Washington D.C. is broken.

It has been a good debate, one of the few I've even considered to be an actual debate. The essence of your first paragraph is this: The government works better when everyone votes, and while it may work as is, it would work better if everyone voted. You also put forward that something simply needs to have previously worked better to be considered broken. I would almost go along with this, but I just realized something very important. In round 2, my opponent said that something does not have to be able to be repaired in order to be broken. I conceded this point, but I should not have. While I agree that something does not have to be fixable to be broken, it does by the definition of broken we're using. A totaled car cannot be repaired. Thus, it literally cannot be "in need of repair". It cannot be broken by the definition you've provided, though by other definitions it is. Such as the definition you've tried to apply in round 3, which simply requires that something has degenerated into a less useful state. Just as the totaled car, the government cannot be repaired when it comes to voting. you even admitted this: "Now, with the size of our country, it is nearly impossible to have everyone vote. I would even venture to say that it is completely impossible." I apologize for bringing up a point that I had previously conceded, but I conceded it based on false pretenses. As I just showed, I should not have conceded that point. Something must be repairable to be 'in need of repair.' There's no question about that. Next, about fairness and efficiency. You say that since the principle is economic, it does not apply. However, what brought up that entire point was you saying that the government has stopped caring about our well-being. I figured that by such a statement you had a problem with how the tax dollars were being spent. In that paragraph, you spoke of the national debt, worth of the dollar, spending overseas on policing the world, etc. Economic issues. Anyway, my argument was in response to policing the world specifically: you conceded that something needs to be done, but the UN isn't doing their job. It is in the interest of fairness for the rest of the world - you conceded that they need someone to police the world, but they don't have that. So we're giving it to them. Of course that won't be free for us to do. Of course it's going to cause a decrease in economic well-being here in the states. However, there are some who think that It is worth that sacrifice. As I said, it is a matter of taste. and when it comes to checks and balances, our government is not supposed to automatically, instantly catch all mistakes and disallow them to go through. Our system is supposed to limit what one branch can do without the support of the others. Unfortunately, sometime people overall will be misled, and multiple branches will be mistaken. Mistakes are to be expected, and our government is simply meant to limit and eventually revert these mistakes. And about robust, I was using a less common definition: adaptable. Hopefully, that makes a bit more sense now, my bad for not specifying a definition, I didn't actually know about the other definitions. In most areas, our system was never any better than it is now. In the instances that it is, it cannot be 'repaired' back to its old condition. Thus, based on the definition of broken my opponent supplied, it is not broken. It might be broken based on other definitions of the word, but my opponent went through the trouble of explicitly choosing this one specifically. I suppose it's off to the voters then. Great debate, I enjoyed it.