The pen is mightier than the sword.

Thank you for instigating this debate, although I am slightly dissapointed that there is only one round and because the word limit is not much.Before I begin, I would like to give my definition of the term "great".Great (adj): influentialI will be arguing that what is written is in fact greater and more influential than physical force, if not on equal terms. ================================================================================Rebuttal:"In the past, the sword has proved to be a more powerful weapon compared to the flimsy thing called a pen."-Con has committed a fallacy. This debate itself is comparing which holds more influence between what is written and physical force. In this claim, Con is comparing physical force of a weapon with the physical force of a pen, which is irrelevant and invalid because the purpose of the pen is not to influence through physical force. WWI-Yes, you are correct, Archduke was shot by a gun and killed by a bullet, which is under the category of physical force. However, what Con fails to realize is that to keep record of how all weapons are made and to pass them on generation to generation, it must be written down or recorded in some way. Therefore, it can be concluded that without the existance of writing, there would be no guns to assasinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand. -Furthermore, many wars and riots are not started by the physical force of weapons, but by the disagreenments among written words. For example, recently there has been protests in Taiwan, that was not caused by any physcal force. It was caused because the Taiwanese government signed a contract of some sort with China, and the citizens did not approve. The written word certainly had huge influence over wars, especially if enemies are writing letters to each other."Besides, the pen didn't seem to work against Hitler when he was marching across Europe, invading country after country. It didn't even prevent Stalin from killing millions of innocent people who had different ideals than he and his government did."-Con has based his arguments off of 2 specific examples, which can go against him as well. Hitler used the pen! He was a great speaker who wrote powerful speeches that held the loyalties of his troops! He also uses the pen to send letters to his officials, ordering them to execute physical force. It was the same for Stalin.-Now I will give an example. An American mother once wrote a letter to Saddam Hussein, beggin him to release her son who has been held hostage by his people. I will provide the letter below. In the end, Saddam complied and released her son. She achieved this through her use of rhetoric in her letter, which I analyzed in my AP English Language and Composition class.http://www.nytimes.com... "Osama Bin Laden, known for being a terrorist and the one who planned the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, was only stopped because of military intervention. He was killed."-Without the use of writing, the Twin Towers would not have been terrorized and Osama would not have been killed. In fact, the Twin Towers probably would not have even been built. As mentioned before, recording things is how society can progress. Without writing, airplanes and skyscrapers wouldn't have been invented.Addendum:-Con has provided two historical figures who used the pen to influence people. And Con has conceded that they had major influence over the world.Conclusion: -The written word is just as influential as physical force, if not more influential.