Liberalism is an epidemic of stupidity:

Thanks to harrytruman for an intriguing argument. Now, since my opponent started off the debate with definitions, I'll be spending some time framing the debate myself. Before I get into burdens, let's finish out those definitions. Clearly, Pro doesn't want to argue immorality anymore, as he doesn't wish to take on that extra burden. That's fine, but he neglected to define a rather important term: Liberalism: a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Note that word: philosophy. It matters, particularly in this context. Pro is correct in his definitions of both epidemic and stupidity, but he fails to examine what those definitions mean in the context of this word. He's talking about a philosophy, an idea, something abstract. An epidemic isn't abstract - it's a spreading infectious disease, something that takes on physical form and actively moves between hosts. While stupidity has some abstraction to it, Pro does define it as a behavior. Last I checked, philosophies don't have behaviors. A philosophy may lead some to take certain actions, but it cannot itself engage in any activity, let alone have that activity be judged "stupid" or be characterized as an "epidemic." Pro also doesn't quite go far enough in understanding the terms he's defined. An infectious disease has physical form and spreads against the will of its hosts. You don't see anyone out there supporting the spread of malaria or tuberculosis, yet there are clear adherents to liberalism. People actually choose to become liberals, hence the idea that it is an infectious disease forced upon them by some unknown agent (is there a liberalism bacteria I don't know about?) is more than a little absurd. All of these inform Pro's burdens. He has to show that liberalism takes a physical form that can be judged based on its own "good sense or judgment" and that liberalism is actively forced upon its adherents. Pro may be inclined to argue that liberalism is forced upon others, but if he wishes to do so, he'll have to explain how it's actively infecting a population that remains clearly not liberal (if they weren't, it wouldn't be forced), and still prove that it's the liberalism itself that's doing the forcing and not individuals. But let's focus on the other major burden Pro incurs, and this has to do with his other definition: stupidity. Establishing a lack of good sense or judgment requires an objective evaluation, i.e. it must be factual. If Pro is using his own opinion and not an objective measure to evaluate why a given act is stupid, then he has not met his burden. Meanwhile, all I have to do to meet my burdens is show why Pro hasn't met his. Pro hasn't met any of these. All 3 of his contentions stem from personal opinion without any clear, objective harms being caused by liberalism. He fails to explain how liberalism itself is causing any of these supposed harms, choosing instead to focus on the harms caused by what he perceives as liberal members of society, and he fails to establish liberalism as something that spreads or takes on physical form of any sort. But he wanted a debate on this, so I'll focus on the arguments he's made and explain the problems individually. He starts off on gay marriage, arguing that it's widespread and presents as a lack of common sense. He's correct on the latter, chiefly due to the USSC ruling, but that doesn't establish liberalism as an epidemic, as I've shown. As for a lack of common sense, Pro doesn't explain what the common sense is or why this particular common sense is "good sense." He states that this is government defining a religious "rite", but he has this backwards. That's what government did beforehand. In fact, 31 states had constitutional amendments banning legal recognition of same-sex marriage.[https://en.wikipedia.org...] Note the word "legal." This was the government of each of these states making a clear statement that they would enforce the law based on the views of many who were anti-gay marriage. That is clearly destroying the line between church and state " it's literally the state codifying a religious view as law. Now, let's compare that with today. Today, the government of the U.S. has effectively stated that it will no longer allow such laws to be enforced. In other words, the U.S. is no longer legally taking action to support any religious view. As for separation of church and state, Pro seems to be under the impression that the U.S. government is now forcing pastors and rabbis to marry gay people. That's never happened, nor is it ever likely to happen. Religious leaders have always been able to choose whether or not they wish to marry any given couple for any reason. Making gay marriage legal doesn't alter that capacity. However, let's assume that making gay marriage legal has fundamentally altered the way religion interacts with government, and that it represents government intervention in religion. Even if that's the case, Pro hasn't established any objective harm that results. A lack of common sense is not a harm. Separation of church and state is not inherently beneficial; if anything, it allows for some clear, objective harms in the form of things like Christian conversion therapy, which has been shown to "lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness and suicide." [http://www.hrc.org...] Intervention has its benefits. Even if it is harmful, though, Pro hasn't shown that liberalism itself is perpetrating the harms. What liberals and libertarians in the U.S. do does not embody liberalism itself. Onto gun rights. Pro hasn't shown that the prevaling view of liberals is that guns should be banned, or that liberalism itself, which promotes liberty and equality (ideas that support wide availability of guns), supports such a ban by default. He argues that a gun ban would be ineffective, though his "evidence" for this is a couple of claims, neither of which holds up to scrutiny. Stealing a gun off of a police officer requires getting close to a trained official who knows how to subdue assailants and can clearly defend themselves. If criminals are willing to put themselves at that kind of risk simply because guns are banned, then a gun ban would be extremely effective at removing criminals from the streets. As for the usage of other weapons, as I think we can agree that a knife is generally more dangerous than a club or spear, I'll just address them. Studies have shown that, after a 1 to 1 comparison, the use of guns in crimes is 5 times more deadly than the usage of knives.[http://heinonline.org...] Crossbows are rather difficult to come by and are a far cry from being as deadly as a gun, and poison deaths require planning, whereas most homicides are unplanned.[http://www.theatlantic.com...] It's never established as part of this argument where the harm is. Having a gun isn't inherently beneficial (accidental shootings account for hundreds of deaths a year, and suicides are made a hell of a lot easier [http://library.med.utah.edu...]), and Pro hasn't shown that not having a gun causes more violence. He insinuates that something terrible would happen, but never explains why law enforcement wouldn't be enough. Pro also doesn't show that liberals want a complete gun ban, and as much of the support behind gun bans is for assault weapon bans or other partial measures, it seems even liberals support many people having guns, which means the scenario Pro puts out is not at all likely. Even if it is harmful, though, Pro has failed to explain how liberalism itself is causing this to happen, and as I've explained, liberalism would be against such measures if it did exist as a corporeal being. Finally, we get to universal health care. Pro really doesn't add any substance with this point, claiming that liberals support universal health care without evidence, claiming that this is generally liberalism (socialism and liberalism are not the same), and claiming that universal health care has increased the costs of aspirin, which is a strange accusation since universal health care doesn't exist in this country. Pro appears to be arguing against Obamacare, but he hasn't explained why that represents liberalism (it was originally a conservative plan [http://obamacarefacts.com...]), how Obamacare has caused these harms (prices have been going up since long before it was implemented [http://healthaffairs.org...]), or how implementing universal health care would increase those harms (it leads to negotiating prices with the pharmaceutical industry, something we don't do now, which should reduce prices [http://qz.com...]). Pro makes the same basic claims about Medicare, but once again fails to establish that any of these supposed harms are real. Even if they are, they're not objective. More expensive pharmaceuticals aren't inherently bad, especially given how often they're abused.[https://www.drugabuse.gov...] We could stand to have a little less access. Once again, Pro has not established that this is the result of liberalism (which, again, would support availability if it had a physical body), nor has he established any sort of epidemic traits. Alright, back to you, Pro.