BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Churches should be excluded from gay or lesbian laws

So here's my argument: 1. We have religious freedom. Christianity started over 2000 years ago, and the Bible, their holy book, does not allow believers to have relationships (as a married couple) with people of the same sex. This religion did not pop up all of a sudden so people against the proposed laws could find a way to get around it. The same goes to Jewish people. Their religion does not allow same-sex marriage either. So if a Christian church pastor replies no when a child at Sunday school asks if being gay or lesbian is OK, it should not count as discrimination of people who have different sexual interests. If there is a job open at a church (let's say a technician), and a person who applied was lesbian, and the church refused to accept her application, it should not count as discrimination towards people who have different sexual interests as well. 2. I am only asking for churches to be excluded, and that does not include a person who is a Christian extremist but does not represent a church. Whatever comment he made on such topic not on behalf of a church is not excluded from the proposed law. There are things I would like to clarify: True, you cannot control who you fall in love with. You cannot help it if he/she just happens to be the same sex as you are. And of course you will not like it if people discriminate you and treat you unfairly because of your unusual marital status. I am just suggesting that churches should be excluded because of reasons such as religious freedom.
Unions

You're completely wrong when you say they are no longer needed for anyone. I work in HR, and I can tell you that MOST entry level and/or minimum wage earning employees are treated HORRIBLY by their employers and given NO benefits with VERY low wages, and if/when they get a raise it's Five or Ten CENTS after a YEAR of their life dedicated to their employer, 5 cents? That doesn't nearly cover the cost of living increases in a year, which means they are actually making LESS this year than last year!
Unions

Long Story Short, Compare the HOURLY rate of pay and the BENEFITS PACKAGE of ALL of the employees in UNION employment versus those in NON Union employment, and you'll see it's BLACK and WHITE! UNION employment comes with MUCH better STARTING rates of pay, as well as MUCH BIGGER RAISES throughout employment, not to mention MUCH BETTER Job Protection, and last but not least MUCH BETTER and MUCH LESS expensive Insurance costs! I hope you are able to see it's pretty clear which type of employment is GOOD for employees and which is BAD for employees. And this comes from YEARS of CONFIDENTIAL access to Corporation Policies and Benefits as I'm and HR Specialist!
Unions

EVERYONE who makes LESS than TWENTY 20 $/hour is going to AGREE with me because they ALL have seen between ZERO and TEN CENT raises MANY TIMES in their career. Unions give HUGE RAISES and GREAT STARTING pay from the VERY BEGINNING of their employment, not to mention FULL BENEFITS on the VERY FIRST DAY! NON UNION employers don't offer ANY benefits to the Entry Level Employees for MANY months even YEARS into their employment!
Unions

Con states that Employers do NOT give their employees DECENT raises. Con doesn't provide a definition for DECENT; this is problematic as it subjective at best, based on current or past experience. Who is to say that 15 cents wasn't all the employer could afford. Wages have been stagnant for the past 8 years. Furthermore, con provides no data supporting this claim. Con states that in a Union you start at a higher. Once again there is no data to support this. Con assumes that workers only want money, when it is possible workers may simply want to get their foot in the door or experience. Con states Cost of Living increases EVERY year AND performance based increases as well, not to mention MUCH better benefits: free healthcare, college tuition assistance, health club coverage, dental, vision, you name it! There is no data to support these claims. Further con doesn't point out that even if these things are true, they come at a cost in the form of union dues. Con states that he works in HR, like a good little lap dog.
Unions

Starting with ad hominem, spicy. You seem like a peach. Good luck to you, Sir. Labor Union: an organized association of workers, often in a trade or profession, formed to protect and further their rights and interests. I think this is a fair definition. Unions are no longer needed and based on the fact that technological advancements were the main source of easing labor hardships, I would say they were never needed. In 2013 Union membership is 6.7%. Manufacturing unionized jobs crumbled by 73% between 1983 and 2013. Non Union manufacturing jobs only fell by 7%. So I think the kids are alright. Unions are the antithesis to voluntary exchange. Voluntary exchange is the exchange of goods and/or services by way of voluntary agreement between two parties. Unions operate under the assumption that they know what is better for the worker than the worker does. This is completely false and as Adam Smith stated, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Individuals will always operate in their own self-interest. They will pursue whatever they believe is best for them, this is the realm of free will. To limit a person"s free will is no different than slavery. As we know this behavior is immoral. Henry Ford presents a great example of voluntary exchange. As more car manufactures began to sprout in the states, many of Ford"s workers were offered higher pay to work for the other companies. To combat the loss of some of his employees he counter offered. No unions, no minimum wage, just unfettered market. Unions were never needed; the free market would have and did self correct unfair or exploitative employer employee relationships. In fact, the market was responsible for improving working conditions, unions simply rode the coattails. Technological advancements reduced labor hardships, not unions fighting for their workers. Unions actually hurt poor working families and slowed tech advancements with proposed restrictions. "They have opposed the introduction of labor-saving machinery on the grounds that it causes unemployment"the abolition of child labor was an accomplishment of capitalism and the rise in the productivity of labor it achieved. As in the case of maximum-hours laws, insofar as child-labor laws merely ratified the abolition of child labor already being achieved by the market, they were superfluous. Insofar as they went ahead of the market, and imposed reductions in child labor beyond what parents judged their families could afford, they were destructive. Along with depriving poor families of urgently needed income, they had the effect of forcing children to work at lower wages and in poorer conditions than they needed to." ~George Reisman Again Ford employees had no labor union. Emplyees were paid $5 per day, twice the normal wage. So much for exploitative employers. 1 Bureau of Labor Statistics 2 http://patriotupdate.com... 3 http://www.redstate.com... 4 http://www.unionfreeamerica.com...
Unions

I forgot that many of you on here are teenagers. You're response sounds like a teenage response. I explain in my LAST posts why Unions are needed. Employers do NOT give their employees DECENT raises, they get between ZERO to 15 CENT raises each year. In a Union, first of all you have a MUCH higher STARTING wage, then you get Cost of Living increases EVERY year AND performance based increases as well, not to mention MUCH better benefits: free healthcare, college tuition assistance, health club coverage, dental, vision, you name it! MOST entry level employees at NON union companies do NOT get ANY paid time for AT ALL!
Atheists are ignorant

I will include rebuttals in this round as you have not stated otherwise. Arguments Ignorant- lacking knowledge or information Atheists - one who believes that there is no deity The notion that anyone who doesn't believe in a deity (atheist), lacks knowledge or information (ignorance) is absolutely incorrect. When one is to believe something, there are two (basic) methods. Here is a quote from impotanceofphilosophy.com. It states "When accepting a statement as true, there are two basic methods. The first is reason. It is when the known evidence points to the statement being true, and when the truth of the statement doesn't contradict other knowledge. The second is faith. It is when one accepts a statement as true without evidence for it or in the face of evidence against it". Religion is entirely dependent upon faith. In fact, if you do believe in a religion(specific to the religion, Christianity), then you are ignorant in this matter as you are lacking knowledge or information to support your claims yet you still believe it. Atheists however, have many reasons to believe otherwise. Here is a simple, yet powerful, question which destroys the notion of god. "Can god create a rock that he cannot lift?". It is one of the many reasons why atheists don't believe in a deity. Atheists are informed of these questions and one of the many reasons they are atheists is because of these questions. Final remark(s) To state that "Atheists are ignorant" is incorrect as Atheists are well informed upon the matter (which is why they are atheists). Rebuttals "Ok so if god is real, then Atheists are ignorant". That argument is dependent upon the validity on the notion of god. You have not proved that god is real, save the next statement (which is weak). Therefore that argument is hollow. "I mean there are so many religions and they ignore that?". To have this statement be correct, one must believe two things. Firstly, that Atheists ignore other religions. Secondly that Mass belief upon something is evidence of its validity. For the first belief, Atheists are not ignoring other religions. They simply see the flaws in them and choose not believe in a flawed theory. For the second belief, mass belief of something is not legitimate proof of its validity. Here is an example. For years many believed the earth was flat. However there is legitimate proof that shows otherwise. There was mass belief yet it was incorrect. Sourceshttp://www.importanceofphilosophy.com... http://www.merriam-webster.com...http://www.merriam-webster.com...
Creationism: God created a perfect universe in 7 days

Before I begin to refute my opponents claims, I will first present my own. 1.The complexity of organisms demand that there is a Creator All organisms have DNA, a very complex molecule that is responsible for the production of all proteins that make up that organism. What is most intriguing about DNA is that it is a very sophisticated language system where the "words" have a completely different meaning than the nucleotides or "letters" much like how the meaning of words are different than the letters it is composed of. Evolution doesn"t provide any explanation on how such a coding system could evolve on its own, much less the mechanisms that take that code and make them into functional proteins. Have you ever seen a code or language not written by an intelligent mind? 2.Chinese characters point to Genesis Chinese writing, one of the oldest languages to exist has some characters that refer to Genesis. Here is a link to the article: http://creation.com... One of my favorites can be found a 5D with the character of large boat !337;z90;The left radical is !311; meaning vessel. The radical on top is 八 meaning eight and 口means people. This character is a reference to Noah"s Ark and Noah"s family of eight. Another character 婪meaning to desire composes of two trees on top 木 and the character 女meaning female. This is a reference to the Garden of Eden, the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil and Eve"s temptation. 3. Evidence challenging Old Earth Carbon-14 has been used to date dead animals, but Carbon-14 can only date things no older than 50,000 years old. However, C14 has been discovered in diamonds which are supposed to be billions of years old. Diamonds are one of the hardest materials known to man so contamination shouldn"t be a problem. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu... https://answersingenesis.org... Dr Russell Humphreys and Dr John Baumgardner, leaders of the RATE project discovered that significant amounts of helium have been found in zircons. Helium, due to the size of its molecules shouldn"t exist in structures billions of years old. http://creation.com...
You shouldn't raise the voting age to 21

Though it is not a problem per say, the idea of 16-year-olds being given the right to vote isn't actually a bad idea. Also, yes, children do look forward to being able to hold power and vote on something - so why not give them that power at a younger age? After all, by then, we do have adult responsibilities so it would be incorrect to say that we are 'too young' to vote at that stage. Furthermore, if we had more 16-year-olds (and, as I assume, 17-year-olds) with this right, the results of our future votes would differentiate and become a lot less conservative. As a result of this, we would be welcoming a much more open and diverse array of people in our society - with higher levels of LGBTQ+ acceptance being an example of a positive impact a lower voting age could give.
The legal definition of genocide

According to the U.N., the definition of genocide is this: Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such: 1. Killing members of the group 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part 4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group 5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group This would mean that the killing of around 10,000 homosexuals during the Holocaust would not be considered genocide due to the fact that they are not a "national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Or the killing of 200,000 disabled individuals during the same period of time. This definition of genocide is missing specific groups of people and I believe that it is flawed.
The legal definition of genocide

First, good luck to my opponent. Secondly, if I am correct, we are arguing if the definition of genocide is correct, which was unclear by the title. There was not enough information given by my opponent as to who the disabled/homosexual people belonged too. There was no indication of what groups that these people could have belonged too. For all the information given by the opponent, the disabled and homosexual population that was killed could have been from national, ethnic, racial , or religious minority. Is it possible that these people were of the many mercilessly killed Jews during the holocaust. This is why I believe that the contention raised by my opponent is too vague and unless later explained, shouldn't take any other place in this argument. Since there have been no arguments besides this, I believe that I have won this round.
Public Schools Should Allow Texting In Classrooms

Even today there are many ways of hurting someone in a school. . http://news.sky.com... . http://www.bild.de... . http://www.independent.co.uk... . http://www.usatoday.com... Schools are also thinking about having an emergency text system to alert people if an emergency is happening. . http://www.usatoday.com... "MANY schools now lock their doors and you are required to have a card or something else to get in. Also, there are MANY classrooms that have buttons in their class to push in case you need to get in contact with someone. " You said that many of them do, that does not mean all of them. You do not want to debate about money, I have many things to talk about concerning that, but I will obey the rules. Anything can happen with school phones, what if the power goes out? Then what? Police can not always go out to a school to pick up students. There would also be dangers in a anti-texting system, Cancer, disruption of a child's pacer, ect. I think my point is made.
Public Schools Should Allow Texting In Classrooms

Thank you :) First you stated that you believe that students should be able to keep their phones in case of an emergency. However, schools are equipped with many safety features for that type of situation. Many schools now lock their doors and you are required to have a card or something else to get in. Also, there are many classrooms that have buttons in their class to push in case you need to get in contact with someone. -If we keep phones in classrooms, it causes a big distraction to many. You brought up the fact about money: First I would like to point out that this is an LD based debate and we do not worry about the funding. Second, I am willing to give a brief argument though, but i would appreciate it if we didn't make this one of the main points.. you made a predicament on the cost of each device but $1,000,000 is too far out. If cellphones needed to be removed for educational purposes, we could make it happen. We are already wasting the US's money on education since the students are not paying attention in class anyway. And finally you mentioned about school lines being jammed. Every school has at least 2 phones in the office and extensions leading into classrooms. If there was an emergency involving the police, the police would come to the school and get the child. And for family matters, they COULD call the school. There is no way that the lines would be jammed. you have to realize that not every person will be calling the school all at once. Thanks :)
Public Schools Should Allow Texting In Classrooms

Thank you for your reply, You said that you believe that there should be some kind of protection around the room to avoid texting. What if a gunman came into a classroom and told everybody get down. He says he is going to kill everyone in one hour. One girl has a phone but can not make a call because the gunman will hear her. She tries to send a text message to her mom, but the message can not penetrate through the anti-text system. In one hour, they are all dead. Text messages have saved countless lives in the past. http://www.winknews.com... http://www.engadgetmobile.com... http://polizeros.com... It would also cost tax payers money to build the system in every school to block text messages. There are about 18,790 public high schools in the USA. If each system cost 1 million dollars, it would cost the Government $18,790,000,000! America is already suffering; we can not spend even more money to stop texting. What if a student is caught texing his girlfriend and they take his phone away. The Parents call him to tell them to get home as soon as possible because his mother is going into labor, but no one is there to pick up. The school lines are already jam packed. Can you imagine how many calls the school would receive? Thank you.
Public Schools Should Allow Texting In Classrooms

1. Yes, I believe that there should be some kind of protection around the room to avoid texting: -There are different devices that the network "people" can get to physically drain the battery to all phones if they are in a certain area. 2. True. You are true to say that, that sentence is false. (: 3. It kinda depends on the teacher/school. but... -Phone taken away -Phone goes to office -Parents have to come get it Thanks :) & Good Luck!
Public Schools Should Allow Texting In Classrooms

Rules: 1. Nothing to serious 2. Avoid text walls (don't type much) 3. Keep everything simple 4. Leave out a value and criterion 5. Have Fun! And now starting with my arguments: Texting can disrupt class. Therefore, I negate the resolution: RESOLVED: Public Schools Should Allow Texting in Classrooms I. Texting can distract the student -If the student is texting in class while the teacher is teaching, the student cannot comprehend what is being taught. II. Texting can distract other classmates -While texting, classmates can hear the phone vibrate, be distracted when the student pushes buttons, and finally: tune out the teacher and not accept any of the teachings.
Police profiling is collectivist, un-American, unconstitutional, and ineffective.

I am challenging my opponent, Daxitarian, to this debate because I agree with him on so many issues -- and yet I am shocked to see his support for "police profiling." I argue against "profiling" on philosophical, moral, legal, and utilitarian grounds. (By the way: This bout is schedule for two rounds, not three). 1. "Profiling" is collectivist: This is self-evident. Profiling is premised on the notion that human beings are not individuals, but rather, members of groups. Collectivism is the root of all evil philosophies -- tribalism, racism, Jihadist Islamicism, nationalism, welfarism, and socialism/communism, to name just a few. It presupposes that you can know a sufficient amount about a person based on his or her classification into a particular group. If this is untrue -- i.e. if human beings are individuals first -- then clearly, profiling cannot be effective. 2. "Profiling" is un-American: My arguments for this are fairly simple. For one, America was founded under principles of individualism, the opposite of collectivism. This individualism was embodied in our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Which brings me to my next point. 3. "Profiling" is unconstitutional. Amendment XIV: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS." In addition to the 14th (which was questionably ratified, I admit), there is also an argument to be made per the Fourth Amendment, protecting citizens from unreasonable search. Is racial identity sufficient alone for "probable cause?" 4. "Profiling" is ineffective: If we accept collectivism as valid (i.e. giving in to the David Dukes and Jesse Jacksons of the world), then "profiling" is still ineffective -- at least when applied to the "War on Terror." There are millions of non-Arab Muslims from lands far outside the Middle East. There are millions of Muslims in China, for example. Indonesia is the most populuous Muslim nation on the planet. There are European Muslims, such as the Chechen rebels, who appear as "white" as the average North Dakotan. And all of these regions have Al Qaeda and other radical elements. If Al Qaeda were to undertake another mission in the U.S., why would they use Arab agents? Why not use African Muslims who appear as black Americans? Literally every "race" of man on Earth has radical Muslim adherents amid its ranks. Thus, "profiling" cannot possibly be effective, even if you give in to its immorality and illegality.
High Schoolers Should Start Studying SAT/ACT Freshmen year

"Once you learn the concept (not memorize some formula), it will be stored in your passive memory which can be easily retrieved through renewing your neural pathways". I agree with this. This is why you should learn the material in your freshman and sophomore classes in your normal classes. Then you can refresh your memory on the information as you already learned them. "To be honest, relearning the material all over again will help solidify knowledge into your head" This does make sense but it would be better to learn the material in normal classes first and then relearn the material when preparing for the SAT at the end of sophomore year.