args

Serial Bullies should be expelled and be sent to reform school

If you don’t mind, I’m going to reorganize your responses so they are back in numerical order. Just cleaning things up. =) Just so this doesn’t get out of hand, since we’re dealing with a multithreaded argument, let me summarize everything that has happened: Statement 1 has been agreed upon that bullying in high school can scar people for life. (This was never under serious debate, only citation technicalities.) Statement 2 is still under debate. Statement 3.1 is still under debate. My opponent has conceded Statement 3.2, that not all bullies should be sent to a reform school and that a qualifying process is necessary to implement. Statement 3.3 is still under debate. So, with that in mind, let’s begin! ===Statement 2=== My opponent’s objection to my argument on Statement 2 is: “Once again your arguement [sic] is based on moral [sic] and does not assume that the 2 students have both been captured on camera.” I am a little confused on my opponent’s objection. My argument was that 1) my opponent cited an entire website as his source, 2) the website he cited pertained to workplace bullying, as opposed to high school bullying, which is the scope of this debate, and 3) showing how what my opponent cited actually reinforced my original statement about the difficulty of gathering accurate and unbiased information about bullying. There was no analogy with two students in my last response to Statement 2, and nothing mentioning a security camera. Also, I fail to see how an argument concerning the validity of my opponent’s citations can have moral grounds. I would ask that my opponent please clarify his objection, then I will be happy to debate it with him. However, for now, my opponent has not provided adequate responses and citations to the objections I originally raised in my last response, and thus has not met his burden of proof. My original rebuttal still stands. ===Statement 3.1=== First, I would like to note that my opponent still has not address my original objection to him about how denying bullies a free education violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Second, after reviewing the included report, I have objections to two things. 1) The estimate of 158 billion dollar loss includes all levels of school – elementary, middle, and high school. 2) The article itself indicates that bullying peaks during middle school: “Younger kids are more likely to be bullied and prevalence tends to be higher in middle school.” 3) The article make no non-perfunctory mention of how the rather doubtful figure of 158 billion dollar loss. In fact, the only mention it makes of the questionable sum is “One way that Plan calculated the cost of school violence was to look at the potential income a person lost because of missed schooling.” This does not constitute a thorough explanation. 4) The article does not explain whether this is the total loss over all of history of the American educational system or an annual loss. 5) I find this value to be incredibly questionable considering it is slightly larger than the combined net worth of the entire Coca-Cola Company. [1] In the words of Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” I would ask that my opponent either put forward more evidence of his extraordinary claim that bullying has exacted a 158 billion dollar loss or, by default, retract said statement. ===Statement 3.2 (Opponent Conceded)=== My opponent has conceded Statement 3.2: not all bullies should be sent to reform school and a qualifying process needs to be institutionalized. ===Statement 3.3=== My opponent’s objection to my argument against Statement 3.3 is: “Your defense is entirely built on moral. [sic] You have given no explaination [sic] as to why the football player should not be prosecuted to the same degree as the senior, and so due to this being opinionated [sic], and being based of moral [sic] which itself changes from culture to culture, you arguement [sic] does not hold.” I will break his objection up into three parts: 1) my argument is based in morality, 2) I must provide explanation why the football player should be prosecuted to the same degree as the senior, and 3) morality changes from culture to culture. Response to Part 1: If you would like to state that the fact that people should be penalized in proportion to the magnitude of their crime is an argument grounded in morality, then yes, my argument is grounded in morality. However, I fail to see the problem with having a penal system which is actually moral. Response to Part 2: In the analogy, the football player good-naturedly shoulder-bumped a teammate into the locker, which was misinterpreted as injury. The teammate would not have sustained serious injury (note “good-naturedly” shoulder-bumped), so the “crime” committed by the football player was fairly mild. However, the senior who beat up the freshman and left him in a garbage dump committed a major crime. He assaulted a much younger child and left him in an unsafe location where he was prone to disease and being stranded. If my opponent would like to put forward that people should not, in fact, be punished for their crimes, and that they should all be punished equally, then he must also agree with the inane statement that a person who stole 50 dollars should be punished the same as a serial killer who brutally murdered 50 people. Response to Part 3: Though the debate on morality varying itself from culture to culture is entirely outside the scope of this argument, I will address a component of it – punishment always being in proportion to the crime – briefly. To quote the Encyclopædia Britannica, “Theories of deterrence and retribution share the idea that punishments should be proportionate to the gravity of the crime, a principle of practical importance. If all punishments were the same, there would be no incentive to commit the lesser rather than the greater offense. The offender might as well use violence against the victim of a theft if the penalty for armed robbery were no more.” [2] This notion is almost universal in penal codes because of this reason. ===Response to Final Statement=== The information I have put forward so far is completely unbiased, unless you extend bias to count as part of basic morality. Furthermore, it is impossible to argue this issue without resorting to morality, as it deals with justice and mercy. For example, even your resolution that all serial bullies should be denied free education, sent to reform school, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, is grounded in morality, as it seeks to administer justice. ===Conclusion=== For brevity’s sake, my opponent and I reached a consensus in Statement 1 that bullying could, in fact, scar people for life, which was never under serious debate. (The only issue I had with my opponent’s assertion was his lack of citations.) However, my opponent did not provide a clear, relevant, or even understandable response to my rebuttal to Statement 2. Thus, my argument still stands. Furthermore, my opponent put forward ludicrous values in Statement 3.1 from an perfunctory source placing the net loss of bullying at 158 billion dollars, slightly larger than the net worth of the conglomerate, Coca-Cola. Also, my opponent even conceded Statement 3.2 in that his original assertion that bullies should be sent to reform school was incorrect. Finally, in Statement 3.3, my opponent argued against the institution of punishment in accordance with his crime, instead implying all bullying crimes should be punished equally without regard to their respective severities. In short, my arguments for Statements 2, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 all stand. My opponent has not met his burden of proof. I ask, therefore, that you render a decision in favor of Con. ===References=== [1] http://money.cnn.com... [2] http://www.britannica.com...