Resolved: In the game "Mafia," the Town should abide by the Policy, "Lynch All Liars"

C1) LAL removes the mafia's responsibility from a mislynchCon fails to explain why this is a reason LAL should not be used. This is important because this objection is not limited or unique to LAL. For any bandwagon to form, there must be a reason. If the reason is good enough to convince people to hop on the bandwagon, then any mafia on that wagon can use that reason as their explanation for the lynch.The only alternative is that every single person on a lynch must have their own independent and individual reasons for voting someone; it is not allowed for anyone else to agree with another player. After all, you'll just run into this scenario:Townie: "Why did you vote on the mislynch?"Scum: "Because of the reasons presented for the lynch."Ergo, lynches should not have reasons or arguments in support of them, as this removes mafia's responsibility. This is obviously absurd. LAL provides no more a haven for absolving mafia than does any other reason behind a lynch.C2) LAL gives the mafia free mislynchesThis contention is merely a matter of perspective. With LAL in place, it isn't LAL that gives mafia free mislynches, it is frivolous and pointless lying that garners no advantage. If the lie gets a townie lynched, but achieved some goal to the benefit of the town, that is not a "free" mislynch. The only way such a mislynch would be free is if the lie did not serve any benefit. I don't agree that we should permit such lies, and Con presents no reason why we should.Con says: "This is where the problem lies: Townies may lie with the understanding that they will be lynched - and they will be lynched. However, these lynches move the mafia closer to their win without giving the town any new information at all so LAL is actually a pro-mafia strategy."The question becomes: why would such a townie lie if it doesn't give the town any new information? That is a BAD lie. Such lies should be discouraged, and LAL does just that.Regarding the reference to the Tarantino mafia:Royal lied about her claim because she felt it wasn't believable (1). Likewise, TV gave the same reason for his lie (2), and this was after the events that unfolded with royal. Such lies serve NO benefit to the town and, indeed, they served no benefit to the town.C3) Town Liars vs. Scum LiarsCon has put forth fantastical and unrealistic scenarios. I don't doubt that anyone could concoct imaginary situations where any strategy is bad. Con puts forth the scenario where we have a number of ousted liars and mafia will work together to make sure the lying townies die first.With LAL, liars are lynched as soon as they are ousted. Con is suggestion that we wait until all liars have been ousted, THEN proceed to lynch them. This is not a realistic scenario and should not count against LAL.Con does ask the good question: "What if there IS a good cause for lying? LAL would advocate lynching those liars as well which is overall a detriment to the town."Unfortunately, he doesn't articulate what the good cause is. The only good cause is eliminating scum and a 1-for-1 trade off ALWAYS benefits the town. Ergo, LAL does not provide an overall detriment to the town.C4) Overall SuccessCon contradicts himself here. In Contention 3, he uses mafia working together to get lying townies lynched first as a basis for his argument against LAL. Here, in contention 4, he states he is not doing that. It cannot be both ways.Again, he presents unrealistic scenarios. Why are the reasons for lying at MYLO? How is it possible for every single person to have been caught in a lie at the same time? What were the gains of the lie? These are important details necessary in a true analysis of LAL.C5) Pro's ExamplesCon continues to ignore and make excuses for poor lies. It is natural to distrust people that lie. After all, that is what the fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" was designed to teach: Don't lie or people won't believe you when you're telling the truth. The lies in Tarantino mafia were poorly thought out, short-sighted, self-serving and provided no benefit to the town, even if LAL wasn't employed.I don't think townies should stop lying and it is not my position that townies should stop lying. I have been explicit in this from the beginning and to suggest that "Pro wants to abolish lying" is an outright misrepresentation of my position.There are many circumstances where town should like. But everything town does should be with the object of the game in mind: Eliminating scum as a team. Any lie that doesn't serve that purpose is a bad lie, LAL or no LAL. LAL simply makes the consequences of such lies more real.C6) Lying vs. MisleadingI agree that there are good reasons to lie. This does not contradict implementing LAL. If a townie wishes to lie, they should have LAL in mind.Conclusion:All my opponent has done is concocted bizarre and incomplete scenarios in an attempt to show how LAL could possibly, in such scenarios, LAL would not be the best choice.However, LAL is a strategy designed to benefit town across games. There are no guarantees and Con would have you believe that if LAL would fail town in 1 in 1,000 games, but benefit in the other 999, then we shouldn't use it. After all, it failed town in that 1 game. Con has townies lying constantly, without reason or benefit, and has all liars ousted at the same time and townies being lynched first. These are unreasonable and unrealistic scenarios and LAL should not be judged against them.Con misrepresents my position as an attempt to abolish lying, completely ignoring my statements to the opposite.Most importantly, Con addressed none of the benefits of LAL, which is tantamount to a concession. LAL makes the game tougher for the mafia, since they must lie. With LAL in place, getting caught kills them. It may kill townies too, but if Con suggests that a game can be won without townies getting killed, then we're not talking about the game of Mafia.[1] http://www.debate.org...[2] http://www.debate.org...