Resolved: The Democratic Party is better than the Republican Party

C5: My opponent makes a strong case that the Democrats do in fact do more for the Republicans for gay rights with regards to the current debate over DADT. Unfortunately for him, this does not prove anything. His burden of proof is to show that the Democrats are a better party for the American people overall, and to fulfill that burden on this point, he must show that the repeal of DADT is what is best for the American people. He argues that it violates gay soldiers' right to freedom of expression, as outlined in the Constitution—but this of course is irrelevant, as soldiers do not have any such right. The 1st amendment does apply to Americans in general, but is void in certain cases, such as schools and the military, where free speech rights could pose a threat. Until Pro proves that the repeal of DADT is best for the American people overall, this point remains a tie. C6: Here, my opponent again fails to show why more members makes a party better. His claim that more members means that the Democrats' policies are in the best interests of the American people only holds if one assumes that 1) the American people know which policies are in their best interests and 2) the American people vote for whichever policies are in their best interests, rather than for other reasons. Both are extremely questionable, if not blatantly false, assumptions, so this point remains tied. C7: Pro claims that I responded to his arguments with mere assertions that compromise is not a good thing, without backing up my claims. This is true—but I don't have the BOP in this debate. He has to show that compromise and moderate legislation are in the best interests of the American people—merely claiming that moderation and compromise are good does not do this. Pro has not fulfilled his BOP, so this point remains tied. C8: Here, Pro claims that Republicans aren't the party of big government because of deregulation, even though they support high spending. I've already responded to this point C3—both parties supported the deregulation Pro blames the Republicans for. As Pro has not shown that Republicans have a different policy than Democrats on big government, this point remains a tie. C9: 1)My opponent has not shown that the Republicans have stated that the death tax applies to all Americans, rather than just those with large estates. He also claims here that the economic impact of the repeal of the tax is $1 trillion. This is misleading. It doesn't mean that the economy lost $1 trillion—it means that $1 trillion dollars that otherwise would have been dispersed by the government is instead dispersed by the people that earned it. 2)Pro is wrong here too. When someone is taxed, they are hurt because they can't spend or distribute the money they earned as they see fit. If the government plans on taking half of your estate once you die, then you are prevented from distributing your money as you see fit. It's only a tax on heirs in the sense that an income tax levied on me is a tax on the people I buy stuff from. 3)My claim that the death tax is theft is indeed applicable to any tax—all taxes are theft. It doesn't matter if the government provides goods/services in return. If I break into your house tonight and take your stuff, sending you a bouquet of roses the next day does not make my actions no longer theft. If I get your money by selling you those roses, then it is not theft, because you gave me your money voluntarily. What matters is how I get the money—not whether I give you anything in return. 4)When I said it doesn't matter if the death panels claim was a lie, that was because Obamacare is a bad policy, as I explained in C4. Pro's BOP is to show that the Democrats are better than the Republicans for the American people—not to show that they are more honest. If they supported a bad policy, and the Republicans opposed it, then that is a point in the Republicans' favor, no matter what tactics they used. But I also showed that it is *reasonable* to conclude that Obamacare could lead to death panels in the future because 1) the U.S. has death panels now, so it wouldn't be anything new, just an expansion of something we currently do and 2) new government entitlements never stay as small as they were in the original bill. My opponent has not responded to either of these points. 5)I don't care what Glenn Beck thinks—this has nothing to do with the debate. Pro's BOP for this contention is to show that the Democrats are better than the Republicans on this point. To do this, he must show 1) that the Republicans really are framing policies in a dishonest way and 2) that this framing is not only dishonest, but also is bad for the American people overall. He has not done either. Since Obamcare is a bad policy, their framing of it as "death panels" is a good thing, and this point is in their favor. C1: Here, Pro claims that the GOP caused the current recession without offering any proof. Supposedly, this is because of the CMFA deregulation, but both parties supported this. In addition, this claim is entirely false; deregulation did not cause the current recession, the Federal Reserve did. To be fair, I haven't provided any evidence to show why this is true, or made any arguments explaining why this is true. But Pro the BOP here, and he hasn't shown why Republican policies caused the recession either. It would take an entire additional debate to show why Austrian economics is correct and Keynesian economics is wrong, so I won't go into the details here. But, even without going into the logic behind how the economy and boom-bust work, it is still clear that the Austrian theory, which claims that central banks and fractional-reserve banking are responsible for recessions, is correct. Even someone who understands nothing about economics can logically conclude that a group of people who actually saw the housing bubble and predicted the recession are a more reliable source of information about the recession than the group of people that continued to maintain, throughout the housing bubble, that there was no housing bubble and that there would be no recession. Austrian economists, such as Peter Schiff, have said throughout the entire housing bubble that the growth was illusionary and that it would end in a severe recession—the mainstream economists Pro listens to just laughed at them. [1] Austrians have known that Fannie and Freddie were distorting the housing market and unsustainable for years. [2] [3] They've warned about the housing bubble for years, while mainstream economists, including the ones that are supposed to be stabilizing the economy through the Federal Reserve, denied it. [4] [5] Austrians warned that Greenspan's money printing after the 2001 crash would inflate a housing bubble and create an even worse crash further down the road—while everyone else ignored them. [6] [7] Austrians said that if the bailout was passed, the recovery couldn't happen, while mainstream economists said that if it were passed, along with the stimulus, the economy would be almost back to normal by now. [8] [9] Is the economy, with unemployment recently edging back up to 9.8%, stagnating, or recovering? As I explained in round 1 C1, my opponent's statistics are completely meaningless. He next tried to show that the Republicans are bad for the economy because their deregulation caused the recession. This is clearly false, aside from the fact that the Democrats supported that deregulation too. Pro has not fulfilled his BOP on this point, so it remains a tie. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://mises.org... [3] http://mises.org... [4] http://mises.org... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] http://mises.org... [7] http://mises.org... [8] http://mises.org... [9] http://mises.org...