Having bad table manners makes you a less liked person.

Okay, so I just need to get a couple things off my back. First of all, what is up with the ""? Curiosity just got the better of me. Also, you make several points throughout your entire speech if I were bad mannered, you wouldn't think less of me. Well of course, that's cause I'm amazing and you know this. However, the reason that everyone thinks I'm amazing is because I know my manners, most of the time. The reason why people don't think less of me is because I make a good first impression with my manners. I wouldn't be nearly as liked if I didn't have decent manners, which I will get to again later in my speech. Now I'll move on to the debate at hand. On the overview, I will completely refute this in my speech and use crystallization to wrap things up at the end. I. Whether the topic of the debate says it or not, you said directly that you only need to prove that bad manners are beneficial to people's opinions of a person; therefore any instances of no effect must be discredited in this debate unless my opponent would like to contradict himself and admit that, for a change, he is wrong. I will not make this a huge part of this debate, but I just wanted it on the record that the great Luke Cumbee isn't sure in his own side of the debate and thus is going back on his own argument. A1. Okay, I'll give you that this debate is about the opinion of the common citizen, but where is the crucial argument here? You have one, I'm assuming, teenage boy as your key witness. It is obvious that women are more mature and prone to manners than most guys (unlike two upstanding gentlemen similar to ourselves), and yet you contend that his opinion wins your case for you? I'm sorry Mr. Cumbee, but I still fail to see the credibility of your witness. *I love how I'm turning this into a court case. A2. On this, I only have a brief argument. You're right, there is no set list of manners to enforce, that is why some manners carry more and less weight than others, but there are manners that are universal. If people talk with food in their mouths, that is considered a bad manner by the majority of the population. A3. I apologize Luke, but this argument is really evasive. Manners are manners and the reactions of them are all the same; for example, if a person is to cut in front of you in a line, pushing you aside, would you still be like, "I haven't met that gentleman yet and I bet he's an upstanding guy." I would highly doubt that that would be your reaction. I bet you would be saying to yourself, "what a jerk!" It's rude, it's impolite and it's in bad manners. If someone is rude, you think less of them, end of story. I also just want to note something. You said it yourself that good manners may make you a better liked person, but I will refute that argument that they may have no effect. B. Well, you may have actually used proper utensil setting, but I haven't since... okay, so I can't remember, but you get the point. I dare you to name one restaurant that actually uses proper settings. Burger King, McDonalds, Applebees, Red Lobsters, Chili's... (I can go on forever), all of whom wrap their utensils in napkins. Society has changed and thus it carries less weight than most. C. Alright, not to sound rude (although looking back, some of what I've said could be taken as rude comments, sorry), but I set these parameters to be appropriate for this debate and I have been following them, as have you, unless you wish to contradict yourself with the lunch ladies. Any people that work or participate in your dining experience are considered in this debate. I said that actions specifically at the dinner table and diners, if a person is working at a dining establishment, they are considers to be dining; dine being the base word of every single argument. The only reason I set this parameter, although I doubt that you would've gone there, was to avoid people disliking a person even though they have never been around them during dinner time. Furthermore, as you are using the lunch ladies in one of your arguments, you would be contradicting my supposed contradiction, and thus we would both be contradicting ourselves. I've never used that word so many times in such a little space. *Just out of curiosity, did you avoid my bad manners because you are unable to refute them. You chose three manners (elbows on table, place settings and "pleases and thank you's") that you actually had arguments for, but refuse to refute these? All of what I have given you are examples of bad manners, and, to a certain degree, you have agreed to them. The fact that you continue to argue some of these points later on (mouth full of food, burping, etc.), you must agree that they are bad manners. So I ask you, why aren't these being refuted? I. I'm just going to go back to my McDonalds argument here. I just got off from work about three hours ago and I was thinking about this debate all day. There were two instances that struck me. 1) I was working the front counter and I saw this little girl come up to the counter. I asked her, "Can I get you something?" She replied, "Yeah, I need two packets of Ketchup." I was kind of shocked that she didn't say please but gave it to her and she walked away without a simple thank you. I thought, "You're welcome you little brat." I hope no one thinks less of me for this, but she said it with a snooty little attitude and it really shocked me. A simple thank you, even with that attitude, would've made her seem a little better; but since her manners were bad, I did think less of her. 2) I was trying to help out and get the cars in my drive thru moving, the person next to me was handing bags of food out of the window, suddenly, my coworker turned to me and said, "Did you see that?" -- "No, what?" -- "That was one of the most rude people I have ever seen. He was talking on his phone, wouldn't even look at me, grabbed his food and drove off!" My coworker was appalled at this one random gentleman and, if he is seen in the future, I doubt that he would change much, if any. These are two instances of people with poor manners that have been thought less of by two common citizens and I'm sure there are many more across the country and the world. II. I'll give you your first point, but that is because of your second point. The majority of people in this country attempt to make a good first impression and work hard at it, because they know that bad manners may leave a bad impression. This is a little away from the food world, but if a person has bad manners at a job interview or date, they will most likely not be called back by the employer or date. The reason why first impressions are usually not final impressions is because manners are crucial to a first impression and most people know this. The reason why you and I are now friends is because I didn't walk up to you, with a mouth full of food, demanding a pencil or something ridiculous. We had a debate round together, I was polite and asked if my mom could watch our round and vice-versa for your dad. Manners are everything. III. Please cross-apply my last argument. (Due to character limits, I can't cover the excess of this argument.) Just to wrap up, I've given three examples (two from McDonalds and don't forget Grace and the food fight) that completely prove my side of the debate. Furthermore, my opponent has only shown you that it MAY have no effect, not to mention that he has yet to prove that it may be beneficial to have bad manners, and nothing more. PRO has given clear logic, several examples and, most importantly, brought more key points to the table than my opponent. All the con has been doing is picking and choosing his arguments to win this debate and therefore there must only be a PRO vote in this debate. I'm anxious for your reply and final argument and Good Luck in the rest of the tournament. This has been quit an interesting debate. Thank U