This House opposes term limits for elected Heads of State

A note about Con’s R3: I would like to point out that Con used an image to exceed the stated 8000 character limit. The overall sum of his argument for R3 comes to 7,515 characters (including sources); whereas the text of the image exceeds the remaining c500 characters. This counts against conduct [5] and is borderline cheating. Before I begin my rebuttal, I would like to match my opponent’s previous statement: I am a citizen of the UK and as such I apologise for any misassertions I may accidentally make with regards to the US political system. Rebuttal IX: “We haven’t actually established that keeping the same people in power actually makes them [the people] comfortable.” My opponent doesn’t seem to be making the connection here. This is a DEMOCRACY. If someone is being re-elected, then they must be more popular than all the other candidates (especially in the FPTP voting system used in the UK and the USA). People vote for a candidate who they feel comfortable with leading their country. Therefore, if the people ARE keeping the same person in power (via a democratic process) then they must be comfortable. People aren’t going to vote for someone they aren’t comfortable with purely by virtue of being the incumbent. Rebuttal X: “As new Presidents bring new ideas and changes to politics these will disappear while others will grow.” Con drops Pro’s argument that there is such a thing as a bad idea. Rebuttal XI: “Certain individuals are biased by their beliefs.” Sorry, don’t you vote for someone because you agree with what they believe in and what they stand for? I know that I (will) do. Of course people are biased by their beliefs, we all are. But that’s a natural and a good part of politics – that people actually BELIEVE in ideals and stand for them. A political system based purely on pragmatism and opportunism is a reckless one. Rebuttal XII: “In order to maintain a strong democracy multiple political parties are required.” Agreed. That problem is caused by the voting system. And this relevant to term limits how…? Rebuttal XIII: “The argument of sticking with the old rather than trying something new doesn’t make a lot of sense.” My opponent seems to be confused about what he is arguing for. May I remind him that he is not arguing the merits of electing a new candidate challenging an incumbent but that he is arguing in favour of people being FORCED to elect a new candidate even when the incumbent would be willing to stand again. Regardless: again, Con has made a fatal misassumption – that things consistently get better; that every election sees ‘better’ candidates than the last. And many people will tell you that this is simply not the case. Good leaders are followed by bad leaders, that is an inevitability. Forcing people into the situation where they choose a ‘bad’ leader because they are the best STANDING candidate is not an inevitability. Rebuttal XIV: “Naivety shows a willingness to try new things and get them done.” It does, correct. But the crux of this argument seems to come down to the benefits of a somewhat staid yet safe President and having an upstart, elected simply because the incumbent was unable to continue, who could royally screw everything up. And again, not every new idea is a good one, and many ideas weren’t tried by the previous administration because research suggested they would be terrible ideas. Rebuttal XV: “Ultimately, there is no good way to judge a good political decision versus a bad one, unless a new one is tried.” That may be true: what constitutes a ‘good’ decision is often something we see in hindsight. That doesn’t mean, however, that we should try something new out of sheer curiosity, to see if it works better. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. When we are talking about big political decisions, it is often best to go with the ‘safer’ option which doesn’t run risks which could put the country in turmoil. Rebuttal XVI: “There are reasons why 75% of Americans support term limits.” Given that the crux of your argument is that what the people want isn’t always right, doesn’t that render your opinion statistics irrelevant? Rebuttal XVII: “This is a little exaggerated and uses superfluous examples.” ‘Superfluous’? That’s a little bit of an understatement. All of the countries you have chosen were involved in major civil wars about how the nature of democracy itself should operate. You have cherry-picked examples of failing democracies (conveniently not mentioning that the USA was trying to decide how federalist democracy should be, and the countries of Egypt and Eastern Europe were trying to decide whether or not to have democracy at all). NONE of your examples have anything to do with term limits or any controversy therein. Rebuttal XVIII: “I don’t think many people are too ingrained into feeling comfortable with their nation’s leader.” You are using the word ‘comfort’ too exclusively. Being comfortable with one’s leader is not just a matter of not having screwed it up. Being comfortable with a leader is about being happy with their performance and not seeing any reason to replace them. Yes, people might eventually grow to like the new head of state you force them to elect. But let’s compare the choices we offer. You force them to elect someone they might eventually like: I allow them to elect someone who they do like. Things can change, of course, but it is my plan that provides more certainty and stability. Rebuttal XIX: “If you know you only have a certain amount of time… you’re more likely to make impending decisions…” (chopping for character purposes) Pro turns this point. If you know you aren’t constrained by some arbitrary limit, surely you have more time to consider and cross-examine your policies as opposed to rushing through legislation before you’re booted out. Rushing decisions is rarely a good thing. Rebuttal XX: “You will think yourself a fool for not participating in the failsafe of locking your house.” But, equally, you haven’t given me examples of where a lack of term limits has led to disaster. Houses do get robbed, though maybe not in one’s area. You haven’t given me an example ANYWHERE of term limits gone wrong. Rebuttal XXI: “Term limits mean people know they are returning to the world they are creating.” Con has completely ignored Pro’s Rebuttal VIII, which demonstrates that most people won’t just serve ad infinitum. Few politicians serve until they die – so MOST LEADERS WILL RETURN HOME TO THE WORLD THEY ARE CREATING. Summing Up I’m very nearly out of characters so this summing up will be short and sweet. Con has spent most of his speeches giving arguments in favour of allowing new people into power, as opposed to re-electing someone by virtue of being the incumbent. This strategy is flawed for two reasons. It is primarily flawed because it does not meet his half of the debate: he has not demonstrated why there should be a COMPULSION to elect someone new. And equally, Pro has efficiently and effectively rebutted these points with arguments in favour of allowing people to re-elect a choice they are confident and comfortable with. Pro has given better spelling, grammar and conduct. Pro has met his side of the BoP, whereas Con has simply been arguing for the wrong resolution. Pro demonstrates that people should be trusted to make the choice, therefore, Pro wins this debate. Conclusion Voters should vote as follows: Pro takes S/G as I know how to use apostrophes. Pro takes Conduct because of Con’s use of images to bypass character limits. Pro takes Arguments for actually arguing the right thing. Sources are equal. I thank RocketEngineer for this debate. Additional Source [5] http://www.debate.org...