There has been a lack of commentary so far in the commentary thread. I shall fix that in my typical long-winded fashion:
More than anything, I love the activity. Almost a full pages worth of it for a legislative debate! Keep it up!
Basically, my thoughts on the debate are as follows:
paragraph breaks are really good, straw men are really bad.Specifically, Kingpoleon's first paragraph on abortion, where he uses child molestation by a family member as an example on abortion. Obviously this would be under
both the rape and incest clauses, so it's completely irrelevant.
I totally get the position that it's merely a personal belief, and on many levels I sympathize with that position. But I think it misses the point. Let me try to explain: I am personally opposed to someone smashing someone's car window with a baseball bat. I would tell my kids not to do it (if I had kids), and I personally would never do such a thing. But if someone thought it was okay, and did it, should they go without punishment? Should I refrain from "imposing" my "personal belief" on them?
Of course not, because being opposed to vandalism is more than a personal belief. It's a violation of that person's right to property, and thus a responsibility of the government's to protect. More important than that, I would say, is the right to life, and if you think that a fetus is a life at a certain point (say, at the time when the heart starts beating--which is much earlier than the dates most people are proposing) then every time after that point, how is that not in the remit of government to protect that right to life? Yes, people have the right to make their own choices, but doesn't that end when the choice infringes upon that of others?
Not trying to start another argument about that, just curious on how someone can think it's a life and still think it's not within the remit of government to protect that life's right to, well, live. To me, protecting basic rights (e.g. life, liberty, property) is one of the very few things (come to think of it, the only thing) the government should be doing. I'm always curious on how people determine their views, and thus am interested in how Kingpoleon (who has done a good job, by the way: with rebuttals, a fairly good defense of his basic views, and paragraph breaks) determines his.
Also,
there are no income taxes in the South. And if there were, they would not have survived a term with me as governor.
So, as much as I like cutting taxes, and like lots of the policy proposals, that doesn't quite work in the Southern region of Atlasia today.
Lots of good/interesting proposals, though. Kingpoleon's regional currency idea fascinates me greatly, although I think there would be major problems with it in application.
Again, though: paragraph breaks > most things > straw men.
Oh, and I guess I didn't do this publically, but many thanks to Truman for running this debate!
