Society is getting worse.

I would just like to start off by saying that I'm sorry for postponing this debate so long. Furthermore, I want to assist my opponent with the character limit problem. The reason for your problem is because of this... ------------ Very beneficial to organizational skill, hurtful to the character limit. Lol, jk. I would also like to wish you good luck as we continue this debate. Now on to the argumentation. 1)I would like to start by saying that my example provided before is meant to illustrate society in general, I'm not trying to limit it to only what I see and ignore what others see as well. It's just an example of one way a completely random person would be willing to be completely disrespectful to another random person. Furthermore, if you are tying to limit my example, than you should take a closer look at your own speech. You use an example of you own by saying, "I consider myself to be exceptionally polite, and the cmpany I keep is very well-mannered as well." However, when looking at this argumentation, anyone judging this round must accept my example as it is dealing with a rander person versus my opponent's own group of friends. He is limiting this debate to only those he associates with. 2) Now on to the example of throwing dead poor people onto a cart being disrespectful. I will completely agree with that. We have been on an increasing our level of manners since then, that is, until about the 1950's. This is the approximate peak of manners in our society before once again falling downward. Now, thankfully, we haven't reached and hopefully will never reach anothaer level that is as low as throwing dead people on a cart, but, nonetheless, we are still moving downward. If you wish for me to demonstrate, I asked my grandfather about this and a similar example happened to him in relation to my example from before. He was at a restaurant in Tennessee, set his coat down to pay fr his meal, paid it and left without his coat. The cashier came running after him and said, "Sir! Excuse me, sir! You forgot your coat." ~ "Thank you so much!" ~ "You're very welcome!" I would be very impressed if you could find someone today that would be willing to do that for just a "thank you." Therefore, in this sense, society is getting worse. 3)I have two arguments on your political correctness argument. a. First of all, political correctness has gone too far. People throughout this society are beginning to get upset and frustrated with political correctness. Take, for example, the incident of the Walmart shopper being greeted by a "Merry Christmas!" This one person made a big deal out of it saying that she was offended by those words. As a response, I, and several of my friends across the country, began to say "Merry Christmas" to everyone they walked by. To say that two words offends a person is completely ridiculous!!! If they don't like it, then ignore it! I know find it rude if a person tells me "Happy Holidays" versus the true holiday with which they will soon participate in. b. I have several friends that are minorities and prefer to be called what they are. My friend Kendra is black, and she prefers to be called it. If you ask her, she will tell you, "I'm black! I'm not an African American. I've never been to Africa and I never want to go to Africa, therefore, I'M BLACK!" She also says that if you don't say it in an offensive way, she doesn't take it as offensive; so why be offended by something that isn't offensive? I have several other friends including a Mexican and a Bhengali that share the same feelings and have made nicknames including their decent rather than Hispanic or Muslim; for example, "The cute lil' Mexican" or "The little brown Bhengali boy." They are the ones that made these names and wouldn't want it any other way. *Also, you mention that there is more censorship today than before. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!? Have you ever watched the show, South Park? On one of their episodes they said the "s" word over 100 times, and it wasn't bleeped out. Therefore, society is becoming more informal and thus worse because we are becoming, for lack of a better word, more barbaric. 4) You mentioned that show like SpongeBob Squarepants as what is "hot" and things like this have been around forever. I will once again agree with this, but what use to be hot was things like baseball or bike riding. We are now sitting in front of a couch watch a talking sponge. Can you honestly tell me how that has improved society? Also, reality shows are EVERYWHERE! There aren't just a few of them anymore, they're everywhere, on every channel!(Maybe a little exagerated, but you get the point) Furthermore, I will agree that we are still making good movies, but they use to be a dime a dozen. Now, there are fewer and fewer every year. Screen writers are running out of ideas and we are running out of good actors. Jack Nicholson, Sean Connery and Lucille Ball, Bob Hope... I could go on forever. They are few and far apart nowadays. Who is going to replace them? Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan? I mean, come on!!! Pretty soon we are only going to have remakes with mediocre actors! In the entertainment field, society is DEFINATELY getting worse! 5) You say that our dependency on technology is a good thing? Wrong! Although cell phones may be beneficial in emergencies, it is making our lives very impersonal. How much value can we put on a relationship if it can be ended by a text message? We are becoming dependent on technology because we beleive it is a good thing, when in reality, we are just becoming lazy. However, cell phones aside, I'd also like to point out other technological advancements that have greatly decreased our quality of life, including: Nukes (mass death and destruction), Television and Gaming (increased violence and obesity -- not to mention shorter attention span), any commmunication device (increase in cheating), Internet (pornography) and digital cameras (blackmail). You agree that people have the capacity to abuse technology, and the reason why society is getting worse, is because more and more people are recognizing their capacity to use if for evil. Now on to my opponent's side. I'm slowly running out of characters, but I have several short points I would like to make on your arguments. First of all, for the human capital and medical advancement arguments, what good is any of this if we can't prevent the use of technology for evil. Who cares if we figure a way to live until we are seven hundred if a nuclear weapon can kill us all instantly? Who cares how much mankind is worth if we are only offsetting it by corruption? Which brings me to my next argument. I will agree that there has been an increase in society's tolarence, but just barely! As a percentage in comparison to the growing population, hate crimes have gone down very slightly. However, looking to police profiling, that number has increased dramatically. We are seperating ourselves by stupid stereotypes and we must stop racism before society can get any better. You also mention that teen drinking, drug use and pregnancy is falling, from 2000. This is a lie. Teen drinking especially has increased! From 2000 to 2005, SADD reports an increase in teen drinking by almost 2,000,000 kids. Also, those are just the ones getting caught. There are still plenty others that avoid being caught that are heavy drinkers. No matter which way you look at it, society is getting worse. Yeah, we may be making some advances in the world of academia, but what good is that if we are all becoming evil corrupt people? The world in and of itself doesn't seek improvement, individuals such as myself, and I'm hoping many of you, are the ones that are seeking improvement, but we need to help those who are struggling as well. Thank you.