2nd DDO Census Debate: Syrian Refugees

Some Framework issues To start off our rebuttal, the Con would like to add in some framework that we feel is important to add, which relies mostly on burdens. Reading Pro"s most recent arguments, we are a little shocked to see that he doesn"t understand that our burdens differ. IE, Pro"s is all about the humanitarian aspects of assisting international refugees. They seem to be quite surprised that ours is not, and that we more heavily weigh the values of American Citizens. We thought this went without saying, given that we had repeatedly said we were arguing devil"s advocate in PM"s, and in the comments. Even in our own arguments, we haven"t attempted argue the perilous state of Syrian Refugees. Pro clings to these arguments, however and even had responded pretty aggressively in the previous round, which is a little un-tactful to do in a debate with someone you are arguing with who has the same belief set as you. When you are forcefully jabbing emotional points down the throat of an "adversary" who you know already agrees with you on many specific points, it seems a little unbecoming to be wrongfully accusing the Con of "Dropping points" and saying "extend this, Extend that". We feel the need to make this exceptionally clear that Pro is attempting to mis-lead the viewers by wrongfully accusing of us dropping points. In fact, we elected to focus the entirety of our arguments on just refuting the Pro in this debate. In fact the arguments that Pro wrongfully accuses us of dropping, are things we agree with ourselves and have said as much in the previous round. We don"t need to make an alternative scenario for refugees, doing so would be counter-productive. By the same logic, we should be creating alternative solutions for all of the worlds hunger, government suppression, and overall lack humanitarian support worldwide. The United States doesn"t have a solution for every third world countries problem in the world, and often times when it thinks it does, it makes things worse. So we ask the Pro now to quit saying that we have a burden to offer a better alternative for Syrian refugees. We acknowledge other alternatives exist for the refugees, whether the conditions are shoddy for them or not. Our main focus for rebuttal will revolve around your arguments on how assisting these refugees benefits the people of the United States, or at the very least your arguments on the United States Foreign policy perceptions. Lastly, I am going to tell you straight off, if you are a judge and have come into this debate looking to give the win to the debater that best supports the overall state of refugees, don"t read any further. Just give the win to Pro, and don"t waste your time. I accepted this debate under the hope of finding unconventional arguments that you wouldn"t generally expect to see from the typical conservative "Trump" style arguments, rooted in complete ignorance. The fact that the pro keeps relating us to this style of argumentation is extremely annoying. Twice now in the last round, they have put false national security arguments into our mouths. An argument we have never attempted to make. Pro seems to be hoping to have an easy debate hand fisting us ideals and morals that we already agree with, hoping that we are going to take the typical crazed conservative argument and play directly into their ball park. Pro is taking this debate to a Black or White area, which we have no interest in doing. From our perspective it is like we are in a rape debate, where Pro is screaming a bunch of sources for long lasting psychological effects of rape to it"s victim, where we were never saying to begin with that it didn"t have these effects. So if you want to take the debate and instead weigh it on values and arguments (which we do), then please continue reading. 1. Crisis Pro is taking our argument on financial instability and discrimination out of context, by spinning it to make it sound like these are reasons in and of themselves they shouldn't be allowed in the country. This is wrong. This was a rebuttal to the Pro's point that refugees go through these conditions in the countries they are currently travelling to(Greece, in Europe). Our point is that they will face discrimination here as well, which was the main point. Pro admits that there is a majority in the United States that does not want refugees in America. Discerning which political parties the majority of these people fall into, is irrelevant in a democracy. The president overriding the majority of the states wishes by accepting thousands of refugees shows the American people that their government doesn't care about their fears and worries (however false Pro thinks those worries are). However on the Refugee Resettlement program placement of refugees, Pro makes an assumption that they will be placed in specific states or area's where discrimination and hostile and environments don't exist. The Refugee Resettlement program will actually be placing these refugees all over the states however. They will try to settle refugees closest to family or friend connections, but it doesn't say anything about avoiding states and areas where they may receive discrimination (which would technically be anywhere). "The most common reason for a refugee to be assigned to a particular place is a personal or family connection" (1) Even with Pro's argument that refugees will have money from this resettlement program, Pro doesn't elect to tell you that they will have to pay this money back. After one of the nonprofit resettlement agencies receives the case of a particular individual or family, the International Organization for Migration coordinates their travel to the U.S. city where they will be resettled. The plane ticket is paid for at that time, but after they arrive and begin working, the refugees must pay back the cost of the ticket. This is assuming that the refugees are able to find good paying jobs to survive on and feed their families. Their housing stipends are meager as well. Each refugee receives a stipend of about $1,000 to cover their first three months in the U.S.(1) They have to apply for their own jobs, and while some may get good ones, we have no reason to believe most of these people won't be homeless after three months when they realize they can't continue paying for their apartments. How many of these 10,000 refugees are we going to be homeless after just three months when they cannot afford their housing allowance anymore? Pro's own source (#26) doesn't say how many American's signing a petition to offer there homes, that there actually are. Is that 100, or 1,000? Will it make a difference on the quality of life these refugees have in the states? Also how will these refugees afford the education that Pro mentions? We don't want to accuse the Pro of outright lying about his source (33, 34) but his claim was that refugees are more likely to be employed than american's. Nothing in source 33 demonstrates that, in fact any actual evidence, number or statistic seems to be just missing from that link. The closest thing supporting his statement is this "These findings underscore that most refugees become self-supporting over time"a core goal of the U.S. resettlement program." We have no clue what relevance source 34 has to his statement either. Pro literally seems to be pulling information out of thin air, and linking them to things that don't say what he says they are saying. 2. Duty We have no clue what Pro is talking about saying that we are debating the concept of going back in time to repeal this. We are debating the reason for it being passed when the majority of American's, and most state governments didn't support the acceptance of this movement. The "should" in this resolution is VERY important. At the moment, however, President Obama's plan has been vetoed by the house an is in a pause. The bill passed 289 to 137, but still has a steep hill to climb to become law in the face of a presidential veto threat.(2) Pro makes the rejection of Refugees sound like we are intentionally not wanting to be bothered. Considering we are at war with a group from their country who has committed violent terror acts, is it so surprising that American's fear terrorist action? International image is a non-issue here, as Pro rightfully summarizes are response to. We should be valuing the voices of our own citizens prior to those of other fleeing countries. Syria knows of the current situation we are in with it's country, so why would they be surprised that we repealed the movement to accept refugees? That our president tried to accept them in the first place goes in favor of our foreign policy. 3. Backlash Running low on characters so this argument will be squished. In debating ISIS's motivation, Pro refuses to admit their are any realism to ISIS's threat, which is the wrong idea to have about this terrorist organization. There have been attacks in the United States, so their threats are real, and valid. While we are not arguing that refugees are a security threat themselves, that the United States citizens see them as that threat is 100% justified, and treating foreign visitors are a threat first, isn't feeding into ISIS's ideals. People know and have seen what they are capable, and the backlash of letting ISIS think they are winning seems to be a lot less severe than the reality of increasing their abilities to move and operate in the United States, the fear that most Americans currently seem to have. Sources: 1. http://www.usnews.com... 2. http://www.usnews.com...