Marches are not effective in combatting governmental abuse of power

Because you've introduced an entirely new claim and a host of new assertions, I will begin by addressing them. I. You have only established a trivial position that does not support your resolution. As I sought from the outset, it is necessary to avoid a debate in which one opponent arbitrarily narrows definitions to avoid the consequences of evidence. Your resolution was that "marches are not effective in combating governmental abuse of power." Your arguments have progressively altered this claim to a resolution that "a mere nonviolent procession of individuals cannot, by itself, end a governmental abuse of power." These are completely different claims, and the evolution of your position is the result of your flight from the applicable evidence that demonstrates that marches are effective in combating governmental abuse of power (I will finalize my assertion of this positive claim later). Your original resolution emphatically establishes that the proper context of "march" is a march as a demonstration against a governmental abuse of power. Not Macy's parades, victory processionals, and so forth (why else would we be considering your resolution?). But when examples of effective marches have been cited, your response has been to re-define a march so that it has none of the fundamental characteristics of a march (in context)--that it is part of a demonstration, that its participants have goals of one sort or another, that its leaders have agendas, and so forth. In light of the overwhelming evidence that marches do contribute to solutions to governmental abuse of power, you have run from this evidence by concentrating on the contribution of other factors that are supposedly separable from the "march." Far from considering whether a "march" can be "effective" in "combating" a governmental abuse of power, you are now merely arguing that other factors or actions are necessary for success. That is somewhat like arguing that a collar is an ineffective means of controlling a dog during a walk, because leashes and a reasonable degree of training may also be important. No clear-thinking individual should accept either proposition. Your newly-arrived-upon position (that marches must be completely effective, alone, at ending governmental abuse of power) is completely different from your resolution. Finally, your position seems to have morphed yet further in that you are claiming that a march cannot end all governmental abuse of power. Again, as I anticipated and sought to prevent from the outset, the purpose of this debate cannot be to test the trivial position that a single march would still leave in place the possibility of some other future abuse. In short, you have adopted the trivial position that a single processional lacking any of the qualities that are commonly associated with a march against governmental abuse of power cannot completely end the totality of governmental abuse of power when there are no other contributing factors whatsoever. Of course it couldn't. How could it? But more importantly, who cares? Because that trivial position offers no support for your resolution. II. Your new arguments do not establish your resolution and are often irrelevant to it. You begin by incongruously appealing to action and claiming that marches cannot help prevent various atrocities. If swaying public opinion is, as you propose, so important in combating a governmental abuse of power, then why not march in hopes of drawing attention to the abuse of power? In any case, you don't offer evidence that individuals marched against the genocides you mention--so at best you can make a bald conjecture that a march wouldn't have helped. If I granted you the point, it still wouldn't show that marches are always ineffective. Furthermore, your claim that abuses end only when the portion of the public in support of the abuse has a change of heart is logically false. For instance, a majority of persons may oppose an abuse but not realize the extent or importance of its existence. A march draws attention to abuses and may lead people to prioritize differently--so the claim that ending an abuse absolutely must turn on a change of heart of those who support the abuse is logically false. III. Your claims about the structure of government are irrelevant and false. You claim that ending government abuse would most likely require a change in government structure, but the question was not whether a march could end all governmental abuse. Your claim is in support of the trivial proposition that abuse remains possible within our current structure, when the resolution concerns whether marches can combat abuse. Accordingly, your arguments in this vein are irrelevant. Furthermore, they are false. First, you claim that Adam Smith was a founder of the United States. He was not. He was born in Europe, where he was educated, where he traveled, and where he lived, taught, and wrote. Although I hate citing to Wikipedia, in this case a simple background may provide more facts than you currently have. (http://en.wikipedia.org...) Perhaps more importantly, you have taken Adam Smith's quote out of context. I leave the reader to reference his own copy of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and instead reference this article (http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com...) as support for this brief explanation of your error. Adam Smith was, in the relevant chapter, demonstrating why civil government was necessary for the establishment of property rights when there is something more complex than a hunter-gatherer society, and how these property rights can benefit everyone. You have misquoted Smith in an attempt to show that he advocated for oppression of the poor, but that is not what he advocated. Second, your claims about James Madison are yet another misconstruction of his full argument and its effects (here: http://founders.archives.gov...). The "permanent interest" he references is a democracy where all classes participate, not a permanent interest in protecting an opulent class. His apparent solution was not even completely adopted, and the Senate today is even further different from his proposal. Again, even ignoring the fact that you have quoted an argument about something that does not even exist, you have misquoted Madison in an attempt to show that our government is structured to preference the opulent, but the full quote actually concerns a balance of interests and the enabling of suffrage to all classes. In short, your discussion of structure is false and, in any case, irrelevant to whether marches can contribute to solving abuses, even abuses made possible because of our social and governmental structure. IV. Your claims about the evolution of social justice are misleading. You have claimed that injustices continue despite the civil rights reforms and laws that marches, in part, contributed to. Aside from admitting your resolution is incorrect, the basic problem with your claims is that our nation today is genuinely much different from our nation fifty or so years ago, even though I completely agree that there are still injustices, especially structural injustices, to combat. Here is one relevant statistic, since you bring up the shooting of unarmed black men. It is true that unarmed black men are shot at higher rates than whites--but consider the change since the civil rights movement (http://www.motherjones.com...). Even though there is still work to do, the difference between whites and blacks in terms of police shootings from about 8x to about 2x. To claim that this is not an improvement is disingenuous. You also claim that Selma has accomplished little, but the data show that it has resulted in much more extensive minority participation and representation in politics. (http://www.core-online.org...) B. If you accept the proposition that "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing," then I propose that marching is not only an action but also a good way for good folks to draw attention to the necessity of action. 1. The march from Selma to Montgomery was politically valuable in enabling federal legislation to combat abuses against voting rights. (http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu...) The Selma march was specifically used on the federal level to justify the voting rights act, which has been associated with vastly improved levels of minority participation and representation in politics. (http://www.core-online.org...) 2. It is a historical fact that Ghandi's march, although it did not accomplish all of its objectives, was instrumental in combating British abuses in India, precisely because the march drew great attention to the situation in India. (http://www.sparknotes.com...) Furthermore, this opposition to governmental abuse had unanticipated effects in other nations, such as the U.S., by influencing future marches. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com...) 3. I argue that the Pride Marches have been part of keeping the LGBT community's struggle for rights in the consciousness of local communities. Over the course of the last fifty years or so, American attitudes have changed radically (http://www.norc.org...), and this is likely a consequence of a number of strategies and facts--one of which is the fact that the LGBT community has made a point of reminding us that they're here, queer, and we should get used to it. In conclusion: For sake of space I will let the remainder of my arguments stand without further defense or reiteration. Marches can be and are effective in combating abuse.