DDODCL Season 1 Debate: Team Sine Nomine VS Team Thrawn

Thanks to the Con team for the debate, to Max and DK for hosting, and to the readers and voters for their time. ARGUMENTSDefinitionsPublic vs. PrivateWe (Pro) defined "public" as: "of, relating to, paid for by, or working for a government. " Con DROPPED this definition and DROPPED our definition of "public funding" as "money that is generated by the government to provide goods and services to the general public. " Let's add also the definition of "publicly," which is "by a government. " [1] We'll also offer the definition of "private" as "belonging to or concerning an individual person, company, or interest. " [1] Incidentally, most of these definitions come from the dictionary TUF originally used to begin this semantics discussion, so he should have no qualms with the credibility of the source dictionary. Now, Con originally wrote that "Con take this to mean that public citizens should not be funding art. " Now Con is discussing the "private sector. " Let's address this public-private distinction here. Given the definitions listed above, "public" (and its derivative forms) indicates governmental agency or control. "Private," conversely, indicates non-governmental agency. In fact, Con's very own example of the "private sector" is a great place to start. The definition of "private sector" is "the part of a country’s economy that is not controlled directly by the government. " [2] The definition of "public sector" is "the governmental sphere of an economy. " [2] Con's own example illustrates how "public" denotes government agency or control. This is why it makes more sense for "public" funding to come from the "public" sector, just as "private" funding (the giving of individuals or businesses) should come from the "private" sector. Thus, our (Pro's) position is backed by three layers of definitions: (1) definitions for the adjective "public," (2) definitions for the adverb "publicly," and (3) definitions for the phrase/compound noun "public funding. " Moreover, a slew of examples that we offered last round, plus Con's very own example of the "private sector" vs. the "public sector," show that public implies government agency or control. SocietyCon's biggest misunderstanding regarding not only the topic, but our analysis of the term "society," is the Con believe the resolution is challenging who the actor should be when, instead, the resolution is questioning what the means should be. The resolution is not juxtaposing society and government (that would be absurd, since government, like businesses and other institutions) is a part of society. Rather, the resolution is juxtaposing "public funding" against "private funding. " Let's go in to why this is the case. Con tried to say that the inclusion of the word "society" in the debate implies a non-governmental actor. Yet, as we noted extensively last round, society often acts though governments. This is something Con DROPS. I will repeat our analysis here: "'society' typically acts through the mechanism of government. A society, because it is a collective, must have a process through which it can make decisions and it must have a means of mobilizing its diverse resources to implement its decisions. It is the purpose of government to do exactly that. In the U. S. for instance, the democratic process (as administered by government)--whether by voting in referenda or electing representatives who then make laws--is the means through which our society makes decisions and implements those decisions. For instance, society administers programs like social security, subsidies for industries (like the art industry), and the military through the government. "This is crucial for understanding the resolution, because it suggests that society can choose to (a) act through the government, (b) act through some other means, or (c) not act at all. Society usually chooses (a) because the government is best positioned to "mobilize diverse resources" and has the scope to reach more people than many alternatives. Now let's consider a parallel example to the resolution: "Society ought to ban marijuana. " If this were the topic we were debating, I think we could all agree that the actor in the resolution was still the government, because only the government can impose a ban on marijuana. Society is still "the actor" but it is acting through the means of government. Similarly, in the topic of this debate, the actor is the society, but it is acting via the goverment because it is a definitional truism that public funding is government funding. The presence of the word "society" does not suddenly "dis-involve" the government from the process in either resolution. Using the analysis just given, which shows that government is a tool of society and that society and government are not incompatible in the resolution, we could rephrase the resolution thusly: "society ought, through the mechanism of government, to fund art. " This statement is completely coherent, and it makes an important point: the question is not "should society fund art," but it is instead "through what tools is society should society act. " The resolution wants Pro to defend the use of the government as a tool (per "public"), and it wants Con to defend the use of non-governmental, private tools. Therefore, when all is said and done, you can agree with Con that "society" is still the actor in the resolution, but you can also agree with us that the term "public funding" means society is acting via the government. The clash in the resolution is not over whether society or government is the actor, as TUF would have you believe, but rather whether society is acting through governmental/public mechanisms or through non-governmental/private mechanisms. In sum, the presence of the word "society" does not mean that the government (and its money) is not being used to fund art. In fact, because society usually acts via the government (a claim Con DROPPED), this is reason to prefer our interpretation of the resolution. That is in addition to, separate from, and complimented by our analysis of the phrase "public funding" as indicating government funding. The LiteratureCon DROPS a very important argument we made last round. Let me repeat it here: "after scouring literature on public funding for the arts, I cannot find sources that support the claim that 'public funding' means anything other than government/tax money. Open each of our sources from the last round, and you will see that--in the context of the arts--public funding is synonymous government funding. "If the scholarly literature on this issue interprets "publicly funded" to be synonymous with "governmentally funded," we should prefer the academic literature's definition. This debate is about art funding, and to have a topical discussion in that issue area, we should use terms in the way that they are used in that context. Other ArgumentsCon has now ceded all other arguments to stick to the definitional debate. That means that if they lose the definitional debate, all of our offense can be cleanly extended. Con will have no independent offense of their own to vote off of. Thus, if we prevail there, we monoploize the offense. Do not allow Con to come back and try to expound on any of their R2 points which they neglected in R3, because these will be entirely new remarks which we will lack any opportunity to address. Please also do not allow Con to reply to any other arguments that he dropped as well for the same reason. VOTING ISSUESVI1. The Resolution1. The Context of the Debate The sources I pulled demonstrated clearly that "public/ly funding" meant government funding within the context of the debate on art funding. And, as I said earlier, to have a topical discussion in that issue area, we should use terms in the way that they are used in that context. Because public/ly funding, in the context of the art funding debate means government funding, prefer our (Pro's) interpretation of the resolution. Con dropped this argument in R3, and we cleanly extended it. Therefore it is an absolutely pristine, untouched reason to vote Pro. Also, because it was dropped, Con should not be allowed to address it in the final round. 2. Public vs. Private We engaged in an exhaustive analysis of the actual definitions of key terms, and we have proven that "public" denotes government agency or control. We dissected Con's own reference to the "private sector" to prove this further, showing that the "public sector" was the government-run economy, and that the "private sector" was the non-government-run economy. We also offered a slew of examples last round which clearly demonstrated that the common English use of the phrase "public funding" meant government funding. We also defined "public funding" itself, which confirmed the standard use meaning of public funding as government funding. 3. Society TUF tries to argue that the term "society" somehow transmogrifies "public funding" into "private funding. " This logic leap is under-warranted, but it also doesn't make sense, as our analysis shows. Importantly, discussion of "society" does not preclude discussion of "government. " Society can choose to act through government to achieve its ends, because society must have some mechanism of acting. By calling on Pro to defend "public funding," the resolution is asking whether society should choose to use government to achieve the end of funding art. Pro, by defending public funding/government funding, defends that society should choose to act through government rather than through private outlets. Remember the example: "Society ought to ban marijuana. " "Society" is still the actor, but it's clear that it would act through government. This is the case with our resolution today. VI2. Offense If you buy our definitional arguments, only we have any offense off of which to vote. SOURCES1 - Source 5, R22 - . http://www.encyclopedia.com...Thus, we affirm. Thank you!