Progressives are a danger to the United States, freedom, and liberty.

It seems that there has been some confusion. Because no structure was given for the format of rounds 2 and 3, I opted to make my case for progressivism without reference to your statements in round 2. Had I rebutted your statements of round two while making my case, then I would have had two opportunities to provide rebuttals to your remarks, as I would have still had round 3 available to me, while you would only have one opportunity to provide rebuttals to my statements. This is what I meant when I said "In the interest of fairness, I will make my case for progressivism in this round and reserve my response to my opponent's statements for round 3." As you still only had the single opportunity to reply to my round 2, I will now proceed to respond to your statements in round 2 without further regard to your arguments in round 3. You begin by discussing how American political discourse seems to have become increasingly polarized. Political polarization has increased, but only for the politically involved. There are multiple factors contributing to the perception of extreme political polarization including the increased availability of media sources and the subsequent ability of media markets to generate supply for niche consumers, the ability for the politically disinclined to avoid political information through the greater variety of alternatives available in today"s media landscape, and the greater level of sorting that has occurred among members of political parties [1]. Among the politically involved, however, polarization has significantly increased though politically active individuals have historically been much more likely to take extreme stances on both the right and the left. Furthermore, the politically involved have much greater influence over politics and an even greater influence over the political narratives that exist in the media and elsewhere. This influence is compounded by the greater availability of non-political media for the politically disinclined, and often much more moderate, Americans to consume in lieu of political media. This has led to greater disengagement and non-participation among politically disinterested (most) Americans. It can therefore be concluded that political polarization of such an extreme nature as my opponent has described does not exist among ordinary Americans. Therefore, progressives cannot be said to be destabilizing and endangering America by creating an atmosphere of near-universal polarization as such an environment cannot be said to exist. The environment that does exist is one of increased apathy by moderate Americans and growing polarization among a small subset of politically active Americans. My opponent has stated that liberal ideals are "intentionally harming America" and has furthermore asserted that they stem from "German left wing Marxism." The author of the source my opponent provided graduated from a music school and spent much of his career as a classical music critic so I am therefore inclined to remain skeptical of his assertions until I can see upon what grounds they rest. I am not able to view this source without purchasing the book and it was incumbent upon my opponent to describe how the author's claim that liberalism stemmed from German left-wing Marxism. This would seem to be a very unique subset of liberalism indeed as liberalism is a broad and diverse philosophical school of thought stemming from such diverse philosophers and social scientists as John Locke, Montesquieu, John Keynes, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, etc. Without providing proof to support the author"s fantastical claims that there exists a Marxist strain of liberalism that furthermore intends to harm America, for reasons unknown or not provided, this claim cannot stand. My opponent has repeatedly failed to provide evidence for his assertions as I will now demonstrate. "Furthermore, that these ideals once seated in parts of our government, are used as we speak, to"" There is no evidence provided that these ideals are, in fact, seated in parts of our government. "Through Mass scale funding of grass roots movements, as well as donations to media outlets such as CNN, the New York times, and others." My opponent has provided one source which is a website, which exhibits an extreme right-wing bias, that claims to provide a list of organizations that have received donations from George Soros though the amounts of this funding or the source of this information was not provided. His assertion that CNN and The New York Times have received donations from these "globalists" is without any evidence whatsoever. "The purpose of bad psychology, such as microaggressions, is"" Here my opponent claims a purposive nature to this "bad psychology" without providing a single reason as to how he can claim to understand the intent of the alleged perpetuators of this phenomenon. Without proving intent, my opponent"s claim that there is a "bad psychology" being purposefully practiced upon the American people must be dismissed. My opponent claims that political correctness, microagressions, third wave feminism, and white privilege are elements of this bad psychology by describing them as "focusing on small, or incidental slights." Is the fact that black people face longer prison sentences than white people for the same crime an incidental slight [2]? How about the fact the transgender Americans, particularly those of color, are murdered at a rate of ". Which third wave feminism aims to address [3]? My opponent has claimed that none of these groups have any serious issues and are, in essence, just making problems for the sake of it. This is clearly not the case and my opponent"s assertion that these are elements of bad psychology cannot stand. My opponent asserts that there exists some connection between "seemingly unrelated events" that becomes evident when one examines the funding. My opponent provides the aforementioned list of George Soros beneficiaries without demonstrating how this alleged funding caused the events to occur or how these events are linked to the beneficiaries. This vague claim of association cannot stand without evidence. My opponent claims "every single one" of the organizations on the list espouses a liberal ideal pushed by CNN. My opponent has not provided proof that CNN exhibits such a bias. One independent group which monitors media bias judged the CNN has a "Left-Center" bias [4]. This is quite a far cry from the "German left-wing Marxism" that my opponent claims is behind the sources allegedly controlling CNN. The basis for my opponent"s assertion is that non-affiliated groups receive money from George Soros, who, I might add, my opponent has not proven is a proponent of this "globalist" ideology, and my opponent asserts that CNN supports the same causes as these groups and therefore CNN is also controlled. To say that this is a logical leap would be a gross understatement. Correlation does not equal causation and the correlation doesn't even exist regardless. To my opponent's claim that CNN "aggresses against" dissenters on its program and immediately resorts to accusations of bigotry, I ask that he provide even a single instance. I'll accept it in the comments. "Through progressive leadership we have empowered a child support system..." Once again, my opponent does not feel the need to actually demonstrate how progressives are responsible for this. Legal intervention in the collection of child support began under Gerald Ford, a Republican [5]. Without evidence at least supporting a causal role of progressive influence and child support legislation, this claim must be dismissed and the resulting arguments that rest upon it become groundless by definition. I will go ahead and point out, however, that my opponents claim that child support legislation has created problems of fatherless homes is patently ridiculous. How can child support lead to fatherless homes when the home must first become fatherless before child support is collected? In reference to Hillary Clinton, my opponent states "...we see a woman who received her political ideals from Saul Alkinsky..." My opponent has asserted this and, given that this is a claim of fact, it is incumbent upon my opponent to establish its veracity. Since no such standard has been met, this claim must also be discarded. "When it was later concluded that the increase in Co2 followed an increase in the earths temperature, rather than preceding it, due to the oceans slow warming, and frothing up more gas..." This has been established by climate scientists already. Warming causes the oceans to release additional CO2, as my opponent has said, but the CO2 released also contributes to further warming with leads to more CO2 to be released from the oceans [6]. This does not actually constitute evidence against climate change as this has been addressed by climate scientists already. "...the temperature of the earth was found to have actually been dropping." Surface temperatures can exhibit temporary cooling patterns but the surface is not the only part of the planet. The atmosphere has a large capacity to absorb heat as do the oceans and, when one examines the entire heat content of the planet, the earth is still heating up [7]. '...a movement which ultimate goal is the mental manipulation of its followers, into believing in the superiority of a Globalist controlled planet." My opponent has once again claimed to divine intent without bothering to provide a shred of evidence. Sources: 1. https://www.princeton.edu... 2. http://www.wsj.com... 3. http://www.avp.org... 4. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com... 5. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu... 6. https://skepticalscience.com... 7. https://skepticalscience.com...