Public Behaviour

Thank you for the chance to argue on public behavior. It was the great German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche who remarked that "The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it." It is in his words that I find an excuse for Langrall's actions. Which is why I stand firmly in negation of Resolved, that no circumstance can excuse Ms. Langrall's behaviour in the following incident. I will begin with a brief road-map: Definitions, Interpretation, Observations, Contentions, Voter Terms In clarification of today's debate, I provide the following definitions from <http://www.merriam-webster.com...;, as the affirmative side has failed to do so: 1)circumstance- a condition, fact, or event accompanying, conditioning, or determining another 2)excuse- to serve as excuse for, justify 3)Ms. Langrall's behavior- behavior pertaining SPECIFICALLY to Ms. Langrall Therefore, the resolution can be taken as to meaning... Resolved: No condition, fact, or event justifies Ms. Langrall's behavior. As an Observation, Note that all I have to do to win in this debate is prove that at least one condition, fact, or event exists that would attest to the justification of Ms. Langrall's actions as depicted in my Opponent's first constructive. The following Contentions contain evidence and analysis upholding the negation of the resolution. Contention 1: Psychiatric Disability is a condition that would justify Ms. Langrall's behavior. <http://www.bu.edu...; "Mental illness is a term that describes a broad range of mental and emotional conditions. Mental illness also refers to one portion of the broader ADA term mental impairment, and is different from other covered mental impairments such as mental retardation, organic brain damage, and learning disabilities. The term ‘psychiatric disability' is used when mental illness significantly interferes with the performance of major life activities, such as learning, working and communicating, among others." Because mental illness can lead to irrational behavior i.e. that of throwing a "urine-soaked sweatshirt on cop", this is a condition that justifies Ms. Langrall's behavior. Contention 2: Crooked Cops, Drug Addiction, and the Desire for revenge <http://www.csdp.org...; "What do America's major cities have in common with L.A.? Crooked cops. Cops faking evidence and lying in court, cops shaking down drug dealers, cops working for dealers, cops stealing the drugs and dealing themselves. A 1998 GAO report says money isn't the only motive. 'Vigilante justice' is another factor. Put yourself in the cop's shoes. It's tough to legally find evidence of a drug deal between a willing buyer and seller. To make it stick you're going to have to lie about it on the witness stand. Everybody knows you're lying — the prosecutor, the judge, the bailiff — but nobody complains because that's how you get the job done. But no matter how many drug dealers you bust, they are instantly replaced. No matter how many tons of drugs you seize, the flow never stops. No matter how much dirty money you confiscate, it keeps bubbling up out of the sewers. So maybe the tenth time or the twentieth time you hand over a suitcase full of cash to the evidence locker, it dawns on you that this is Mission Impossible. Why not get in on the action and kick a little butt while you're at it. All across the country — all across the world — the drug war is giving us organized police crime on a frightening scale. It's undermining our criminal justice system and our civil rights. " As a statement of fact, it is undeniable that being put under arrest under questionable means or charges would upset anyone. Whether or not Ms. Langrall actually was committing theft is the true question. In today's day and age, drugs have proven to be a significant problem. That being said, with no way to distinguish between these "crooked cops" and the cops that uphold the constitution's rights, the policeman dealt with in Ms. Langrall's case could very well have been expressing "vigilante justice", or one of his own personal biases. Since the police report makes no specific incites, inferences can be made where applicable. Thus, though the manner of achieving it is considerably disgusting in the eyes of society, revenge appears to be a highly feasible option for Ms. Langrall. Therefore, however disgusting it may be, Ms. Langrall's possible "circumstances", including Crooked Cops, Drug Addiction, and the Desire for revenge, attest to the justification of her behavior. Contention 3: Unpredictability of the "Damned Human Race" <http://www.thedamnedhumanrace.com...; "One is obliged to concede that in true loftiness of character, Man cannot claim to approach even the meanest of the Higher Animals. It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of apï¿½proaching that altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable. I find this Defect to be the Moral Sense. He is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is the quality which enables him to do wrong. It has no other office. It is incapable of performing any other function. It could never have been intended to perform any other. Without it, man could do no wrong. He would rise at once to the level of the Higher Animals. Since the Moral Sense has but the one office, the one capacity (to enable man to do wrong) it is plainly without value to him. It is as valueless to him as is disease. In fact, it manifestly is a disease. Rabies is bad, but it is not so bad as this disease. Rabies enables a man to do a thing, which he could not do when in a healthy state: kill his neighbor with a poisonous bite. One is the better man for having rabies: The Moral Sense enables a man to do wrong. It enables him to do wrong in a thousand ways. Rabies is an innocent disease, compared to the Moral Sense. No one, then, can be the better man for having the Moral Sense. What now, do we find the Primal Curse to have been? Plainly what it was in the beginning: the infliction upon man of the Moral Sense; the ability to distinguish good from evil; and with it, necessarily, the ability to do evil; for there can be no evil act without the presence of consciousness of it in the doer of it. And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor (some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance) insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch less innocence, till we have reached the bottom stage of development (namable as the Human Being). Below us, nothing." In Mark Twain(Samuel Clemens)'s "Damned Human Race", Twain notes that it is mankind's irrational Moral Sense which both distinguishes between right and wrong and allows for mankind to take part in both. In relation to the case of Ms. Langrall, her condition may have been solely the irrationality defined by Twain's in depth thesis. Despite its lack of moral permissibility, said condition still serves to justify Ms. Langrall's actions. In regards to voter terms, having shown at least one condition, fact, or event exists that attests to the justification of Ms. Langrall's actions as depicted in my Opponent's first constructive, I have met the criteria for winning this debate. I have shown that Psychiatric Disability, Crooked Cops, Drug Addiction, the Desire for revenge, and the overall irrationality of the human race serve as conditions, or circumstances, justifying Ms Langrall's "behaviour", thus winning this debate five times over. Therefore I strongly urge a ballot in favor of the negative. Thank You