BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
If cost was our priority we would never hold elections at all – ultimately we have to be willing to ...

As well as being unnecessary and dangerous, recall elections are also expensive. Holding a special vote means taxpayers’ money has to be spent on preparing the ballots, hiring halls, taking public employees away from their other duties, sending out information, etc. – the 2003 California vote cost $50 million. And the very possibility of recall elections also requires a state permanently to maintain a larger electoral authority than would otherwise be necessary. In addition politicians will have to maintain permanent campaign funds in case they are challenged in a recall petition, leading them to spend time on unnecessary fund-raising rather than serving the public.
Having a recall mechanism focuses the minds of elected representatives and ensures that they keep th...

The overwhelming number of elected representatives at every level already keep the concerns of their constituents constantly in mind, working very long hours in their interest. Recall systems are offensive as they imply that all politicians are crooks who need some kind of parole procedure. In addition, too much focus on very local interests can make politics very parochial and lead to too little consideration of the overall national interest, allowing small minorities to block necessary reforms and encouraging wasteful “pork barrel” spending. That is why the policy platforms and whipping systems of national political parties are a necessary part of democracy that should not be undermined by the constant fear of local recall initiatives. Finally, recall elections are not the only means to hold politicians to high standards of behaviour; if they stray ethically they can already be punished by the courts, by impeachment, or by legislative ethics panels.
Elections only come around every four years or so, allowing unethical or incompetent politicians to ...

Those who argue for recall systems say it is about getting rid of corrupt or incompetent politicians. In reality, most recall votes in systems where they are allowed come down to judgements about policy decisions. In 2003 no one accused Gray Davis of being personally corrupt or mentally incapable of wielding power. Davis was ejected as Governor of California because voters didn’t like the way he had handled power-utilities and tried to solve the state’s debt problems. Not only should Davis have been allowed to serve out his term so that voters could judge him on the long-term success of his policies in these areas; the struggles of his successor as Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with much the same set of problems suggest that getting rid of Davis did little to address the underlying problems facing California.
Allowing recall elections will help to restore faith in politics and encourage active citizenship. ...

Recall mechanisms can lead to perverse outcomes. In most systems the incumbent has to gain over 50% of the votes in order to survive in office, but there is no such barrier to the election of a replacement. Thus a representative can be sacked for only gaining 45-50% of votes in a recall election, while his successor might win office with only 30% or less of the votes in a multi-candidate battle to replace him. And any mechanisms that try to overcome this problem will either mean the incumbent is so heavily favoured that the whole exercise is pointless, or will take so long that good governance will inevitably suffer.
The power of recall is an important part of a fully democratic system. If sovereignty is truly popu...

The power of recall is an important part of a fully democratic system. If sovereignty is truly popular, then as much power as possible should reside with the people. Although they entrust power to legislators and members of the executive, if that trust is broken or abused there should be a mechanism to recall from office the offending politician. In this way politicians will not be able to get away with lying to the voters at election time (for example, about their qualifications or family circumstances), breaking campaign pledges (e.g. on cutting taxes), or acting unethically (e.g. fiddling their expenses) once in office.
Recall elections need not be vulnerable to abuse. For a start, in a democracy we must trust the peo...

Recall elections need not be vulnerable to abuse. For a start, in a democracy we must trust the people - voters are not so stupid as to believe automatically the arguments of well-funded lobby groups. The history of recall elections in a range of countries shows that attempts to remove elected representatives are very uncommon, and that when they do occur most incumbents survive the process. Abuse can be prevented by requiring a large proportion (often between 10 and 25%) of the electorate to sign a petition for a recall election to be held. Many recall systems also require the representative concerned to have been officially censured, either by the courts or by a legislative ethics committee of some sort.
If cost was our priority we would never hold elections at all – ultimately we have to be willing to ...

If cost was our priority we would never hold elections at all – ultimately we have to be willing to pay the price of democracy. In a well run system a recall election should not cost more than a few cents per voter – easily less than the bills unethical or incompetent politicians may run up at the public expense. In any case, most political systems have some sort of election most years (e.g. national, state, local council votes, referendums), so recall votes can be made to coincide with these scheduled ballots.
Having a recall mechanism focuses the minds of elected representatives and ensures that they keep th...

Having a recall mechanism focuses the minds of elected representatives and ensures that they keep the interests of their constituents constantly in mind. Not only will this lead to harder working politicians with higher ethical standards, it will also prevent them selling out to lobby groups and party whips. All too often elected representatives give way to the lure of “business as usual” in the capital city, and forget the folks who sent them there in the first place.
The inequality of an indirect tax

The tax that the proposition seeks to impose on meat products would adversely affect consumers of meat on lower incomes. This is because the increase in price the tax would add to meat products represents a larger proportion of the income of a lower-income consumer than one on a higher income. This means that the opportunity cost of buying meat for a lower income consumer increases at a higher rate than the higher income consumer when the tax raises prices. The opposition may argue that surely if governments do not find the inequality which arises from excise duties on alcohol and cigarettes a large enough issue to avoid this form of taxation, then surely the same can be said for meat. However, the difference with meat is that, as we on the opposition shall be discussing, there are methods of reducing the negative effects meat consumption on our planet, without simultaneously generating an additional harm, one of greater social inequality. In the cases of alcohol and cigarettes, this greater social inequality is perceived as justified. This is because the products themselves are viewed as harmful not only to the consumers themselves but can lead to harms to those other than the consumer, through the consumer's own direct practices. It is not the direct effect of the consumption of the meat product itself that we would wish to be reduced (ignoring the fact that yes, excessive amounts of any food is bad for your health), for no one fears anti-social behaviour in one with a penchant for meat as they do an alcohol abuser, but the indirect harms such as the soil erosion effects to land which is used for livestock farming. For many, meat is a necessity in terms of a balanced diet, unless we are to expect a total upheaval of consumption patterns right away. Therefore, we can see that the problem lies mainly in the practices exercised on the side of supply, rather than in the demand itself, and so approaching the situation from an angle which wishes to influence demand is not the most efficient.
Growing livestock wastes precious grain.

In this argument we are going to show you that growing livestock is inefficient in it's core and that this inefficiency is in fact important enough to limit its occurence. First off: growing livestock wastes grain. Currently more grain is being used for feeding animals then for humans. If the grain that is used to grow pork, for an example, would be used to feed humans, more humans would get fed as swine use much of the energy of the food that they eat to breathe, keep them self warm etc., which all is in essence energy, that is lost to us. To talk about why this inefficiency is important enough to limit its occurence, we would like to consider two things: firstly, global population is constantly rising and secondly, some of the population is already living in a food crisis. We say that from a utilitaristic point of view, if some people can get more food just because other people change what they eat, then we should make the latter change what they eat : The people, that are eating meat today, will have their stomachs full of good food even when they stop eating meat, while stopping eating meat will allow other people, that are currently starving, have access to food, that they currently do not have. Substituting one type of food with another type of food will give us overall more food, which is good because it will lesser the suffering of those who are currently starving.
Proposition plan will take too long to implement

When your house is on fire, you don't send a letter to the fire brigade. Props began their argument with strong words about the urgency of the situation the planet is in. Just contemplate for a moment the length of time the plan they propose to combat this perilous threat would take to put into effect. We begin with a commission charged to produce a report, a year or two later this leads to a consultation document. After this has done the rounds and all the various vested interests have had their say, maybe, a tentative draft proposal could be produced... You get the picture. We wonder if the Props are lawyers, as only a lawyer could view this prospect with any satisfaction. (By the way, we would love to be a fly on the wall when Props put their plan to that most reasonable and law-abiding community: the French farmers. And we don't suppose for a moment it would occur to British farmers to do anything so silly as protest this irrational and indiscriminate tax by blockading channel ports? Not to be outdone we notice that last May thousands of German farmers protested against increased taxes on diesel by driving their tractors through Berlin. How much more animated will farmers' ire be when it is directed against those already-resented 'unelected fat cat MEPs' as they are styled in the popular press.) Even the agreement (if it could ever be reached) is not the end of the affair of course. An enormous bureaucracy would need to be created; new powers granted to customs' officers to prevent evasion, and so on. And all for what? To possibly create a marginal reduction in demand for meat, at some point in the future, not even conditional on improving environmental practice, likely to incentivise further environmental damage, in the expectation that this will ameliorate the destruction of the planet that is taking place at an accelerating rate today. Our planet is on fire, let's not send a letter to the fire brigade.
The model will not reduce consumption.

First of all the article we cited in our alcohol example reviewed "results from 112 studies evaluating the link between alcohol pricing and consumption", not 112 people. They did find that "higher alcohol prices, usually stemming from increased taxes, help limit consumption of all alcoholic beverages across all age groups". The argument still holds, increasing the price of meat will reduce consumption. Another example to illustrate the link between price and consumption: in Finland in 2004 alcohol consumption increased by 10%, one of the contributing reasons being a decrease on alcohol tax. [[http://www.paihdelinkki.fi/Articles/111-alcohol-use-in-finland]] It is likely that people will downgrade to lower quality of meat, as we also said, we do not think a tax will remove the problem entirely. But the downgrading of consumption cannot account for the whole effect of tax on people. In the case of alcohol, there is also an option to instead of limiting consumption to downgrade - instead of buying the cognac you could just get the vodka, you get just as drunk. So of course people will downgrade, they will also reduce consumption.
The tax would disincentivise environmentally sensitive farming.

First of all, we are already in the position "of simultaneously paying farmers huge subsidies and taxing their product". Some farmers among other producers already receive all manner of subsidies from their governments - like for example the ones who use organic farming techniques being supported by CAP, that opposition points out. If the farmers then go on to sell what they produce, these products have value added tax on them. Subsidies and the VAT have both existed for a while now. Nothing extraordinary there. But secondly, we do not see why it follows that environmentally sound farming techniques will die out. The CAP will remain in place. And as we said earlier, we do not think that the tax is the only thing we need to do to address the problems we have outlined. Subsidizing sound farming practices so that they can be competitive is a good thing to do. Money from the CAP can still be given for this. Regarding cheaply produced meat imported from Brazil and Argentina. Producing meat in these countries is already cheaper at the moment. The EU can do nothing to make production of meat in these countries more expensive. Taxing the consumption of meat will make it more expensive regardless of where it was produced.
Proposition plan will undermine the EU

The EU is already viewed with suspicion in many of its member states. Even France couldn't pass its constitution in 2007 and Ireland and Holland also voted against. The only way Britain became a signatory to the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties was by negotiating a series of 'opt-out' clauses that prevented the EU being able to mandate precisely the kind of interference in local affairs Props plan represents. What tenuous mandate the EU has to affect the live of the citizens of its member states is, in short, fragile, and dependent on the principle of 'subsidiarity' which Prop's plan clearly violates. Given our earlier experience, we define this principle below: Subsidiarity 'is presently best known as a fundamental principle of European Union law. According to this principle, the EU may only act (i.e. make laws) where action of individual countries is insufficient. The principle was established in the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, and was contained within the failed Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe. However, at the local level it was already a key element of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, an instrument of the Council of Europe promulgated in 1985.' (see Article 4, Paragraph 3 of the Charter) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity] In this political and economic climate, faced with the prospect of more expensive meat mandated by the EU (that subsidises farmers to the tune of $50bn a year) isn't it certain that most EU citizens would prefer to keep their cheaper meat and do without the EU instead?
The model will not reduce consumption.

Our case has two strands: the weaknesses of the proposed model, and the availability of superior alternatives. To address the first of these first. If an excise duty is placed on meat, there are two ways a consumer might respond: a) Cut meat consumption b) Downgrade to lower quality, cheaper meat. Proposition side appear to assume the former will result, we are less sure. It only takes simple economic logic to work out why. The demand for a larger category of good is always less elastic than that of its sub-category, it being less substitutable. So for example the demand for 'vegetables' as a whole will be much less responsive to a price change (elastic) than will demand for 'carrots' it being easy to substitute carrots for, say, parsnips in response to a price rise. Wal-Mart's carrots will be even more elastic, as a further subcategory. By this token, rather than switch categories when faced with a price rise, consumers are more likely to move to a sub-category in this case 'cheaper meat', where possible. This argument is compounded by the notion that products that are a part of people's day to day lives, like alcohol in this respect, are notoriously insensitive to excise duty. Your alcohol example was based on a study that looked at the purchasing patterns of literally 112 people. That is incapable of supporting any argument. Increases in duty on alcohol in the UK, for example, have been accompanied by a rise in consumption of epidemic proportions. This is our first rebuttal point: this model will not significantly cut meat consumption.
Excessive meat production threatens the world’s biodiversity

The sheer quantity of animals being raised for human consumption also poses a threat of the Earth's biodiversity. Livestock account for about 20 percent of the total terrestrial animal biomass, and the land area they now occupy was once habitat for wildlife. In 306 of the 825 terrestrial eco-regions identified by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, livestock are identified as "a current threat", while 23 of Conservation International's 35 "global hotspots for biodiversity" - characterized by serious levels of habitat loss - are affected by livestock production. [[http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0612sp1.htm]] To recap we have presented there is ample scientific evidence that meat production is a threat to the planet. It increases global warming, abuses the water supply and leads to a loss of biodiversity. For further documentation of this we recommend the UN's report "Livestock's Long Shadow", which is available here: [[http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM]] . That report, as well as scientists and experts working in this field advocate curbing global meat consumption to battle this threat. We are proposing that one of the ways to reduce this threat is for the EU to impose a tax on on meat consumption.
Fiddling while the Amazon burns.

In its opening remarks Proposition drew our attention to two ways meat production damaged the environment most egregiously: through deforestation and reducing biodiversity. Let us try to put these threats into some kind of global context. (We quote from the UN report unless stated otherwise.) The first thing to note is that expansion of livestock farming and expansion of pasture areas into natural eco-systems 'has essentially come to an end in most parts of the world, except for Latin America..' '..and central Africa.' [p256] Secondly, 'compared to the amounts of carbon released from changes in land use and land-degradation, emissions from the food chain are small'. [p115l This leads the UN to conclude that 'creating incentives for forest conservation and decreased deforestation, in Amazonia and other tropical areas, can offer a unique opportunity for climate change mitigation given the..’ ‘..relative low costs.’ [p116] It's also true that these same tropical forests while they account for only '8% of the world’s land surface...'. also '..hold more than 50% of the world’s species. Tropical regions support two-thirds of the estimated 250 000 plant species and 30% of bird species’ [p183] The UN points out that Latin America is the continent where livestock production accounts most directly for deforestation, estimating that over the past decade 24 million hectares of neotropical land have been given over to grazing. [p187] In contrast, in Europe today ‘traditional grazing is seen as having positively affected biodiversity in pastures, by creating and maintaining sward structural heterogeneity, particularly as a result of dietary choice.’ [Rook et al 2004] The UN agrees: 'in some contexts (e.g. Europe) extensive grazing may provide a tool to maintain a threatened but ecologically valuable level of landscape heterogeneity.’ [p188] The last piece of the puzzle we need to finish the picture is demand. Here again the problem is not with Europe, where demand for meat has remained relatively static, but in the developing world, especially China, where, as the Props have pointed out demand for meat is expected to grow exponentially. In this context circuitously reducing demand for meat and meat products in Europe, in a manner that risks actually increasing our appetite for cheaper imported meat as per props plan, will exacerbate rather than mitigate the impending environmental catastrophe awaiting us. Proposition is barking up the wrong tree, with the wrong dog.
Some negative implications of 'trading down'.

Regarding downgrading to lower quality of meat: the opposition themselves point out later on that the EU has means to address this issue by subsidizing responsible farmers. The problem is, such subsidies require money. It makes sense that meat eaters pay the tax to let the government clean up the mess they create. Not all meat is or will be produced organically. Some consumers still buy such irresponsibly produced meat. Taxing them will give us revenue that we can use to mitigate the harms of meat production. One of the ways we can do this is to encourage responsible production of meat.
Some negative implications of 'trading down'.

The fact consumers, faced with a price increase would downgrade to lower quality meat is salient here, because the effect of this would be specifically counter to the motion's objective to reduce harm to the environment. We see two ways in which consumers could obtain cheaper meat, they are to: a) Downgrade to lower quality meat, ie. Non-organic and battery farmed meat products. b) Import meat from where it can be produced more cheaply. Unfortunately, the lack of clarity in the motion prevents us from understanding how viable the second option would be to a consumer, but if it were viable, then we contend the freight costs involved in shipping or flying meat around the country are completely counter-productive to their case. As far as the former goes, we see this to be unequivocally the most likely outcome of a tax imposition that raises the cost of meat across the board. Organic meat would be the first to go, as we have seen demand for it fall already in times of recession. The same is true of free-range and ethically produced meat products. We return the reader now to proposition's argument number 2 which we flagged earlier. They lamented the pollution caused by meat production by way of the "antibiotics, hormones... fertilizers and pesticides" involved in the industry. We know then, from this statement, that Prop will be equally horrified at the prospect of meat consumers switching away from organically produced meat which avoids all these to lower quality, more polluting meat producers. By their definition of saving the planet, this effect is counter to their objective.
In answer to Prop's rebuttal of our second point.

We've shown how Prop's model incentivises consumers to seek out cheaper meat, and how this might exacerbate the damage done by meat farmers to the environment. To this Props say the revenue the tax raises and that creates this incentive can be used to pay the government to clean up the mess (which the tax itself helped create) and to encourage responsible production of meat! But if it's within our power to encourage responsible production of meat, why not just do so in the first place, as we advocate, without first making the problem worse? Particularly as our model enables us to raise more money, more surely, more promptly and in a fashion that automatically bears down on bad farming practices and rewards responsible ones?