Resolved: It's Time To Give America Its Balls Back

I will be arguing two points: America has lost its societal strength This is detrimental to the future of our society and our country America has lost its societal strength There are multiple facts that I believe prove this stance. Safe Spaces Freedom of speech is the ability to express one’s self. Most of us who live in liberal Western democracies think of it as a basic human right - and it is. People have fought and died for it. However, the most recent generation is being raised to believe in freedom FROM speech rather than freedom OF speech. In a sense, people are raised to stay want to have nothing to do with speech they dislike. There is proof of this in Europe where “sensitivity-based” censorship tries to ban anything considered hateful or even hurtful, and to ban criticism of religion, especially Islam. \The United States used to be a master of standing up against such things, for example the Bill of Rights, but it is nowhere near immune. This is known as political correctness. At colleges and universities all over the country, more and more schools are developing and adopting speech codes. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education found that 54% of public universities and 59% of private universities have adopted these codes. The Department of Education allows this. At a public campus in California on Constitution Day in 2013, a student and a decorated military veteran was banned from handing out copies of the Constitution to his fellow students. That same day, another college student in that same state was told he could only protest NSA surveillance whilst inside of a tiny “free speech zone. ”Across the nation, students and staff alike are coming together to keep their universities and colleges from inviting speakers whose opinions they dislike and disagree with. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the feminist and critic of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, to name a few. Another threat to is what is known as “trigger warnings” - alerts that are meant warn students that they are about to read or hear something that triggers a negative emotional response. Oberlin College has attempted to institute a policy that encourages the faculty to avoid difficult topics and use trigger warnings as a means of “making classrooms safer. ”Basically, people can no longer handle being around speech they dislike. Only decades ago, people would have laughed at this concept. But it is all too real today. People are slowly but surely losing the very principles that once made this country free. Weapons As we all know, people are fearing weapons more and more. People refuse to be near guns because they are afraid of them. People will not use anything more than a kitchen knife because they’re sharp and dangerous. As a result, more and more restrictions are being placed on guns and knives, and as a result of that, people are left defenseless when faced with the very real threat of attack. Let us take a look at Jeff Cooper’s Principles of Self Defense. In his book, his starts with explaining that the danger is real. “Take the able-bodied male population of your community,”he says, “divide it by one hundred, and you have a fair approximation of the number of possible contacts who just might take it upon themselves to beat your head in. It is not pertinent to dispute the mathematics of this calculation. It may be wrong for your place and time. But anyone who is aware of his environment knows that the peril of physical assault does exist, and that it exists everywhere and at all times. The police, furthermore, can protect you from it only occasionally. ” This is true. Cooper later gives an account of a former pupil of his “heard the approach of the assassins’ car in the cold grey light of dawn. … Through the blinds he saw two men coming rapidly up the walk to his door one with a shotgun and one with a machine pistol. He decided that such a visit, with such equipment, at such an hour, needed no further explanation. He flung open the front door and went to work, and he remembered to remain cool and to shoot with precision. The two would-be murderers died in their tracks. The householder caught six pellets of bird shot in the leg. The attackers outnumbered and outgunned their proposed victim, but they were defeated and destroyed by a man who did everything right. ”Had this man not been armed, he would surely be dead today. And yet, people today are so afraid of weapons and so dependent on the police who “can protect you from [attacks] only occasionally,” put themselves in more dangerous conditions than necessary. This is more proof of my stance: A lack of ability to take one’s safety and life into their own hands out of sheer discomfort. Survival Skills This is a bit more minor, but it is still important. The system we live in is fragile. This is a truth everyone knows, though we also know that it is not likely to collapse anytime soon. Even still, if it were to collapse, people would not survive. You see, people are becoming increasingly dependent on the system. There was once a time when people knew that they needed to know basic survival skills, and they took it upon themselves to learn these skills because it was a good idea. Today, it is still a good idea, and yet people do not learn the skills, either because they are lazy or because they are ignorant. Either way, this is a lack of initiative and strength that further proves my point. Hard Work and Initiative I could go into this for a long time, but I will make it brief: More and more people are afraid of hard work and taking initiative and responsibility for their own lives because they expect success to be handed to them. What is the result? A generation of debt-ladened people, often with minimum wage jobs and no motivation to do anything. These are in fact the same people who rally behind politicians like Bernie Sanders - be promises to fix the problems that they caused. This is further proof. This is detrimental to the future of our society and our country Finally, I must prove that America’s lack of societal strength is detrimental to the future of our society and our country. In America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It by Mark Steyn, Steyn says that The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. “The West,” he says, “is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world's last best hope. ”Dave Stutman once said, “Complacency is the enemy of progress. ”Senator Mitch McConnell has even said that “the complacency that prevailed prior to September 11th has returned. ” Ronnie Gale Turbane noted about people lined up at a job fair after 9/11 that “[t]here was ONE thing that each and every one of these job seekers had in common: they WANTED a job. They WANTED to work to attain a better quality of life for themselves and their families. They had pride. They were a segment of the American people who were driven, resourceful, and well-respected by interviewers and recruiters alike as they marched on endlessly looking for a job. ” He then noticed a shift. He says that now, “They do NOT have a ‘fire in their belly. ’”“When I learned that people on welfare receive ATM cards and that they can use these cards to buy steak and lobster, liquor, or trade them in for cash, I lost my appetite. When was the last time YOU bought lobster as “take home” for dinner? “Then, you could easily call a friend and invite them to share this wonderful meal, courtesy of the U. S. government, on a FREE cellphone with FREE 250 monthly minutes included. Now I get it. I understand why one in ten Americans are on food stamps, rather than becoming an entrepreneur and following their own American Dream. ”You see, the increasing complacency of American society is causing it to crumble and rupture at the seams. If we are to save this country (and our society with it), people need to stop being so complacent and start being stronger and more aware. They need to take initiative. The title of this debate says that it’s time to give America its balls back. I continue to stand by this statement? Why? Well, while it may not be politically correct, it is true. We need to regain the strength, candor, initiative, and stick-to-it-iveness that once made us great. Sources [1] . https://www.thefire.org...[2] . http://www.twistedwiretactical.com...[3] America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It by Mark Steyn[4] . http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...[5] . https://www.washingtonpost.com...[6] . http://ivn.us...[7] . http://www.freegovernmentcellphones.net...[8] . http://www.mlive.com...[9] . http://www.reuters.com...