BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
It is perfectly easy to rule on what is positive and negative. It’s true that some positive ads mig...

Drawing a line between positive and negative advertising is not easy. When a scandal breaks, is it legitimate to run positive ads about one’s own candidate on that topic? For example, isn’t it ‘negative’ to run a ‘John is a good family man’ advert when news breaks that the other candidate is accused of having an affair with an intern, given that the intention is obviously to draw a comparison with a negative impact about the opponent?
Negative ads produce the politics of the personal, since the easiest ad is an attack-ad which focuse...

Modern politics is much less about ideology than was the case twenty years ago. Given that rival candidates and parties often agree with each other on the big topics of the day, their personalities and abilities are highly relevant to voters trying to decide between them. Political ads, both positive and negative are one important way for voters to get a rounded picture of a candidate. In any case, with your proposal, politics will still be all about the personal – but it will be about presenting candidates as saints, rather than an environment in which both positive and negative opinion can be fairly voiced.
Many able people get put off going into the political world by exactly this kind of negative adverti...

Politics is a tough game, and those that go into it should expect that. It’s just part of the game. The poor dears do seek publicity, after all – they should accept the inevitable downside of people having negative opinions about them. We should want our politicians to be tough: how much faith would we have if we sent softies to represent our nation’s interests at international summits, or stand up for the needs of voters in the legislature?
The political environment is mired in negativism that turns people off politics and creates the impr...

The political environment is mired in negativism that turns people off politics and creates the impression that all politicians are corrupt or incompetent or both. Things aren’t going to improve on their own – in fact, they’ll probably get worse. We ought to stop the nastiness by ruling that only positive advertising is allowed. Only then will people really reengage with politics. Politics should be about issues – about policies and ideology. This rule would help push the debate back to that by stopping personal attacks and requiring people to say something positive about their own position, rather than knocking someone else’s.
We should not reward criminals

What kind of a society gives leeway to criminals? What we are doing is rewarding people for committing crime! This is an outrageous suggestion. Criminals who plea guilty in trial currently get up to a third off of their sentence, down to the judges discretion, why should we offer them anymore than this? Surely a better plan would be to punish those who plead not guilty and then are found to be guilty! After all we should punish criminals not reward them.
We must bear in mind the victim and their family

If we or one of our family members is harmed, we would feel very strongly against the imposer of that infliction. This is especially true in a murder case. How could a family ever accept that a criminal gets a lower sentence because they admitted to the heinous act they committed? The very thought of this is chilling. The family would never be able to forgive the justice system if this were the case. Instead of considering the costs and our overcrowded prisons, we should think about the families to whom the injustice has been completed against.
Jurors are unproductive units for the economy

Juror duty is a public service; if everyone pleads guilty then there's no point in catching people. False confessions are the worse proof of injustice. If lying is to be mandatory to save one's skin(and it is already greatly encouraged for all the reasons mentioned in the arguments on the left.) then justice would be completely,entirely and unabashedly void. Should people stop being charitable because it requires time and effort? Being overworked is economically unproductive (performance quality and quantity fall as work hours increase) . Holidays;breaks and public service are important factors in our overall performance/productivity/utility/physio-psychological-health. In other words we need breaks to perform optimally; otherwise we're exhausted/flummoxed/worn-out.
It would save the police time so they can fight more crime

The assumption on the left is that all captives are guilty.Sadly this is not practically true.Where as, the legal conceptual ideal is to assume that all captives are "innocent until proven guilty'. The police are not really busy bodies(largely comically associated with guzzling doughnuts and loitering casually. One hardly/never sees policemen running around on the street or involved in car chases; as such. It could actually make the police spend more time on paper work. If such importance is given to the time at which the defendant first admitted guilt, and then the police would have to ensure that their records were precise at all stages of the interviewing process. The chairman of the Criminal Bar Association warned of these consequences when he was presented with the idea.
It would help our already overflowing prisons

Consider the implications of this argument. What this idea is saying is that instead of paying for criminals to serve their full sentence, we instead should allow them to overflow into society! Criminals will cost society money regardless of whether they are in prison or let loose. But when they are loose, they are able to harm the members of society directly. For this reason, there should be no leniency allowed for criminals who admit to their crime for the reason of overflowing prisons.
It would boost public confidence in the criminal justice system

This is non sense. How could letting criminals have a lower sentence for the crime they committed give the public any confidence in our criminal justice system. How could giving even innocent criminals even greater incentive to admit/confess to crimes they did not commit ; create confidence in justice?? . Regardless of how clear the law is, people will be disapproving of criminals being released back into society earlier due to them admitting that they committed the crime in the first place. A lenient law is still a lenient law, regardless of whether the exact reasoning behind it is clear or not!
we need to save money to over come the recession

Criminal proceedings are an expense to society. The costs are crippling. This is even more so when people plead not guilty. The trial goes on for longer, more evidence is needed and the jury have to be reimbursed for their time off work. At a Magistrates court, if someone pleads guilty, the average cost for all crimes is £450. If they plead not guilty, the costs take a major hike to £1700! This is over 300% more! In the Crown court, the cost difference is even more staggering. A guilty plea costs £2600 whilst a not guilty plea costs £17550. [[http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/r103.pdf]] We should encourage people to plea guilty by offering them more lenient sentences so that we can rebuild our economy.
We must bear in mind the victim and their family

What about the criminal's family? Why should they be victimized? anyone can commit a crime why should families suffer? the victim's family undergoes torture irrespective of whether they get retribution or not. The loss is not erased/eradicated. There have been several instances of people confessing/admitting to murders they did not commit. If several people confess to a murder that only one person could have committed (for shorter jail terms) then it is only fair that the sentence be reduced( given that all but one are innocent)
There will be more of the budget available for less clear cut cases

Some cases that face Magistrates and even judges in the Crown court are simple matters of people committing a crime with strong evidence to prove it. These cases still have to go to trial. Criminals further frustrate the system by pleading not guilty. These people are time and money wasters. However, if we offered them enough of a discount on their sentence, they would not do so. By filtering these cases out, we are left with those that have more elements to them, like rape trials. These are often cases of one person's word against another and therefore more time should be spent on hearing the stories. With less of a case load, the criminal justice system would be able to cope with spending extra time on these cases. The Nash equilibrium in Prisoner's dilemma-plead guilty and so win-win. Pleading guilty even when innocent means a probabilistically shorter prison sentence; given how the likelihood of being ruled guilty is greater than being ruled innocent irrespective of whether you really are.
Jurors are unproductive units for the economy

Not only does society have to pay to reimburse jurors, but employers lose out of productivity due to missing staff. If more people pleaded guilty, there would be less of a need for jurors and therefore our economy would be stronger. When people are not at work they are unproductive. They do not pay salary/wage-tax, they do not produce anything and this lowers our net GDP (Gross domestic productivity). The result of a lower GDP is lower confidence in domestic markets and therefore a lower value to the currency. We should encourage people to plea guilty in order to save our national productivity.
It would save the police time so they can fight more crime

The sheer amount of paper work that the police force has to rummage through in order to substantiate a case in trial is tremendous. The amount of paper work increases when people plead not guilty. If we gave enough incentive for criminals to admit to their crimes, the police would spend less time with this paper work. They would spend less money on this paper work. They would then be able to go out on the street and catch more criminals. This would lead to a safer society.
It would help our already overflowing prisons

By being more lenient with sentence length to criminals who admit their guilt at the earliest opportunity, we are not only saving money on the court process but also on the prisons. Currently these prisons are over crowded. There have been constant talks about expanding prisons or building new ones. However, if we encouraged people to admit guilt in exchange for a shorter sentence, then we can reduce our prison numbers. This will save us money and space in prisons, both of which are much needed. The argumentation on the right wrongly assumes that 1)There is no such thing as a first-time criminal(hello? every criminal is not a criminal before s/he commits his/her first crime) , 2)That all criminals are serial criminals(A rape/murder/theft could be a criminal's one-off or unique one-time crime) and 3)that all convicts are guilty criminals(The fact that there have been several appalling instances of people serving jail time until the real culprit is found; sometimes posthumously, testifies to the sad fallacy in this idea)
It would boost public confidence in the criminal justice system

Much of the press these days surrounding the criminal justice system is about how the judges are too soft on criminals. This is resulting in the public thinking that Britain is not coping with crime very well. However this is a misconception based around confusion. The judges have certain things they have to bear in mind upon deciding a sentence. There are different Acts to follow and mitigating circumstances to take into account. This is complicated even for the judges. The creation of a tariff for sentencing with the inclusion of leniency for pleading guilty in the early stages would boost public confidence. They will be able to see the tariff and understand why judges gave the sentence they did.
it would improve consistency

Currently there is too much discretion left to judges. They have the leeway to cut the sentence by a third for what they consider to be an early admittance. This is far too wide of a discretion. Depending on the judges mood or how he feels about the defendant a judge can fail to give the leeway or conversely, give the criminal the whole third off. This could be true even for criminals who accepted blame at the same time. If we were to have a proper tariff as to sentencing, there would be a greater fairness across the board. Lawyers would be less confused and so able to give clearer advice to their clients so they could make a more informed decision as to their next move.
The police could scare people into confession

The problem with their being a tariff on how early you admit to your sentence length is that suspects will feel compelled to confess even if they were not guilty. The police could play on their mind stating that if they confessed they would avoid a custodial charge. Suspects may feel that even if they are innocent, the evidence is weighted so heavily against them that admitting would be an easier get out clause than trying to fight the case. This is not in the interests of justice. People should not be induced into admitting early as opposed to fighting their innocence.
Cortes wouldn't have conquered Mexico if he wasn't so pious

Hernan Cortes set out from Cuba with instructions from the viceroy to trade and not to cause conflict with any people he may meet. Having seen the corruption of the Christian message in Europe, Cortes conquered Mexico to provide the church with a clean sheet of paper on which to create the perfect Christian utopia. Without religious verve, Cortes would not have had the zeal to conquer Mexico, and the true Mexican culture would still be alive today
Benito Juarez (Anti-Roman Catholic) is the saviour of Mexico

We must take a look at Mexico as it was before and during the life of this reformer, Don Benito Juarez. The conquistadors and the first Spanish settlers to come to New Spain, not only seized land and authority for themselves, but set up a power structure that excluded even those of pure Spanish blood if they were born in Mexico. Called creoles, they were granted only secondary positions in local governments. High positions in the national government, the military and the Roman Catholic Church were reserved for those born in Spain. To perpetuate this system, pregnant women were sent back to Spain to give birth. Called gachupines (spur-wearers), they were hated by those Spaniards who had been born in the New World. They were equally unpopular among the mestizos, those of mixed Spanish and Indian blood. Hatred for this elite group made itself manifest on the night of September 15, 1810, when those hearing Father Miguel Hidalgo proclaim the Grito, a call for Mexican Independence from Spain, responded by shouting Mueran los gachupines! (Death to the Spaniards). Of the three groups who had formed this alliance, the Church was the most vulnerable and it was at them that Juarez directed his first efforts to overthrow the power structure. He also attacked the army, seeking to abolish it, but with little success. Juarez remains an untarnished hero. In the campaign against the Catholic Church, he and the Liberal Party were actually waging war against the Conservative Party, which was an unholy alliance of the Church, the military and the landowners. There can be no doubt that the Church used threats of excommunication and the granting of indulgences to further the well being and control of the country by the gachupines. The destruction of this power structure, that excluded most Mexicans, is the basis for his popularity and rightfully so.
It was the government's effort to "chastize" the Catholic Church which led to a mexican potical and cultural chaos

The Plan of Iguala had guaranteed the supremacy of the Catholic Church in 1821 and although the new Mexican constitution paid lip service to religious tolerance, only Catholics could be Mexican citizens. But in 1851, all of that started to change as a "liberal" political party was born. One of its leaders, a Zapotecan Indian named Benito Juarez would finally emerge as President of the country. But long before that, he had proclaimed himself as an anti-cleric, determined to destroy the power of the church. With a protégé, Ignacio Comonfort installed in the Presidency, the "Lerdo Law" was proclaimed. It expropriated all property owned by the church or that it held in trust. Ironically, this act by a party, led by an Indian, stripped his fellow Indians of most of the land they held. Called Ejidos, they were lands granted to Indian tribes, clans, communities or even families. They were owned in common and were farmed communally. But because the majority of the Indians were illiterate, the Church held the lands in trust. Now they were seized along with convents, monasteries, hospitals and schools. In 1857 a new Constitution was drawn up. Liberty of conscience, religious tolerance and freedom of worship were all professed by the Liberals, but in reality they had deprived the almost 100 percent Catholic population of much of their religious freedom. Churches remained open, but they suppressed all religious orders, declared religious vows illegal, prohibited nuns and priests from appearing in public in religious garb. . In a further blow aimed at Catholicism, Protestants were permitted to establish themselves in the country. Despite the unpopularity of these laws, they remained in effect. But they did not break the allegiance of the Mexican people to Catholicism. Also, it led the clerics and their conservative supporters to appeal to the French, who sent troops and installed Maximillian as Emperor of Mexico.
Cortes wouldn't have conquered Mexico if he wasn't so pious

It wasn't Christianity that damaged mexican culture, it was colonialism. The same thing happened in Africa, we had our tribes and our festivals, but then the Europeans came along. They enslaved 12,000,000 of us and left poverty to develop. Now Africa has one of the biggest Christian populations in the world. Also, what about Europe. It had it's old pre-medieval traditions. Somebody introduced Christianity, but the Europeans don't whinge about their culture. People forget that Christianity began in the Middle East, not Europe. If Cortes ruined Mexican tradition it was his colonisation of Mexico, not Christianity itself. Many African countries celebrate their old traditionss through song and dance and are still fervent in their Christian faith.
The Catholic Church saved the Mexican people by treating them as human beings and giving them the chance to live as free people.

Time after time, the Catholic Church has narrowly escaped destruction and survived only because of popular support that defied the law of the land. It was Hernan Cortes who brought the Catholic Church to Mexico. Pope Alexander VI had ordered that natives of the new lands discovered by Columbus, be instructed in Catholicism for the "salvation of their souls." Cortes accepted this wholeheartedly and acted accordingly. He was also punctilious about christening women given to the Spaniards as slaves. It was forbidden for his men to have intercourse with any woman until she had been baptized. The woman who history calls La Malinche, baptized as Donna Marina, not only served Cortes as an interpreter and later, as his mistress. She became a fervent Christian, and according to Bernal Diaz, worked hard to convert her fellow Indians. Schools for Indians were founded, and now the true meaning of Christianity was made clear to those who had converted. There can be little doubt that the firm grip of Catholicism on Mexico can be traced back to the efforts of Archbishop Juan de Zumarraga. The Church, with government approval, would monitor the treatment of Indians. When the Spanish landowners foiled efforts to force them to grant Indians freedom, De Quiroga, started to set up monasteries and community centers in which Indian children could be educated. Manned by friars, they gave instruction in Christianity plus arts and crafts. The Catholic Church saved the Mexican people by treating them as human beings and giving them the chance to live as free people.
answer to giving out personal info is dangerous

People can stalk you at work, people can stalk you on the street, people can stalk you anywhere and everywhere you go. Every time a person is exposed a certain of security is lost. The good thing about Facebook is, that you can communicate with lots of people on different personal levels toggling with privacy controls/settings, thus having complete control over your personal exposure. Hanging out in the open physically exposed, is far more dangerous. A person can't shoot or bomb you on facebook, but you can be killed in a coffee shop, public library, subway, train station, tube etc.
Facebook will become another web-based venue for sexual predators fishing for jailbait

It started with Msn chat rooms; do we really want to risk turning Facebook into another child-predator hub? [[http://www.pcsndreams.com/Pages/ChatNightmares.htm]] [[http://www.pcsndreams.com/Pages/Archives_10.htm]] Since internet predators attack boys/girls aged anywhere from 7 to 17, maybe Facebook should reduce the year of birth to 2006 not raise it to include even younger children.
Parental control, privacy settings and look at Myspace/Youtube

So your argument is that there should be age restrictions on email account creation, which is impossible since so many young people already have email accounts. Parents can't be everywhere, controlling parents have rebellious children , there are most parents who are swamped with activities other than, so who does my little cherub have a crush on? And there have been cases on Facebook despite the current age restriction. Facebook needs to ensure that people using the facility are real and not lying about their age, otherwise pranks like this. [[http://www.anhourago.us/show.aspx?l=8295862]] and horrors like these. [[http://blog.pcpandora.com/2011/05/25/wacky-internet-predator-wednesday-145/]] will not be deterred.
Giving Out Personal Information Is Dangerous

I personally think that Facebook is a not a good social networking site because it is a place where people can stalk you, and it is unsafe. When people first create a new Facebook account, and it asks you for all of your personal information such as your address, phone number, and email, people don't usually think before submitting in the information. This is dangerous for kids and an easy way for a person to stalk you because they now know a lot about you, and how to contact you. Of course you can hide your profile and limit the access to certain people, but its not really the same once you submit the information. Even though Facebook has an age restriction, people on the internet lie about their age and decide to make an account anyways. Sometimes people's parents know what's best and when they tell their kids that Facebook is not a safe networking site to be on, people go right ahead and make it anyways and sneak around on it hoping not to get caught.
Well...yes and no

the assumption that people make better choices with age has no practical relevance. Countless Adults the world over, are homeless, drug addicts, criminals, a danger to themselves and others. Being 18 does not magically transform you into a good, stable and street-smart person. Facebook should take measures to protect people of all ages from disinformation, spam and misinformation. Children are not the only ones falling prey to internet scams. Facebook needs to monitor and control the credibility of its content. [[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/facebooks-newest-scam-photoshop-app-with-fake-photos/236656/]] [[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/facebooks-newest-scam-photoshop-app-with-fake-photos/236656/]]