Resolved: The XXII Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should be repealed.

My opponent makes three arguments against the resolution. I will address each in turn. Con claims that term limits act as a “check” on a Presidents power. Furthermore, he claims that removing this restriction increases the chances of corruption. As laid out in the U.S. Constitution there are many checks and balances in place to “counter-balance” the power of the President. (1) Additionally, it is harder than ever for those in position of power to hide abuses in our day. Virtually every person has a video/voice recording device. A politician running for office can hardly have a private conversation without being recorded let alone abuse power. (2) Thus, con’s argument can be summed up as if a President chooses to run a third term (which only happened once in 175 years before term limits), and if said person decides to attempt to abuse power, and if they successfully get re-elected, then corruption might be a potential problem. I don’t know about you but that is a lot of if’s. This argument is buried in assumptions making the supposed harm highly unlikely. Hayd’s second contention argued incumbency advantages. Again, even if there are some incumbency advantages the impact is tied to the assumption that Presidential Incumbents will continue to run for office. (Only happened once in our history.) Con’s final contention revolves around the corruption of the Supreme Court. This is really a continuation of his previous corruption argument. This contention also naively misunderstands the structure and function of the Supreme Court. Con complains that “If a President is able to be in power for three, or four terms, they would be able to appoint many of the judges on the SC.” First, there is already a check on this “power.” Congress has to approve all appointees to the bench, and second there is no limit to the number of justices that can be on the bench. What this means is despite only having had nine for a good amount of U.S. history any president could decide to nominate 15 more. Presidents do not have to wait for a vacancy on the bench to add justices. Thus, the length of time a President is in office has little to no impact on the abuse of power that could be played out on the Supreme Court. We see that all three of con’s contentions are either buried in assumptions making the impacts highly unlikely, or not directly influenced by the amount of time a President is in office. Hayd does take the opportunity to address a few of my points. I will now provide a defense of my position. Con slightly strawman’s my position when he states that I argued “that a President who has already served two terms in office should be allowed to serve for a third term because he/she is the most experienced candidate.” I am not saying that those who have had experience should be de facto allowed to serve another turn. What I argued is that the people ought to retain the sovereignty to elect whomever they desire. Furthermore I argued that eliminating options simply because they have experience is foolish. The difference here is I am focusing on people’s right to elect who they so choose, experienced or not. This is important as con’s conclusion to this contention is that an experienced candidate does not necessarily make them a good President. I have not argued that it does. I have argued that it should be up to the people to decide for themselves. This brings us to perhaps the most fascinating part of this debate. I have argued that the peoples sovereignty ought to be respected. Con contend, if that is the case, what about the 81% of Americans that support the XXII Amendment? Would it not be a violation of their sovereignty to remove this amendment. This is a very subtle non-sequitur. A majority can in fact vote for and establish what is called the tyranny of the majority. This too is a violation of the people’s sovereignty. So my response is this; The people’s sovereignty ought to be respected, like the checks placed on the branches of government there exists checks on the power of the majority over the minority. The majority, being 81% ought not be able to decide who the 19% can or can’t vote for. From a pragmatic point of view, this undermines con’s contentions. If 81% decide not to vote for someone because they have already served two terms, then the incumbency at that point becomes a disadvantage. Likewise, it demonstrates how unlikely the harms con listed have of actually happening. I have demonstrated that it is right for the people of the United States to be sovereign. Any other option is tyranny. The XXII Amendment threatens that sovereignty. To add insult to injury, this amendment keeps experience out of office. We clearly see that if this amendment is repealed all issues listed are resolved. If my opponent is unable to refute the significant harm this amendment poses, I will win this debate. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org... (2) http://www.motherjones.com...