the stripes, stating which of the 13 colonies it represented, then taking the field of blue and burning it as well" So, no, I'm not completely sticking to the "Topic of Debate." I consider what's in the "Pro~Round 1" section to be of higher importance. Thank you.