BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
High-speed rail helps businesspeople be more productive.

US High-Speed Rail Association: "High speed rail delivers fast, efficient transportation so riders can spend less time traveling and more time doing business. High speed rail delivers people quickly to their destinations in city centers. Fast boarding times, no security delays, and no waiting for baggage (or lost bags) adds up to much less time spent getting to and from meetings. Adding to these savings, there's also little or no down time - people can be far more productive and efficient during a trip on a train, than flying or driving, and return to the office sooner with a shorter turn-around time. High speed rail allows people to continue working the entire trip using laptops and cell phones. Flexible meeting space is available on the train. Because of the reliability of trains and the reduced total trip time, an overnight stay is not always required - saving additional time and money. High speed rail offers great flexibility to plan last minute trips, purchase tickets on short notice, and make changes to schedules without huge penalties."
Blockading Gaza actually strengthens Hamas' grip

Mr Cameron told the Commons during his first "questions time" as Prime Minister of the UK: "We should do everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen again. Friends of Israel - and I count myself a friend of Israel - should be saying to the Israelis that the blockade actually strengthens Hamas's grip on the economy and on Gaza. [...] And it's in their own interests to lift it and allow these vital supplies to get through."
Israeli troops fired first, flotilla reacted in self-defense

"Israelis opened fire before boarding Gaza flotilla, say released activists." Guardian. June 1, 2010: "Survivors of the Israeli assault on a flotilla carrying relief supplies to Gaza returned to Greece and Turkey today, giving the first eyewitness accounts of the raid in which at least 10 people died. [...] Arriving at Istanbul's Ataturk airport with her one-year-old baby, Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin said Israeli troops opened fire before boarding the Turkish-flagged ferry Mavi Marmara, which was the scene of the worst clashes and all the fatalities. Israeli officials have said that the use of armed force began when its boarding party was attacked. [...] 'It was extremely bad and very tough clashes took place. The Mavi Marmara is filled with blood,' said Cetin, whose husband is the Mavi Marmara's chief engineer. [...] She told reporters that she and her child hid in the bathroom of their cabin during the confrontation. 'The operation started immediately with firing. First it was warning shots, but when the Mavi Marmara wouldn't stop these warnings turned into an attack,' she said. 'There were sound and smoke bombs and later they used gas bombs. Following the bombings they started to come on board from helicopters.'"
Gaza blockade causes economic and humanitarian suffering

Gregg Carlstrom. "Gaza's real humanitarian crisis." Al Jazeera. June 3, 2010. Al Jazeera: "Israel usually allows 81 items into Gaza, a list which is subject to revision on a near-daily basis. [...] A 2008 report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) found that 70 per cent of Gaza's population suffered from 'food insecurity.' As Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros reported last week, the Israeli authorities allow little meat and fresh produce into Gaza, leading to widespread malnutrition in the territory." [See article for further analysis]
Excessive force was used by Israel once on flotilla.

Bülent Yıldırım, president of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH), reported that photographer Cevdet Kılıçlar was shot in the head by a soldier one meter away. British activist Kevin Ovenden confirmed that a man was shot by soldiers after pointing his camera towards them.[17] Forensic investigation found that Kılıçlar was shot in the head at close range.[18]]
Cameras of flotilla activists were taken to hide evidence.

The cameras, phones, and video-cameras of flotilla activists were confiscated by the Israeli government after the ship was seized and passengers detained. This means that the Gaza flotilla activists were at a significant disadvantage in sharing any evidence of Israeli Defense Force wrong-doing. This needs to be kept in mind as the evidence is reviewed. Indeed, "history is written by the winners", and in this case it should be a concern that Israel is in control of most of the evidence of the event. And, it should be asked why the IDF would confiscate these recording devices in the first place? Are they trying to hide something?
Many Gaza flotilla activists desired martyrdom

Some of the activists who would later die during the MV Mavi Marmara clash spoke of dreams of martyrdom. Ali Khaider Benginin told his family before leaving, "I am going to be a shahid; I dreamt I will become a shahid – I saw in a dream that I will be killed."[13] His wife also said that he "constantly prayed to become a martyr."[14] [More examples in argument page (link above)]
Blockade of Gaza is generally contrary to Israel's interests

Thomas Friedman. "When Friends Fall Out." New York Times. June 1, 2010: "It is overwhelmingly in Israel’s interest to bring more diplomatic imagination and energy to ending this Gaza siege. How long is this going to go on? Are we going to have a whole new generation grow up in Gaza with Israel counting how many calories they each get? That surely can’t be in Israel’s interest. Israel has gotten so good at controlling the Palestinians that it could get comfortable with an arrangement that will not only erode its own moral fabric but increase its international isolation. It may be that Hamas will give Israel no other choice, but Israel could show a lot more initiative in determining if that is really so."
Israel flotilla raid was strategic in context of Gaza blockade.

"Was Israel’s flotilla raid illegal or legal?" Tufts Roundtable. : "If you support Israel. Then you believe that Gaza is a “disputed” territory without its own sovereignty. Consequently, you believe that the blockade on commerce coming into that tiny strip of land is perfectly legit (because it occurred off the shores of Israeli waters). As a supporter of Israel, you can understand their efforts to board the ship. Since it was okay to board the ship, you believe that none of the ship’s crewmen should have attacked the fast-roping commandos. Once the crewmen attacked the Israeli soldiers with lead pipes, rods and other weapons, you feel that it was well within the confines of Israel’s right to defense to repel the attackers with terminal force."
Gaza flotilla was humanitarian, raid was unjust

Glenn Greenwald. "Israel attacks aid ship, kills at least 10 civilians." Salon. May 31, 2010: "It hardly seemed possible for Israel -- after its brutal devastation of Gaza and its ongoing blockade -- to engage in more heinous and repugnant crimes. But by attacking a flotilla in international waters carrying humanitarian aid, and slaughtering at least 10 people, Israel has managed to do exactly that. If Israel's goal were to provoke as much disgust and contempt for it as possible, it's hard to imagine how it could be doing a better job."
Gaza flotilla was not intending on violent conflict

Paul Joseph Watson. "Did Activists Attack Israeli Soldiers In Self-Defense?." Prison Planet.com. June 1, 2010: "Claims that the activists on board represented an 'armada of hate' are not backed up by videos shot on board before the incident. The fact that around 20 passengers were killed whereas IDF troops were only injured proves that the activists had not prepared a 'terror ambush' as some quarters of the media claim."
Israel's flotilla raid strains its alliances

Daniel Larison. "Self-Destructive 'Self-Defense'". The American Conservative. June 1st, 2010: "The alliance between Israel and Turkey has been weakening for years, but something like this could be enough to damage it more than anything we have seen so far. That would have negative repercussions mostly for Israel, as it already has few significant allies and no other Muslim allies, and it cannot afford to keep provoking and alienating the relatively few governments that have had good relations with it in the past."
Israel has right to blockade Gaza during conflict

Leslie Gelb. "Israel was right." The Daily Beast. May 31, 2010: "Regarding international law, blockades are quite legal. The United States and Britain were at war with Germany and Japan and blockaded them. I can't remember international lawyers saying those blockades were illegal—even though they took place on the high seas in international waters. There would be a general violation only if the hostile actions against the ships took place in waters under the jurisdiction of another sovereign state. Thus, for example, if the Israelis stopped the ships in Egyptian waters, that would have been a violation." Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, Chicago Law School Professor Eric Posner, and Johns Hopkins international law Professor Ruth Wedgwood all argue that the blockade is legal.
Raid demonstrates incompetence in Israeli government

David Grossman. "The Gaza flotilla attack shows how far Israel has declined." Guardian. June 1, 2010: "How insecure, confused and panicky a country must be, to act as Israel acted! With a combination of excessive military force, and a fatal failure to anticipate the intensity of the reaction of those aboard the ship. [...] Above all, this insane operation shows how far Israel has declined."
Israeli commandos acted in self-defense once on Gaza flotilla

"Israel and the Flotilla." Chicago Tribune Editorial. June 1, 2010: "Video shows the Israeli commandos were surrounded and attacked as they reached the ship's deck. The Israelis tried to avoid a lethal confrontation. Israeli officials reportedly offered the vessel the same deal that was accepted by at least one previous flotilla — divert to the Israeli port of Ashdod and unload the cargo for inspection. As long as the cargo doesn't contain weaponry, it will be shipped into the Gaza Strip by land."
Israel miscalculated on flotilla, but acted in self-defense

"Israel and the Flotilla." Chicago Tribune Editorial. June 1, 2010: "The more we learn about this incident, though, the more it looks like a setup designed to provoke or embarrass Israel. [...] Israeli commandos rappelled from helicopters onto a ship carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza early Monday, expecting minimal resistance from about 600 pro-Palestinian activists on board. The Israelis badly miscalculated. A melee ended with nine protesters killed. Dozens were wounded, including seven Israeli soldiers."
Lifting Gaza blockade would let weapons in, undermine peace

Jonathan Tobin. "Embrace of Hamas’s Goal of Breaking the Blockade Dooms Peace Efforts." Commentary Magazine. June 6th, 2010: "the problem with these [anti Israeli blockade] pieces is that if Israel did as they wished, it would effectively doom any chance for peace with the Palestinians. Lifting the blockade and allowing the free flow of goods into the area — which will open the floodgates for not only food and medicine, which are already in plentiful supply in Gaza, but also for Iranian arms and “construction materials” that will strengthen Hamas’s fortifications — would be the final step toward establishing the sovereignty of the Hamas regime in Gaza."
Israel flotilla raid makes it harder to act on Iran

"Will Israel's raid on Gaza flotilla hurt bid for Iran nuclear sanctions?" Haaretz. June 2nd, 2010: "United Nations officials have expressed concern that Israel's deadly raid of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid convoy earlier this week would affect an international bid to impose a new round of sanctions against Iran over its contentious international program. [...] Despite the International Atomic Energy Association's discovery this week that Iran has been preparing extra equipment for enriching uranium to higher levels, Israel's botched commando raid of a Turkish-flagged ship has shifted the focus within the international community."
Israeli raid in international waters violates i-law

Billie Bender. "Was Israel’s flotilla raid illegal or legally?" Tufts Roundtable. June 2nd, 2010: "the blockade is an act of war, casus belli, because Israel attacked a foreign flagged ship from Turkey. Under the Law of the Sea (more or less), any ship harboring in international waters that is forcefully boarded by a foreign entity is having its sovereignty violated."
Israeli troops did not harm Gaza activists on other ships.

Israeli sources say that the other five ships were boarded and taken over peacefully, and that the only incidents took place in the Mavi Marmara. Israeli minister Avigdor Lieberman has said, on the other five ships, "the people got off without a scratch."[15] This might indicate that the IDF had no intention of engaging in violence, and were only forced to do so in self-defense against violent activists on the Mavi Marmara.
Cease-fire invalidates blockade-justification of "war" w/ Hamas

Marcelo Kohen, a law professor at Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International Studies, argued that "There is also at present a cease-fire on Gaza. Under [Israel's] logic one could maintain a maritime blockade unendingly. It only requires one party to consider itself as being in a ‘state of war.'" Therefore, Israel cannot justify its blockade and flotilla-raid in international waters on the grounds that it is "at war" or "in conflict" with Hamas.[7]
Israel's raid on Gaza flotilla was a PR disaster

Ronen Bergman, an investigative journalist for the Israli news wrote in a Wall Street Journal essay on June 2nd, 2010: "The horrific outcome -- so far nine killed and dozens wounded -- has caused irreparable damage to Israel's image. Even if the video evidence proves beyond doubt that the activists on board the ships were armed and that they were the first to attack, the battle for public opinion (which, after all, is what the flotilla exercise was really about) was lost the moment the first Israeli soldier set foot on the deck of the Mavi Marmara -- the Turkish ferry that served as the flagship. [...] What makes the flotilla fiasco all the more astounding is that Israel has been preparing for this confrontation for months. It has had time to run various scenarios, and even to review strategies it has previously employed for similar events."[19]
Israeli raid on flotilla was aggressive; can't be called self-defense

Daniel Larison. "Self-Destructive “Self-Defense.'" Eunomia. June 1st, 2010: "Perhaps most galling about the overall defense of the raid is the constant invocation of self-defense. Everything Israel does is always done in self-defense, no matter how excessive, disproportionate, unnecessary, wrong or aggressive it is. When everything becomes a matter of self-defense and the proper distinctions between actual legtimate self-defense and reckless excesses are erased, pretty soon most of the rest of the world won’t pay any attention to Israeli claims of self-defense even when they are legitimate."
Israeli rules of engagement allow firing only when life in danger

"Israel obeyed international law: Legally, the Gaza flotilla conflict is an open-and-shut case". NY Daily News. By Alan Dershowitz. June 2010 "Every individual has the right to repel such attacks by the use of lethal force. That was especially true in this case, when the soldiers were so outnumbered on the deck of the ship. Recall that Israel's rules of engagement required its soldiers to fire only paintballs unless their lives were in danger. Would any country in the world deny its soldiers the right of self-defense under comparable circumstances?"
Blockade of Gaza is illegal, can't justify flotilla raid

Billie Bender. "Was Israel’s flotilla raid illegal or legally?" Tufts Roundtable. June 2nd, 2010: "If you support Gaza. Then you believe that Israel is 'occupying' Gaza, and Israel is in violation of international law because it is denying Gaza’s sovereign right to trade and aid." [From this, you can then argue that Israel had no right to board the flotilla in International waters, and thus that the raid was illegal under international law.]
Offering driver's licenses to illegal immigrants will incentivize more illegal immigration

- A big part of solving the illegal immigration problem is creating dis-incentives for entering the United States. This is one of the reasons why pressure is being put on employers to stop hiring illegal aliens. Yet, driver's licenses for illegal aliens will provide a significant spur to future illegal immigration. It will be a signal that the United States is willing to accept, accommodate, and integrate illegal aliens. In this way, the proposition is detrimental to the effort to reduce illegal immigration. Given the fact that the United States suffers from the largest illegal immigration problem in the world, this is a major problem with offering driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in the United States.
Offering illegal immigrants drivers licenses is a national security threat

- Many terrorists, including 9/11 terrorists, obtained driver's licenses as a means to perform their acts of terrorism. They used driver's licenses to move more freely around the United States, and to get onto the airplanes that were used in the 9/11 attacks. Driver's licenses, therefore, are a primary tool for terrorists or any individual that may pose a national security threat of some kind. While illegal immigrants should not generally be viewed as terrorists or national security threats, the poor background information on them, that they are foreign in origin, and that they illegally crossed a national boundary may make them more likely terrorists suspects than other groups. This should lead America to the conclusion that offering illegal immigrants driver's licenses poses national security risks.
Illegal immigrants should not be integrated into American society, but rather deported.

The primary basis for this argument is that illegal immigrants are, inherently, in the United States illegally. On a purely legal basis, they should not be afforded legal documentation such as a driver's license, and should be deported. Beyond the legality, many argue that the presence of illegal immigrants is harmful economically and socially to lawful citizens, providing additional cause to moving away from integration and such measures as providing illegal immigrants with driver's licenses.
Driver's licenses would have to be offered to ALL illegal immigrants (not just Mexican)

- This debate often assumes that driver's licenses would simply be offered to illegal Mexican immigrants, with the claim that the US economy is dependent on these "productive" illegal immigrants. But, what about other groups of illegal immigrants that may be "less desirable"? What about an illegal immigrant from, for example, Iran? The problem is that the proposition tends to base its arguments off of only one particular group of illegal immigrants (Mexican immigrants constituted around 57% of the illegal immigrant population in 2007[1]), while seemingly denying the costs of accepting other groups of illegal immigrants into this program.
Illegal immigrants enjoy equal protection under US law

- The fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution, ratified in 1868 to secure rights for slaves, holds that states must provide equal protection under the law to all persons (not only to citizens) within their jurisdictions. Section 1 of the fourteenth amendment holds, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The case Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), saw the Supreme Court of the United States strike down a state statute denying funding for education to children who were illegal immigrants. It established that regardless of legal status, illegal immigrants are still 'persons' and thus protected as such under some provisions the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution, notably the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This precedent has been interpreted to mean that illegal immigrants should also enjoy equal protection in regard to access to driver's licenses.
Offering illegal immigrants driver's licenses would violate the rule of law.

Offering drivers licenses to illegal immigrants provides legal status to individuals that have knowingly broken US laws. The Immigration and Nationality Act clearly states that illegal aliens should be deported. These long-standing laws must be upheld. Offering illegal immigrants driver's licenses clearly violates these laws and the impression that the United States is capable of enforcing them. It also undermines the notion of rewarding law abiding citizens and punishing those that break the law. Why should illegal immigrants be allowed to get away with their illegal acts. US citizens (not illegal aliens) are not afforded this luxury of forgiveness in the face of the law. Therefore, the proposition is an unwarranted and immoral concession that undermines the consistency of US law.
DMV employees would not need to become immigration experts to determine the illegality of an immigrant

- While determining illegal immigrant status may be difficult, systems have been created to enable this. One such system is called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, where DMV employees would simply have to enter the document number and the name of the bearer into the computer and wait for an answer from state and federal government officials. This means that DMV employees would not need to become immigration experts.
Little evidence random alcohol tests deter drunk driving.

There is a dearth of research regarding the deterrent effect of checkpoints. The only formally documented research regarding deterrence is a survey of Maryland's "Checkpoint Strikeforce" program. The survey found no deterrent effect: "To date, there is no evidence to indicate that this campaign, which involves a number of sobriety checkpoints and media activities to promote these efforts, has had any impact on public perceptions, driver behaviors, or alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes and injuries. This conclusion is drawn after examining statistics for alcohol-related crashes, police citations for impaired driving, and public perceptions of alcohol-impaired driving risk."[10]
"Reasonable suspicion" too high standard for detecting drunk drivers

"Random breath testing: A needed and effective measure to prevent impaired driving fatalities." BCMJ. December 10th, 2009: "Unless a driver admits to drinking, the police currently need clear visible signs that the driver has consumed alcohol or was driving in an impaired manner in order to demand a roadside screening test. Using this approach, police miss the great majority of drivers with BACs above .05%, even at sobriety checkpoints."
Random sobriety stops set-up unjust detection of other crimes

"Random breath tests: A frightening trial-baloon from Rob Nicholson." A BCer in Toronto. October 5th, 2009: "this would seem to open up a huge can of legal worms. You randomly pull someone over for a random breathalyzer test, someone that under normal circumstances you have no legal probable cause for doing so. And in that process, while they blow clean you discover they have committed another offense: let's say, the possession of a small amount of marijuana."