Alternatives to simple debate

My opponent's very brief argument is that: "I would like to see politians state in detail their position, without interruption allowing for a response on a subject of their choosing so that I can review multiple positions and decide for myself which is the position I go for".On the basis of this, my opponent would prefer an alternative to "simple debate", so my side needs to negate the idea that simple debate is not to be preferred over politicians stating their position in detail.Negative CaseP1: Representative DemocracyThe implied political structure is a Representative Democracy: "A representative democracy is a system of government in which all eligible citizens vote on representatives to pass laws for them. A representative democracy is a system of government in which all eligible citizens vote on representatives to pass laws for them" [1]. In other words, officials are elected to office by the people in order to represent the people.A1: The informed should steer the ship As the great philosopher Plato made his analogy involving politics in The Republic, politics is much like a ship [2, 169-170]. A problem with Democracy is that the average voter knows little or even cares little about politics. Would you trust the average sailor (voter), who knows very little about navigation (politics) to steer the ship (make correct political decisions)? I think that no reasonable human would think so, hence it would be unwise for the ignorant to be given so much impact in politcal matters.Now, in the case of my opponent's argument, implied is that the voter is listening to the ideas of the politician in great detail. But do you see the folly in that? Why is the person, who has never held office or been involved in politics, making decisions on whether a certain political decision is sound? Do you hire a plumber only to tell him how to do his job? Or do you pay this plumber to have the expertise and knowledge to do the job without your imput?Let the informed steer the ship, or else we will capsize or wreck. Voters should choose who they best think will lead, not on intricate details of politics of which they have no experience to relate. The best way to see who is more competent a leader is to see how he/she handles fierce opposition in a simple debate against another trained professional.A2: Save timeTo state a position in detail would take much time. A simple Google scholar search on "Gay marriage" returns "About 457,000 results" [4]. There are simply so many facets and intricacies on every political topic that to learn about these, the voter would require an enormous amount of time in order to be informed. Remember that this is only one issue! Imagine how much you would have to know about politics in order to be competent in deciding political decisions!Also, to listen to hours, upon hours of detail that is required to have a firm idea of an issue is simply not possible. According to a Stauffer, Frost, & Rybolt (1983), "on average, viewers who just watched and listened to the evening news could only recall 17.2% of the content when not cued" [3]. Clearly, information would have to be repeated several times in order for the listener to understand, and I am not even taking into consideration the more complex topics that require higher I.Q. to process quickly.My opponent's suggestion of voters listening in detail to politicians, in order to decide if their policy is desirable, would take an enormous amount of time, due to not only the scale of information required to be known, but due to human inefficiencies in absorbing the information.ConclusionSo, allowing debate to occur saves us the problem of having incompetent people try to decide whether the politician understands the issue. Or, in the event that a voter wants to learn about the issue, save an enormous amount of time educating the voter to a reasonable extent. Let the people decide who should lead based on his/her character and/or track record via a simple debate. The resolution is negated.References:[1] http://education-portal.com...[2] http://www2.hn.psu.edu...[3] http://d1025403.site.myhosting.com...[4] https://scholar.google.com.au...=