Regardless of what anyone says, L is the superior character hands down.
I tried to compare beats, but I'm tone-deaf, so I couldn't decide which beat I liked more.
Savant had the superior references and quantity of jabs.
The rhyme structure was easier to understand and much simpler.
Savant's rapping was more like prose that used a lot of rhymes. Grateful's rapping followed a more traditional style of rap, that had a more poetic structure. Grateful's disses were more aggressive and personal. The setup and punchlines from Grateful were also superior. Rhyming was equal on both sides, but the flow and jokes were just better from Con's side.
Both did a great job, however.
This debate essentially operates under the question of whether the UN should have the ability to interfere in problems outside their jurisdiction or if that violates their purpose for existing.
Pro appeals to human rights as being the main priority and gives numerous concrete examples & statistics to show that the peacekeepers' intervention has the potential to reduce the number of casualties and preserve human life. Pro's argument is that the UN volunteered to protect human life and denying the UN the opportunity to engage in offensive operations is failing the job they promised to do. Con concedes the argument about the UN saving casualties and instead argues that we should examine the bigger picture. Con agrees that the UN has the obligation to save human life, but disagrees on the how, and argues that preventing peacekeepers from interfering is actually the most practical way to accomplish that. Because the peacekeepers' reputation allows them to operate in hostile territory with the consent of the enemy to protect civilian life and violating the very agreement that allows them to peacefully co-exist is forfeiting that consent and prevents them from doing the job that they exist to do.
And that different institutions serve specific purposes, and allowing peacekeepers to engage in offensive operations means they cease to be peacekeepers.
The BOP is on Pro, and Pro fulfills their BOP. And Con brings a strong counter which would have won them the debate, if it was made earlier. But forfeiting Round 1 loses them that leverage. Therefore, this debate is tied.
Pro describes a myriad of good that lawful access could achieve like stopping terrorism, trafficking, and exploitation. And he also urges the demand for stopping criminals and rescuing victims of ongoing crime, since criminals are now becoming more sophisticated. He shows there is a need to act to save and protect lives.
Con counters this by describing the financial burden of tech companies to release this information, and how the vulnerability would be weaponized for financial fraud, identity theft, stalking & harassment, illegal data brokerage, and blackmail & extortion.
Con demonstrates firsthand that the solution creates bigger problems than the ones they are solving.
The burden of proof falls on Pro. And Pro’s failure to refute Con’s assertion that granting authorities lawful access means creating a backdoor means that Con wins.
Burden of proof is shared.
Pro - Framing: Governments have an obligation to base their laws around morals & principles that can be protected.
Invoking power or authority should not be the cause for which people comply with the law. Reason should be the motivator.
And to understand moral responsibility, identity is a requirement. As through identity is life. And life being temporary & vulnerable is individualistic to every person. But despite this, the vulnerability is shared.
The other factor is grievability, and who best actualizes this grievability.
And the main contention is that the death penalty violates the grievability of life.
The Death Penalty is a permanent act of violence on someone else, which makes it impermissible. We cannot control the actions or behavior of others, but we are always responsible for how we respond. And we have the responsibility to show restraint, despite the desire to act revenge. Execution is an abuse of this responsibility to preserve the ego. (Pro is actually applying a very stoic value to this framework.)
The Death Penalty denies our shared vulnerability, which undermines identity.
Con - Framing - Justice is the main priority of importance. To fairly address cases of crime & wrongdoing. The measurer of fairness is proportionality, let the punishment fit the crime.
The five goals of the criminal justice system.
Retribution: Punishment to the criminal for what they did.
Rehabilitation: Preparing the criminal to lead a productive life outside the justice system.
Deterrence: Deterring people from committing crimes.
Incapacitation: Removing violent offenders from society
Restoration: Making restitution between a criminal and their victim(s).
The most important function of government is to protect the general welfare of the public.
Con turns Pro’s own point about grievability back around on them by mentioning the permanent incapacitation of dangerous people.
Con indirectly accuses Pro’s The Other philosophy of rejecting life imprisonment & self-defense. Giving examples of where violence is not only acceptable, but necessary.
Con then asks the rhetorical question of whether society must be prevented from stopping violent people in society. Con then uses Pro’s own argument of life & grievability to defend that the lives the murderer took are also worthy of consideration, and that Pro’s framework ignores them completely.
Con acknowledges that the death penalty upholds the grievability of life by preventing more lives from being lost to murdering offenders.
And that life imprisonment is unreliable because of its potentiality for future escapes and since the government has the obligation to protect people, it must consider this potentiality.
Con also supports his framework principle of fairness, comparing the death penalty to crimes such as mass murder, genocide, and terrorism.
To summarize round 1. Pro uses several philosophical appeals which borrow different moral frameworks that reject the innate right to authority to superior power, and instead supports granting it to superior reason. Which circumstantially denies government the right to use the death penalty, if the appeal is successful.
Con’s version prioritizes governments as having a duty to protect society, and that justice is its primary priority and means of doing so. And that fairness should be a requirement for justice, and that proportionality should be used to determine fairness. Nothing more, nothing less. An eye for an eye.
Round 2
Pro - I actually like the way Pro starts off this second round. Specifically when they state that we do not follow the law because the law is the law, we follow the law because the reasoning for the law is strong enough to be mutually agreed upon.
Extending their earlier argument about the value and precariousness of life, and the precariousness is harmed if it is removed. (Murder.)
Pro is pleading for us, the audience, to reject Con’s framing and to not give them a second chance if they attempt to provide one in the next round. But the difference in this debate is that the two framing styles don’t usually clash the way they would in other debates. Neither of them inherently refute the other and there’s room for both of them to co-exist, as Con actually used his own arguments to honor the principles in Pro’s framing.
However, Pro oversimplification of Con endorsing state-sponsored killing of people won’t stick as an accusation, if Pro does not meaningfully address his criticisms of life imprisonment or the proportionality of saving more lives by ending one life versus keeping an offender alive, thus risking more lives.
Unfortunately, Pro’s rebuttal here drops several arguments. Which that the death penalty honors the grievability of life by stopping more lives from being taken, and that life-imprisonment is insufficient because of the potentiality for escape. And while I buy Pro’s reasoning that they are not required to defend life-imprisonment, they are still required to at least provide an alternative or substitute to the death penalty in order to counter Con’s criticisms.
Because under Con’s version, abolishing the death penalty creates more problems than it solves.
But Pro does successfully shatter a huge part of Con’s framing by pointing out that it is self-refuting by failing to accomplish rehabilitation or restoration. Pro successfully proves that deterrence is not achieved by citing statistical studies.
Oh wow, this is impressive. Pro was actually losing the first round and nearly the second half, but this actually turns the tables in a significant way.
And then pointing out the death penalty’s goal of proportionality is overly ambitious for a mass murderer who took thousands of lives.
But I would have liked to see Pro somehow addressing Con’s argument of life imprisonment being inadequate because of the potentiality for more lives taken, if the convict escapes.
Con - Con here actually makes a successful recovery. Con essentially points out that Pro is strawmanning his side by mischaracterizing his arguments. Firstly, I mentioned earlier that Con’s framing doesn’t have to clash with Pro’s to be successful, as they can co-exist. Pro mentioned reason as the guiding force for laws & authorities, and Con’s side honors this principle by using proportionality & fairness to guide justice.
And Con pointing out that a punishment doesn’t need to satisfy all the factors in his criterion is a strong rebuttal, as it shows that Con was never arguing this. Con extending arguments about examples where violence is necessary never being refuted by Pro now means these arguments are dropped. As Pro never addresses her original claim of violence never being necessary, or clarifies.
On its own merit, Con’s framing also stands as the government having the obligation to protect the lives of its citizens. Since this goes unchallenged, it shall remain.
Con meaningfully counters Pro about while they cannot protect dead victims, they can protect future lives.
Con also shows that Pro’s source contradicts her own claim about violence never being acceptable, when Butler clearly concedes as such.
During the final round. Pro mentions that Con accepts her framework, but this isn’t a negative thing. Because Con’s framework can co-exist, and even strengthens Pro’s framework. But in the end, the burden of proof is shared. And Pro’s philosophical appeals are too vague to warrant changing a whole policy. While Con at least offers multiple reasons for the existence of the death penalty. As Pro did successfully dismantle Con’s case about deterrence and failing other factors of proportionality. But the case of trading one life to prevent more lives from being taken scales the balance back in Con’s favor.
Here is the gap between pro and Con’s points and how they zig-zag in different directions.
Pro mentions that the death penalty does not actually deter criminals from committing crime.
Con mentions that the death penalty can preserve life by preventing the offender from taking more lives. This is not actually a defense for deterrence, and Pro drops this point.
This is the deciding factor, that if it were refuted by Pro. Would have given Pro the win.
Whiteflame - Framing: The system has a moral obligation to prioritize civil liberties over national security.
The main value is democratic integrity, which is defined by several principles.: Electoral process, political pluralism, government functioning, expression and belief, associational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy.
Betrayal of any of these principles causes democracy collapse.
Democratic integrity is a main value because democracies must continue to exist as democracies for the resolution to be semantically consistent.
Compromising these civil liberties diminishes the level of democracy that remains and shifts away from.
ICE, Federal Agencies, and AI have been violating people’s personal freedom all in the name of conducting a political investigation. And this invasion of freedom doesn’t stop, just because the problem being investigated goes away. And the people most affected are those unable to do anything about it.
The countries overriding civil liberties in exchange for national security have become living examples of tyranny & authoritarianism.
Pro is not arguing that the US is becoming an authoritarian nation.
Pro is arguing that the potentiality for authoritarianism becomes a real threat, when preserving basic individual rights is exchanged for a securer country.
Savant - Savant’s first argument brings up a hypothetical of where policies are ACTUALLY in conflict and not allegedly. And argues making decisions based on verification, rather than blindly accepting something at face value.
Savant pushes back against whiteflame’s framing, rejecting the broad angle and the moral framing. He calls out whiteflame’s careful wording, and reframes this discussion as not being about quantity, but rather which rule can produce more ideal outcomes. With careful consideration of all the circumstances.
Savant establishing what a national security threat means successfully undermines whiteflame’s appeal to principle. As Savant argues that it is only a security threat, if it threatens the safety of the nation.
Framing - Savant points out that Pro’s principle of democratic integrity is acceptable, but that the rules must consider the big picture of the ultimate goal being survival long-term, which requires temporarily forfeiting certain privileges for this big picture.
Savant exposes whiteflame’s examples as not being legitimate threats to national security and invalidates them as being unrelated to the actual position he is defending.
Savant wins round 1.
Round 2
Whiteflame - Whiteflame begins round 2 by accusing Con of attempting to redefine the established definition of “national security” and of restricting the scope of what Pro is allowed to argue.
I appreciate that Pro doubles down here. He is indirectly defending his previous examples as being on-topic. Framing Con as attempting to limit the scope, while justifying that his broad framing is the only version that actively abides by the definitions is a clever tactic here. What Pro is basically doing here is saying that Con is shifting the goalposts in a way that makes Pro’s side impossible to argue.
By referencing the status quo, whiteflame essentially points out that the debate is referring to some tradeoff being a requirement, but that liberty is not a slave to security.
Pro’s rebuttal acknowledges that in extreme cases, national security should be prioritized over civil liberties. But the reverse is also true.
Pro is establishing a pattern here. He is indirectly calling out Con for cherry-picking certain cases for which the tiebreaker does not apply.
Con - Con brushes off the attempted reframing of what he’s supposed to argue by pointing out that Pro’s earlier examples do not address threats to the state, so do not constitute national security. And ultimately establishes the reason he is not required to defend these.
Now what I like about Con’s refutations here is he defines a clear standard. Verification.
He uses Pro’s own words against him, arguing that it is neither reasonable nor coherent to take a politician’s words at face value of what constitutes a security threat if it doesn’t threaten the stability.
Con pushes back on Pro’s claim that there is no tiebreaker by arguing Pro still has room to argue, but doesn’t strongly refute this.
Essentially, this debate isn’t won by deciding who is right. But rather whose interpretation of the resolution more closely follows the rules.
And for this reason, Savant’s framing wins over whiteflame’s for several reasons.
Savant sets a strict standard for only threats to the stability of the state or the state itself count as threats to national security. Whiteflame tries stretching himself too wide, but doesn’t give enough support for why his examples constitute trade-offs between civil liberties and national security, when Savant points out there was no proof that national security was ever at risk anyway, despite Trump claiming so.
While whiteflame counters that Savant is arguing only absolutes, he still fails to provide strong examples for his own case. And since this is on-balance, Savant is the only one who backs up his arguments with concrete sources.
Round 3 focuses on repeating the arguments they made in the previous rounds and doubling down on anything that was said before.
I like whiteflame’s use of Star Wars quotes and the meme that Savant uses at the end.
I do genuinely believe whiteflame could have won this if he approached this differently, but Savant works a lot harder to establish his impacts. And this victory is by a landslide.
Pro begins by arguing that truth is defined by its ability to be known.
And that science uses observations which uses other observations to support its claim. But that observations cannot be proven by non-observations, which therefore makes science unknowable. And if there is no evidence or proof for Meowism, that also makes it unknowable. Which means that Meowism is as true as science.
Con argues that these comparisons are a false equivalence fallacy, and that science uses advanced methods of testing to substantiate the claims it makes. And that science has never claimed to be infallible. And thus while it can be prone to mistake, science demonstrates a higher level of accuracy while meowism has not shown any.
Con breaks a part Pro's arguments and definitions with relative ease, and shows that science uses more reliable means of testing than the religion of meowism.
The MOA is unsound. The rules don't logically follow or explain the conclusion, but Con doesn't break this down in detail or push back hard enough while Pro argues certain stipulations more convincingly.
While Pro clarified their burden of proof and argued that the MOA makes sense conceptually and not based on empirical research, Con's mistake was not questioning the final conclusion of the MOA is not an absolute claim that demands concrete evidence. Con instead dismisses Pro on the basis that Pro is making assumptions and speculation and is required to prove it. But Pro being able to ease their burden was sufficient enough for them to turn the tables on Con.
If Con pushed back just a little more firmly by specifying what Pro has to prove, and why each of the individual rules don't make sense logically. Con could have easily won this debate.
Pro addresses the Roman Goddess Venus with worship and pure awe. The impact doesn't hit as hard emotionally, but the rhyme scheme is easier to follow in a native english tongue. There is more flow.
Con's lines are drawn out for slightly too long, which makes the rhyme scheme slightly crooked and awkward. But there is more narrative and emotional depth to it, as while it is obedience and servitude to The Lord. It is not blind servitude.
But the rhyming in Pro's poem is more obvious.
