This House would reject consensus.

"Insofar as he hasn't given you any reasons as to why his side better preserves natural rights than my side, you should affirm automatically. Even if you believe all of his responses to my contentions, you still must affirm because he has only mitigated them and has not proven why the United States should change its policy (in such cases, debate rules stipulate that you automatically vote for the status quo.)"In what cases? I call cheating anyway. My opponent should've given all these rules in the opening round. My opponent just said the no researching thing. And then there's that burden of proof thing around here where Pro's the only one who's to make any affirmative arguments. Which i suppose is questionable, but then there's that arguing Con on "The United States should not adopt a participatory democracy." does not necessarily entail arguing that the United States should adopt the policy. Con might just want it considered. Not cast off like that. :)Contention 1:"The problem with his response is that modern democracies possess checks that prevent this from occurring. Representative democracy, by nature, minimizes the ability of politicians to act in their own interests because if they do so at the expense of the people, they will be exposed and kicked out of office."Minimizes. So American politicians are a shower of wankers too? And i still suggested an inherent tendency representative democracy would have over participatory democracy to corruption, which you've not argued against. "Moreover, the United States in particular has checks such as the electoral college, the Supreme Court, separation of powers, federalism, etc. that slows the political process and thus minimizes the impact of self interest. This helps prevent unjust laws from being enacted."And under participatory democracy everyone might be a check on everyone. You'd think that'd do more for preventing unjust laws. Provided the majority were in the correct mindset but why wouldn't they be? "Finally, he fails to account for the fact that direct democracies are based on the emotions of the masses, which are easily influenced by prejudiced sentiments, so direct democracies are more likely to be corrupted than representative democracies."Well you'd have to give an example of in what way they might be corrupted that would be bad. Would they be corrupted to war perhaps? Or to oppress? I asked in what way they might, what you saw of your own people and their collective intention, and got no answer. You could say drug users are currently oppressed and wrongly, or at least certain drug users, under the current "democracy". And with regards to war... If everyone really participated and worked together at governent you don't think they'd find what was fair? Ye've kinda got an equality mindset about ye from what i can see. Participatory democracy might encourage participation. And you'd think the more people working on something the less chance there'd be of a few corrupting it."Next, he claims that my Jacobian example from the French Revolution is outdated and not applicable in the modern world. First, you can turn this analysis, because the reason that its is not applicable is because we no longer have direct democracies. He has absolutely no examples that prove that direct democracies have worked properly in the past without the violation of natural rights, while I have this example of the most recent direct democracy that caused massive violations. Second, even if it is an "old example", that does not mean that the example is false or wrong. This is a logical fallacy, so you should not even consider this argument in this round."What? It was a revolution from tyranny wasn't it? You'd imagine the emotional considerations or whatever acted on by the oppressed during a revolution would be fairly understandable. I did also note that we'd likely be talking about a peaceful adoption of the policy. And it's down to you to provide examples, not me, what with you having the burden of proof. I wouldn't consider your example to hold any weight with regards to what we're talking about."Next bit about the tyranny bit"Fair enough. They were still aristocrats though, as in the former tyrants. A violent incepton from tyranny is fairly understandable i think. You can't go around tyrannising people and expect to get away with it. We're talking about peaceful inception. "Religion... interesting bit about guillotine. harms magnified."Well see this is where the different time part comes into it. You Americans are a lot more sophisticated a people as a whole than those lot were I'd bet, a lot more informed and capable of being heard. I figure it should just be pretty obvious that technology changes things. Maybe those "innocent" aristocrats wouldn't have suffered the same fate if the same thing were to happen in today's world? I still think it could be fairly understandable though, being pro death penalty myself. And then you've that religion is evil."In contention 2, I explained that checks against the people's pure will protects American citizens from tyranny. He first claims that tyranny will no longer happen, but I would contend that the only reason that this is true is because the checks exist to prevent it from occurring."No i didn't, i suggested it mightn't happen. And with regards to your contention, well yeah there'd definitely have to be checks on minority government, established in the interest of those they were governing. But they're just pieces of paper. You could consider them a set of don't fvck with us or we won't be happy guidelines from the society to its representative government possibly? And that their enforcement might stem from the collective people's attitude possibly? And then you might wonder why not go for a shot of ridding ourselves of the corruption minority government creates."You can extend the Supreme Court analysis, because without it, desegregation would never have occurred and racism would never have become defunct; these checks against tyranny are precisely what has shaped the American public's need to protect the rights of all."Did ye not have a war over slavery which the majority must've probably won what with it having been abolished, right? Every one checking on everyone."He then claims that the participating population would check itself. The problem is that since democracy is the will of the people, there would be absolutely no check on a majority seeking to harm a minority because the state would be forced to act according to the interests of the greatest number of the population."The attitude of the people maybe? Again see the war won in the interest of freeing slaves, though i wouldn't be all that informed on American history."He claims that this can be solved by argument and learning, but these concepts can only be implemented in a representative democracy, and not in a participatory democracy, because representative democracies have checks that slow the decision making process, while participatory democracies do not have this checks."Huge government where everybody has a say in everything wouldn't slow things down? I'd have thought it would. You'd think things would get far more scrutiny, and by everybody. And thus you might think things would work in the interest of everybody, provided ye're not majoritarily irrational or wankers, and you're just not arguing that all that well.