It Should be Legal in the U.S. to Occasionally Hit Someone

Thanks Lifeisgood, a pleasure to debate you too and I'm glad you had the time to continue the discussion. Thanks also for further clarifying what you meant in your opening round, I recognise that there are (extremely vague) limits to the kind of hitting you advocate. It is clear however that the main example you give of justified hitting is in response to annoyance. The problem with this is that annoyance is inherently subjective. What annoys one person may not annoy another and some people can be especially easy to annoy. A person could conceivably use such a law to legitimise almost any sort of violent attack including those against the defenceless which my opponent apparently condemns. 'That bloke in the wheelchair was looking at me funny', 'that tramp asleep on the floor was annoying me', 'my neighbor's baby kept crying so I punched it in the head'. These are just some of the plausible excuses for unprovoked assaults that would be heard if a law in favour of hitting the annoying was passed. There is no boundary or consensus of what qualifies as annoying behaviour, so a law legitimising violence as a response to it would be impractical, dangerous and contrary to existing laws. >"I believe the world would be a better place, as annoying people would quickly learn to not be annoying. This would virtually eliminate all human annoyances on earth." This is clearly not true as annoyance is subjective. It is obviously annoying to be hit. A large proportion of people, such as myself, find real-life violence extremely annoying to witness. There is no conceivable way that virtually all human annoyance could ever be eliminated by hitting as hitting creates more annoyance than it eradicates. Therefore my previous contention that the world would be a better place with less violence stands unrefuted. I would add that this 'opinion' becomes fact under the basic premise that peace is a good thing. Readers may of course believe otherwise. ----- 1) Stress relief. My opponent does not challenge my assertion that hitting creates more stress than it relieves and as there are no more debate rounds I can only assume that he concedes this point. There is, incidentally much evidence that short bursts of exercise (such as occasional hitting) actually increase stress and anxiety levels [1]. >"if you hit someone hard enough you won't have to worry about them pulling out a gun on you." This is somewhat naive and ignores the distinct possibility of them coming after you on a later date, unless you hit hard enough to kill, which I'm sure Pro is not arguing in favour of. 2) It is up to the voters to decide how relevant my points are and ignoring them is a poor tactic. Extend my arguments on self-esteem and teaching good morals. 3) My opponent thinks more fights would be good. He contradicts himself by agreeing that fights lead to more fights but then talking about them creating agreement. Fights are dangerous and harmful as these graphic images display, please don't click on these links if you are easily shocked [2]. 4) I don't see how my substitute is impractical for most people and it is better all round exercise than hitting. Sex requires flexibility and stamina of a much greater level, it is also pleasurable and harmless to others to indulge on a regular basis. 5) Some people (especially the stupid) find intelligent people annoying, merely being intelligent is no defense to Pro's measures. When I referred to "rewarding violence" I was referring to the idea of violent people being more successful in breeding and the genes that made them violent being rewarded by the evolutionary process. 6) Benefits have nothing to do with denying another person's rights. Pro makes no clear argument about American doctrine. ---- >"no one would dare do something like that to me." Very cocky, I hope you are not proved wrong. >"I would prefer to punish you in my own way" Tantamount to suicide. Not that I would hit you in the first place. :) >"He has mingled with his arguments personal speculation as well as statements of opinion." Pro's arguments consist of little else, I have followed his format to some extent. >"punching someone, which would cause no permanent damage" Again see[2], also [3] for the common sense response to this blatant misconception. [1] http://www.trans4mind.com... [2] http://images.mirror.co.uk... http://img.thesun.co.uk... [3] http://www.sunderlandecho.com... http://www.sherdog.net... http://news.bbc.co.uk... Thanks for the fun debate. Pro.