This page will contain some summaries of news articles that I read in order to prepare for tournaments as well as some information regarding of each tournaments that I participated.
"RESOLVED: Privacy should be sacrificed for the sake of national security"
1. Privacy is a democratic fundamental and this policy is not justified
Privacy is the principle that guarantees that your private information are yours and yours only. Information, though intangible, is no different from any other property. Your personal property, or your personal objects, are unquestionably yours, and is protected from any other individual, or even the state, from taking it away from you. A less material and more intangible parallel would be with intellectual property rights, that are most fiercely defended by not only the United States but organizations around the world. Private information is no different. Just like you have a choice to determine how much of yourself to reveal in the stages of getting to know someone, the choice to choose when and where information regarding yourself might be communicated is an individual choice.
The government’s policy is unjust because it violates this fundamental right, but not only that, it has the added problem of assuming all citizens to be suspect. One of the most important principles in any system of law, is the “presumption of innocence,” or Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat, which translates as: the burden of proof is on he who declares, not on he who denies. Based on this idea, courts must prove a person’s guilt before they can declare him a convict, and similarly, when trying to search for evidence, must get warrant first, in the case that the individual refuses, prove there is enough cause for suspicion that the individual refuses. What is evident in both cases, is that the state must regard all citizens as innocent, and only in the cases where it may prove there are some legitimate reasons to question his innocence, then the state may search their information.
This resolution essentially presumes all people to be guilty, and then search their most private and personal information without legitimate cause. Even though terrorism may be a dangerous threat, there is absolutely no reason to suggest that every single citizen is a potential terrorist. And yet, the government searches everyone’s information indiscriminately, and this is wrong.
2. It is ineffective
Not only is this model unjust, but it is ineffective, and disproportionately harmful.
Because first, the most serious terrorists will steer clear of the most obvious platforms such as major cell networks, Google, Skype, and Facebook. As Bloomberg puts it, "the infrastructure set up by the NSA … may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The PRISM surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America's largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use." Rather, they take extensive measures to hide their activities, through data encryption and other means, especially because now that the US government’s surveillance programs are publicly known, anyone with enough brains and experience will know to avoid the most obvious platforms.
In fact, recent data reveals that only a fraction of the foiled terrorist plots since the September 11 attacks were found out as a result of NSA programs, and the majority were through other means. According to the New America Foundation (a non-profit think tank) - of the 227 Al Qaeda-affiliated people or groups that have been charged for committing an act of terrorism in the US since 9/11, just 17 of the cases were credited to NSA surveillance, and just one conviction came out of the government's extra-controverisal practice of spying on its own citizens. That charge was against San Diego cab driver Basaaly Moalin, for sending money to a terrorist organization in Somalia. There was no threat of an actual attack.
Furthermore, it is very difficult to quantify how well the Patriot Act has worked in preventing terror attacks, especially when you find that in many of these plots that were broken up the Feds bated suspects, offered in many cases to buy weapons or explosives, and then once that suspect agreed to take part in the plot, they were arrested. This is entrapment, with the government leading its citizens on into muddy waters, and catching them for doing the very things the government itself lead them to do.
RESOLVED: There is more harm than good to have a government mandated day off for mega supermarkets to promote sales growth for small stores.
Affirmative Argument 1. Why this policy is harmful and unjustified According to an article written by 경숙 김, the journalist of 조선일보 states that even if traditional markets are available around certain areas, traditional markets have problems such as lack of parking space, don't accept credit cards, dirty conditions and this is the reason why consumers will go to the mega supermarkets anyways even if mega supermarkets has a day off. Furthermore, if mega supermarkets are harmed, this will result in economic losses for everyone, not just large conglomerates. For example, according to an article written by 경희 김, the journalist of 경향일보 states that e.g. In the year of 2012, the twice a month mandatory holiday for mega supermarkets resulted in the loss of 5636 job losses, and 866 job losses as a result of the nighttime operations regulations (심야영업제한). This evidence shows that how it is a serious problem also for the employees of mega supermarkets who depend on their jobs for their livelihoods. Additionally, store owners who rent shops inside mega supermarkets: will also lose out, and this is bad because these are the very same people as those selling in markets, except they chose to rent their stores inside large supermarkets. To add, according to a statistic collected by the government runned organization, 중소기업청 (small to medium business association), shows that out of 100 people who rent shops inside the mega supermarkets, more than 75 of them are small to medium stores. Small to medium enterprises who supply to large supermarkets are also harmed, because when large supermarkets are able to sell less, this translates to direct hit in sales for the suppliers who sell through those large supermarkets. According to statistic collected by a small to medium company who sold through mega supermarkets, named Shinseonmi, e.g. has suffered a 10% hit to its sales 10% hit to its sales is a big thing since it is a small to medium company and they should be protected, not harmed by the government.
Argument 2. Why this policy is ineffective Even if large supermarkets are restricted in their hours of operation, this would not lead to a boom for traditional markets. According to an article written by 라희 박, a journalist of 국민일보, it states that large supermarkets have their ways to bypass this problem, such as by holding sales promotion events during the weekdays to encourage more people to buy during that time, and by opening their stores earlier and closing later to allow people to take advantage of their stores for longer during the weekdays. Furthermore, traditional markets are avoided for their inherent problems that they are inconvenient for people to use (e.g. lack of parking space, not accepting credit cards, etc), so even if large supermarkets are closed, people do not necessarily choose to go to traditional markets instead. Additionally, This does not incentivize markets to become more competitive and improve themselves, which is the reason that people do not want to go to these markets in the first place. Even if this results in momentary sales gains for traditional markets during the weekends when the large supermarkets are closed, this is offset by the relative drop in sales during the weekdays when people show a stronger preference for large supermarkets in reaction. According to the economic newspaper E-Today, even though traditional markets saw sales growth on the government mandated holidays, their overall sales actually shrunk, as less people chose to visit them on the weekdays.
Argument 3. Harms of government interference in free market economies and the need for a self-regulating free market economy Importance of the supply and demand chain and the invisible hand; how the market will work itself out. In capitalist markets, producers decide on their own how much of a certain product to make and sell, and consumers decide on their own how much of a product to buy. This is how price points are determined and this is how the market economy regulates itself, without government interference. In fact, government interference in notoriously bad in working out specifically how much of a certain good should be produced for how many people, as is evidenced by the collapse of the socialist economies of the Soviet Union and China. Therefore, government interference in markets has historically proven to fail, and it makes no sense for the government to try and direct people's demand and businesses' supply as according to its own will, because it WON'T WORK. In particular, as traditional markets simply lack competitiveness, they should be forced to change through economic incentives. If less people are buying, and this means less profit for business owners there, then it should be the business owners responsibility to improve their stores to make them more appealing to consumers(traditional markets lack competitiveness - therefore let them suffer - if they suffer, they will change their ways). This policy is harmful because it does not push local businesses to improve their competitiveness through financial incentives, but allows them to be complacent in their lagging conditions, and ultimately loses their appeal to consumers, as is evidenced by the fact that in spite of this policy, traditional markets have FALLEN in overall sales.
Negative
One of the biggest problems for the Korean economy is that it is dominated by large conglomerates, and this is particularly harmful for the economy in that it harms small business operators, owner-operators and local businesses. For this problem to be alleviated, the government must regulate mega supermarkets from crowding out such businesses from the market, and therefore, the government mandated day off for mega supermarkets is a very necessary policy for the overall health of the Korean economy.
Argument 1. NEED
In our first argument, we have 2 subpoints to prove.
Subpoint A. Problem of Mega Supermarkets If the Korean government stops mandating day off for mega supermarkets, this will lead to the tyranny of mega corporations. In the beginning, most mega supermarkets will compete with smaller markets by lowering their prices. However, as soon as small to medium business owners collapse when mega supermarkets have driven them out of business through their low prices, which will be unsustainable for smaller stores, the mega supermarkets will raise the prices since there is no more competition and they can sell at whatever price they like, because as the only suppliers, consumers will have no one else to turn to. Thus, consumers will be harmed, so to prevent this scenario from coming to pass, the government should keep the policy of mandating a day off for mega supermarkets.
Subpoint B. The money earned by the mega supermarkets ultimately goes back to the mega corporations, whose headquarters exist not in regional provinces, but elsewhere. Therefore, even if local residents buy from mega supermarkets, this would result in capital outflow and harm the regional economy. Since the owners of small to medium businesses in traditional markets are also the consumers of that region, they spend their earnings in the area of their residence, which would lead to greater money flow in the regional economy. However, mega supermarket’s sales revenue would travel back to the shareholders and the owner families, which does not result in wealth distribution nor money flow within the region, and this will slow down the local economy.
Argument 2. Effectiveness Now moving on to our second argument. This policy is proven to be very effective by the following evidences. Firstly, according to a survey on the effects of this policy on sales for traditional markets, the Small and Medium Business Association has showed up with the result of 15% of sales increased in traditional markets. Also, it has shown that small to medium markets around the mega supermarkets’ sales and consumers had incredibly increased for about 15% ~ 30%.
Argument 3. Benefit We have 4 subpoints to prove in our last argument.
Subpoint A. Economic Growth and reduce wealth gap If mega supermarkets are allowed to operate everyday, people would continue to shop at those places and avoid traditional markets, resulting in greater wealth gap between large conglomerates and small business holders. Therefore, this policy of mandated holidays is necessary to remedy this situation because the statistics show that with this policy, small markets will also be able to grow resulting in alleviation of wealth gap. According to the survey done by Agency for Traditional Market Administration in May 10th, 2012, small to medium retail companies and traditional market’s average sales increased 11.7% compared to May 3rd, 2012, when mega supermarkets were open. Also, its consumers actually increased by 11.5% also compared to May 3rd, 2012. This shows that government mandated day off for mega supermarkets to promote sales growth for small stores is promoting sales growth for small to medium markets and even traditional markets too.
Subpoint B. Promote Economic Democratization According to Korea Times article written on 2012, economic democratization is defined as regulating big conglomerates and promoting small to medium businesses in order to curb economic polarization between the haves and have-nots. Economic democratization is the key factor to reduce the wealth gap between rich and poor and ultimately, to flourish the country’s economy. Government mandating a day off for mega supermarkets will ultimately lead to economic democratization and benefit the country’s economy due to following two reasons. According to documentary named ‘Truth and Fallacies of creation of employment in mega supermarkets’ broadcasted in Han-gyeong TV, traditional markets create more jobs than mega supermarkets. As of 2007, traditional markets create 3 times as more jobs as do mega supermarkets. This shows that traditional markets are able to employ more people than mega supermarkets and if more people are able to be employed in different sizes of supermarkets, it will lead to economic democratization since different people will earn money in different places.
Subpoint C. Importance of Small Business Owners for the Korean Economy According to an article written by Won Jae Lee, the Chief Manager of 한겨례 research institute, in 2001, traditional markets and local stores’ share of the sales’ pie was 51.7% however, it has decreased to 40.5%, more than 11%. Yet, about 28.8% of owner-operators (자영업자) open their markets in the local and traditional markets. Even if they are office workers right now, their is a high possibility of them being owner-operators after retirement. 21% of people aged over 60’s turns out to be a owner-operator and only 4% of them still work in a permanent job position.
Subpoint D. Beneficial For the Welfare of Employees at Mega Supermarkets Mandating day off for mega supermarkets is not only about protection of economy and small to medium sized market owners. It also links with the environmental problems and labor welfare programs too. There are lots of the mega supermarkets runs for 24/7 because of competition between each other. However, the government should mandate day off for mega supermarkets also to protect laborers’ welfare and can save energy during the hours mandated by the government to close at night time in addition to the protection of small stores. Resolved: that governments should almost never censor political or social dissent on the internet.
Resolved: that governments should almost never censor political or social dissent on the internet.
Pro
Contention 1: Government gets too powerful
The definition that we provided clearly stated that democracy is a system of the government by the whole population of a state, typically through elected representatives. In easier words, democracy is the world where citizens are the owner. However, when government gets too powerful, the government will take over and it turns out to be a dictator society, not a democratic society. According to John Locke, one of the philosophers, stated that the government should be there in order to protect people’s natural rights such as people’s liberty. Freedom of speech, is the one inherent right that are given to each individual. We have to continue following John Locke’s point of view, or else we have to listen to Thomas Hobbes’s point of view where the government can take all of the individual rights from each people in that society. This is going against the democratic principle that we live in. According to townhall.com, there about 54% of US citizens claimed that modern day government gets too powerful. The percentage of citizens who claims are highly increasing each year. This evidence strongly shows several ideas. The first impression we get from this evidence is, the US government is over using their power to censor information over their limits. Limitation of the government provides more harm so therefore supporting a full democratic society will produce less harm. The primary obligations a democratic government is to respect people’s individual rights. The government is not doing their duty if they censor or limit freedom of speech. Therefore, we as the pro team strongly affirm with the resolution.
Contention 2: Lowers Productivity
Not only it can limit the knowledge and creativity due to censorship, but there is another huge problem that needs to be considered which is lowering the productivity. According to “The Economic Cost of Internet Censorship in Australia”, it found some several important facts that everyone needs to keep note of. Filters are required in order to censor or limit freedom of speech. Filters turned out to slow the Internet by 2% to 75% depending the amount of censorship in a country. Since it would decline the Internet speed we can see that it is already losing productivity right there but we have to see more heavy analysis. According from the same source, people would complain about the lack of speed in the Internet, and the government needs to ask for additional cost in order to increase the speed of the Internet and it has shown that it would cost 2.169 billion dollars. If there is high speed Internet, it would increase the GDP of 12 to 30 billion dollars but this would not be gained due to the censorship and limitation on freedom of speech. Competitiveness between countries would be a primary concern because if a country has low productive due to the less speedy Internet, then of course that country will lose that credibility and will have less exports. This eventually will increase the high unemployment rate which will endanger the national security. So it is necessary not to censor or limit freedom of speech.
Contention 3: Misinform people
If censorship comes into play, not only does it hinder education, but it is also going to hurt the citizens directly in a short run as well. Censorship is the suppression of speech or other forms of public communication. This not only limits the environment in which we can learn, but the government has the power to give and direct what information we learn, which does not sound like a democratic society. Also, no matter what the situation is, limiting free speech for any reason is not the answer to fix any problem, because it is one of the fundamental rights that are given to each individual. According to Jeffrey Miron, one of the senior lecturers and director of undergraduate studies in the economic department at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, believes that limiting free speech is not one of the options that the government can choose. After several issues related with free speech such as in January 8th, Jared Loughner killed six people and wounded 13 in order to express his feelings, one member of the Congress named Brady suggested that federal law should limit inflammatory speech. Yet, the argument of free speech does not assume that free speech has no negatives, much less that freedom of speech is always “civil”. Moreover, harms from government restrictions on speech are worse than the harms from free speech itself. If the government can determine what constitutes acceptable speech, it will use that power to restrict speech in inappropriate ways. Also, to keep in mind, political speech deserves the highest protection since this speech is key to all other freedoms. So if we are restricting freedom of speech, we are also restricting other rights such as right to choice.
Contention 4: Clear and Present Danger Test
In U.S. history, federal and state governments have passed sedition laws to prevent people from speaking against the government. Sedition laws were designed to foster respect for the government and to prevent people from starting a violent revolution. In Schenck v. United States (1919) case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to whether the federal Sedition Act of 1918 violated freedom of speech. Passed during World War 1, the Sedition Act made it a crime to say anything to cause disrespect for the U.S. government. Schenck, the secretary of the Socialist Party in America, was convicted under the Sedition Act for distributing pamphlets urging people to resist the military draft. The Supreme Court ruled that Schenck's conviction did not violate freedom of speech. In the Court's decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., made a famous observation about freedom of speech. He said free speech is not absolute because a person is not allowed to shout "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire. In other words, the government may punish words that create a "clear and present danger" of causing evils the government has a right to prevent. Because Congress had a right to stop people from avoiding the military draft, punishing Schenck for encouraging such conduct did not violate the First Amendment. It is important to realize that sedition laws usually are enacted during times of great national stress, such as war. Generally, the First Amendment says government may not prevent people from speaking against war. Moving onto the sixth argument which is “lowers productivity”.
Contention 5: Freedom of Speech
According to Oxford Online Dictionary, freedom of speech means the power or right to speak, or think as one wants. So basically by looking at this definition that the Oxford Online Dictionary provided us, we have to ask several questions in order to clarify. Does the definition ever state that citizens can do say whatever they want, or that the government can come by and restrict what we can say? It clearly did not say that the government can step in at any time and start censoring us. Everyone has freedom and the fundamental right to speak. Moreover, according to the UN declaration of Human Rights, it provides for freedom of expression in Article 11, which states that “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizens have right to speak, write and print with freedom, but will be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law”. Would any feel comfortable without the freedom of speech? Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 states that “everyone has the right to the freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. So in other words, it clearly states that no one can interfere with each individual, including the government by censoring what they have said in public. Not only it lowers productivity of the business, but there censorship is really related with the GDP.
Contention 6: Internet is a free domain
Due to the Internet existence here today, it led to another revolution called the Information revolution. Internet was made just for the sake of people’s freedom of speech. If the Internet is limited, it destroys the whole purpose of it’s own existence. The Internet has earned its own reputation by endorsing promotion of great quantities of information in a short amount of time, which is a great link to education. If we limit what we can say on the Internet, we are also at the same time, limiting the educational information that one can access. The first one which is the threat to the democratic nature of education happens because of restriction to freedom of speech through books. The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) argues that the censorship threatens the democratic nature of the educational system in the United States. The supreme court agreed in 1967 when it ruled in favor of a New York teacher with suspected communist affiliation keeping his job by arguing “the classroom is peculiarly the marketplace of ideas”. The goal of the educational system according to NCAC is to produce thinking citizens, with rights to freedom to read or speech/expression under the First Amendment are endangered by the censorship of reading material whether in print or on the Internet. Also, the second category is missed opportunity for critical thinking. Reading challenging materials teaches students critical thinking skills they need to flourish for any kind of citizen. Without reading a wide variety of materials representing diverse range of beliefs and ideas, students will lose out on the opportunities to judge ideas that may oppose what they believe or have been taught to believe. The last category is the suppression of ideas that challenge the status quo. Censorship will lead to no independent media and high education. For an example, North Korea and other heavily censored countries, citizens have no access to information from outside their country and are forbidden to criticize the government. Many people from these censored countries live isolated and ignorant of alternative ways of life and thinking. If our brightest and most capable young adults can not be trusted to think for themselves, who can? And if our greatest people won’t protect their words, who will? The answer is clear.
Contention 7: Economic Argument
According to inquisitor.com, the internet censorship in Australia is currently harming the economic cost of Australia. The Australian government is filtering the information that is provided on internet for their citizens which leads to slower internet speeds. At the end of June 2008, there were about 7.23 million internet users in Australia. An increase in costs of only $10 per month would immediately cost internet users $867.6 million a year in direct cost. $25 increase for internet access would result in an additional $2.169 billion in direct costs. Australia has an average internet speed of 1.7 mphs, which put them into 26th out of 27 developed countries. Slower speeds meant it takes longer to do business, and which could negatively effect on productivity. Also, slower speeds refers to low competitiveness. For example when Korea is trying to trade with Australia and China, there is more of a chance that Korea will not choose Australia as their trading partner because of their slow internet speeds. Slow internet speeds can occur slow response, more expensive price compared to others and less information about goods. Slower internet speed can damage economic GDP. The current GDP of Australia is $1520.6 billion.
CON
Contention 1: Economical Progress
According to inquisitr.com authoritarianism helps countries grow in economy because of long term predictability and social stability through censoring social dissent. Censorship helps the economy because censorship is a form of authoritarianism and has long predictability with social stability, which is essential for economic development especially for developing countries. For example, China currently has been growing rapidly, their GDP grew after using the Great Firewall of China. According to China Daily, the firewall project started in 2003. After the firewall was enabled, China’s GDP grew significantly. China’s GDP in 2003 hit 1.414 trillion US dollars, 9.1 percent over the previous year. This clearly shows that censorship actually helps economies to develop. According to a contributor of Forbes, China blocks out sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Flickr, and Youtube and redirects them to their own sites. For example, Google is redirected to Baidu and Youtube is redirected to Youku. This redirection helps China develop and flourish because these are the companies made by China. For example, Youku is the the second largest video sharing site on the internet, but also a substitute for Youtube in China.However Chinese citizen’s are not the only people using Youku, many other people use this site to watch videos that are not on Youtube. This proves that Youku and Baidu is a way China’s economy can grow. Also, other countries can follow China because of their economy growth.
Contention: 2 Minorities
According to Kang Hyun-kyung’s article written on May 2, 2013 Hwang Min-U or better known as “Little Psy” was bullied. People wrote harsh words and racial slurs because of his multiracial background. Hwang Min-U had read some of the messages. In order to keep minorities safe from the racial slurs, the government should limit the information that the internet provides.According from the same source, Choi Young il, executive director of the non profit group Borderless Village, which helps migrant workers, said some Koreans hold inexplicable grudges against migrants and people with multiracial backgrounds. It was explained from his quote “Some blue collar workers such as laborers and temporary workers feel that foreign workers have stolen jobs. Some experienced steep cuts in wages because employers are trying to take advantage of undocumented workers”. Some society just like Korea are very racist and very cruel to the foreigners. “There is another group of people who consider themselves the victims of interracial marriages after their relationships with foreign spouses went wrong. I think these people are the main sources of the backlash against multiculturalism.”
Contention 3: Hate Speech
There are many victims of hate speech because of simple race, skin colour, and thought. However, these victims do not tell and start to get problems. According to the Michingan Law Review, victims of hate propaganda experience physiological symptoms, emotional distress, suicide, difficulty in breathing and rapid pulse rates.In order to avoid receiving hate messages victims quit jobs and education, leave home, avoid places , curtail their own exercise of speech rights, and modify their behavior and demeanor. One professor called the blow of racist messages “spirit murderer.” Also, victims have no support because the government disagrees with them.The government says hate speech is freedom of speech and allow their citizens to write hate messages. In the end the victims are helpless and cannot do anything except grow problems. Judges please think about the victims of the hate speech, is this not enough struggle for the victims to get censorship, then what is?
Contention 4: Social Contract
According to Scottish socialist John Maclean’s article “When is Censorship Justified”, social contract is an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits. In other words, some people give up some of their rights or have limitations in order to gain benefits. One of the things that the citizens give up is the absolute freedom of speech, instead, they received limitations as a return. Citizens give up a little bit of tax, liberty, and freedom in order to receive freedom to live and protection. .As the Con team, we strongly believe that freedom of speech should be restricted when it impedes on other rights. What everyone needs to understand is that people can not use their right to speech in order to harm another individual’s rights. Governments should protect their own citizens, since they have the primary obligations to aid them due to the social contract that is established between them. In this sense, it is vital that government should be censoring information that may potentially harm people’s rights.
Contention 5: Holocaust Denial
Freedom of speech with no restrictions leads to physical acts. Thus pornography, hate speech, and political polemic are causally linked to rape, hate crimes, and insurrection. Both scientific creationism and Holocaust denial have been serious and dangerous, hidden agendas. Deniers of the Nanjing Massacre believe that the Japanese did nothing wrong in the Second World War and continue to claim that it was a war of liberation against Western colonialism- feeding Japanese militarism today. Holocaust deniers, in claiming that a Jewish conspiracy is responsible for the widespread belief that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, who are closely allied to anti- Semitism and neo- Nazism. We should not allow such views the legitimacy which being debated gives them.
Contention 6: Cyber Bullying
Cyber bullying is a concern that the government should censor. Regular people, celebrities, and even minors are getting cyber bullied everyday. For the protection of all humans, governments should censor the internet. Celebrities are getting cyber bullied because regular people are jealous of their popularity. Also, minors like Hwang Min-U gets cyber bullied because of his multiracial background. Also moreover, John Locke, one of the well respected philosophers stated that the government exist because they have to protect people’s natural rights. So what the government should do is to censor information in order to help out people that are suffering from cyber bullying. According to the cyberbullying research center, it stated that the cyber bullying suicide rates starting from 2003 compared with 2012 increased by 4.32%. Something that is more alarming than this is according to the global news, Dr.John Leblanc, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Dalhousie University stated “The terrible thing about cyberbullying is that one can never escape it. If you are a youth, you want to be involved in social media. It is a very important way to stay connected, which means that you can not escape it. You go home, it is there. You are at school, it is there”. It sounds like according to Dr.John Leblanc, not using Internet can not be one of the viable option since it everywhere. This can only force the government to censor some acts so that it can prevent much more further deaths. The government can not be responsible for more deaths than right now so censorship is necessary considering the factors of social and political dissent. RESOLVED: Public schools should use student-based teacher evaluations in teacher quality assessments.
PRO
Argument 1 Why kids can and should evaluate their teachers
Students are best placed to assess their teachers because those students are the ones who experience teacher’s teaching style everyday in their classes. It is not the school board who actually sticks around with the teachers every time whether, it is students who learn and engage with the teaching styles that each teachers promotes. Students deserve good education, and the best that they can get. They are the ones who receive benefits and harms from the teacher’s teaching method since they are the ones who actually go to the universities, not teachers and parents. Schools also have great amount of responsibility to provide the best education that they can afford to their students. By implementing this policy, students will be able to judge and receive the type of teaching that they wanted to receive.To evaluate their teachers, students necessarily does not have to be mature and know what kind of teachers are bad or not. They just need to understand for themselves what works or not, and whether they understand what the teachers say to them in class well or not. Therefore, our side of the house believes that students should be allowed to evaluate their teachers to maintain their own responsibility of managing the type of education that they want to receive from their teachers and to benefit from them.
CON
Argument 1. Why this policy cannot be effective
Students do not have intellectual ability to judge their teachers whether they are good or not students of schooling age (teenagers and children) are immature since they are young (aged 3-19) they lack emotional maturity and intellectual capacity to understand it is your (student) capacity to stand outside of your self your ability to view yourself from an objective standpoint ex) is it because teacher is bad or is it because you yourself are not trying the hardest in class and that is why teacher is strict on you? if the teacher was an objectively bad teacher, taught poorly, boring, and did not understand what the students needed, than in that case, their dislike of the class is actually justified. but because the kids does not have the capacity to stand outside of themselves and view themselves objectively, this means that therefore, they can’t really tell they dislike the class because their teacher is a poor teacher or teachers are strict on them because they are not trying their best in classes you cannot choose to hire and fire somebody based on student’s unreliable feedbacks. whether their teachers are good or not what are the qualities and criteria that determines a good teacher how well is their teacher doing to meet the criteria of being a good teacher therefore, their assessments are mostly unreliable and unjustifiable. and discolored by personal feelings students cannot be trusted to make reliable and accurate decisions firstly because they are immature secondly because those students are under the period of teen angst so they are generally angry and they are prone to become sensitive so, any type of criticism that might just be a natural part of regular teaching can very possibly be taken personally, as an attack against themselves abuse of power so because they are generally untrustworthy, we should not give them this power to judge their teacher and determine whether the school should extend the contract with teachers
Argument 2. Why this policy will actively harm the classroom environment
This policy creates distrust between teachers and students because of the fact that the reports are anonymous why this will harm the classroom environment / creates distrust between teachers and students reports must be anonymous to allow students to be honest without being penalized for it and teachers must read those anonymous judgments of their performance, in order to gain better insight and improve their work the problem of anonymity is that it allows students the ability to be vicious and ruthless in their comments, without fear of the consequences, and thus may be even be aggressive and rude in an unwarranted way considering how kids are likely to say mean things in general, because they are immature and have not yet developed a sufficient sense of social decorum, the reports will likely be unjustly rude and unpleasant reading such reports by students will cause teachers to be turned off by them, and may even brew in teachers a feeling of distrust and antagonism toward students especially made worse because of the element of anonymity, because the teachers don’t have a specific target upon which to target their feelings of anger and distrust, but feel a general sense of doubt and suspicion toward all students.
Contention 2: Hinder Investment
Another few backfiring policies of the South Korean government are: the unwinding of cross shareholding, high corporate taxes and the business area restrictions of conglomerates. With 70% of Korea’s workforce working in the service sector, ironically, they are producing less outcomes than the 30% conglomerates working in the manufacturing sector. This critical loss of labor force for nothing is causing our economy to drop. As I explained in contention 1 earlier, we need conglomerates to back up the SMEs businesses in the service sector, but the policy to limit business areas are restricting them from giving help. Also, the high corporate taxes towards mega-corporations are holding them back from developing their businesses, although the mega-corporations take up 77% of our GDP, and is doing a vital role to keep our economy out of recession, according to 조선일보. Along with the loss of labor force and incomes from conglomerates, the unwinding of cross shareholding is creating even more problems by preventing the mega-corporations to provoke entrepreneurships by setting up new businesses using their shares, which leads to higher unemployment rates and concentrated economy. This whole vicious cycle about to occur in South Korea is causing the investment to drop hugely, both domestically and internationally. Without the investment, the companies in South Korea, small or big, will suffer hugely, and without innovation, productivity, exports and consumptions from the companies, South Korea will soon lose our national competitiveness.
Contention 3: Foreigners take over mega - corporations
Currently, cross shareholdings between mega corporations and its subsidiaries are being a big issue since the government announced the new policy where new cross shareholdings should be banned later in July 2014. Yet, according to DongAIlbo, Trade Watchdog chief issues strong warnings against conglomerates, written on June 10th, 2013 23:38, stated that banning cross shareholding policy will increase the possibility for foreign corporations to take over Korea’s mega corporations which could encounter insufficient funds for mergers and acquisitions, and that it could cause a serious loss of national wealth as a result. This example is clearly showing what would happen if the foreign companies take over Korea’s mega corporations. Therefore, we as the pro team strongly believe that our choice is to keep Korea away from the outflow of Korea’s national wealth and know-hows.
RESOLVED: The United States ought to prioritize the pursuit of national security objectives above the digital privacy of its citizens.Affirmative Argument 1. Why this policy is harmful and unjustified According to an article written by 경숙 김, the journalist of 조선일보 states that even if traditional markets are available around certain areas, traditional markets have problems such as lack of parking space, don't accept credit cards, dirty conditions and this is the reason why consumers will go to the mega supermarkets anyways even if mega supermarkets has a day off. Furthermore, if mega supermarkets are harmed, this will result in economic losses for everyone, not just large conglomerates. For example, according to an article written by 경희 김, the journalist of 경향일보 states that e.g. In the year of 2012, the twice a month mandatory holiday for mega supermarkets resulted in the loss of 5636 job losses, and 866 job losses as a result of the nighttime operations regulations (심야영업제한). This evidence shows that how it is a serious problem also for the employees of mega supermarkets who depend on their jobs for their livelihoods. Additionally, store owners who rent shops inside mega supermarkets: will also lose out, and this is bad because these are the very same people as those selling in markets, except they chose to rent their stores inside large supermarkets. To add, according to a statistic collected by the government runned organization, 중소기업청 (small to medium business association), shows that out of 100 people who rent shops inside the mega supermarkets, more than 75 of them are small to medium stores. Small to medium enterprises who supply to large supermarkets are also harmed, because when large supermarkets are able to sell less, this translates to direct hit in sales for the suppliers who sell through those large supermarkets. According to statistic collected by a small to medium company who sold through mega supermarkets, named Shinseonmi, e.g. has suffered a 10% hit to its sales 10% hit to its sales is a big thing since it is a small to medium company and they should be protected, not harmed by the government.
Argument 2. Why this policy is ineffective Even if large supermarkets are restricted in their hours of operation, this would not lead to a boom for traditional markets. According to an article written by 라희 박, a journalist of 국민일보, it states that large supermarkets have their ways to bypass this problem, such as by holding sales promotion events during the weekdays to encourage more people to buy during that time, and by opening their stores earlier and closing later to allow people to take advantage of their stores for longer during the weekdays. Furthermore, traditional markets are avoided for their inherent problems that they are inconvenient for people to use (e.g. lack of parking space, not accepting credit cards, etc), so even if large supermarkets are closed, people do not necessarily choose to go to traditional markets instead. Additionally, This does not incentivize markets to become more competitive and improve themselves, which is the reason that people do not want to go to these markets in the first place. Even if this results in momentary sales gains for traditional markets during the weekends when the large supermarkets are closed, this is offset by the relative drop in sales during the weekdays when people show a stronger preference for large supermarkets in reaction. According to the economic newspaper E-Today, even though traditional markets saw sales growth on the government mandated holidays, their overall sales actually shrunk, as less people chose to visit them on the weekdays.
Argument 3. Harms of government interference in free market economies and the need for a self-regulating free market economy Importance of the supply and demand chain and the invisible hand; how the market will work itself out. In capitalist markets, producers decide on their own how much of a certain product to make and sell, and consumers decide on their own how much of a product to buy. This is how price points are determined and this is how the market economy regulates itself, without government interference. In fact, government interference in notoriously bad in working out specifically how much of a certain good should be produced for how many people, as is evidenced by the collapse of the socialist economies of the Soviet Union and China. Therefore, government interference in markets has historically proven to fail, and it makes no sense for the government to try and direct people's demand and businesses' supply as according to its own will, because it WON'T WORK. In particular, as traditional markets simply lack competitiveness, they should be forced to change through economic incentives. If less people are buying, and this means less profit for business owners there, then it should be the business owners responsibility to improve their stores to make them more appealing to consumers(traditional markets lack competitiveness - therefore let them suffer - if they suffer, they will change their ways). This policy is harmful because it does not push local businesses to improve their competitiveness through financial incentives, but allows them to be complacent in their lagging conditions, and ultimately loses their appeal to consumers, as is evidenced by the fact that in spite of this policy, traditional markets have FALLEN in overall sales.
Negative
One of the biggest problems for the Korean economy is that it is dominated by large conglomerates, and this is particularly harmful for the economy in that it harms small business operators, owner-operators and local businesses. For this problem to be alleviated, the government must regulate mega supermarkets from crowding out such businesses from the market, and therefore, the government mandated day off for mega supermarkets is a very necessary policy for the overall health of the Korean economy.
Argument 1. NEED
In our first argument, we have 2 subpoints to prove.
Subpoint A. Problem of Mega Supermarkets If the Korean government stops mandating day off for mega supermarkets, this will lead to the tyranny of mega corporations. In the beginning, most mega supermarkets will compete with smaller markets by lowering their prices. However, as soon as small to medium business owners collapse when mega supermarkets have driven them out of business through their low prices, which will be unsustainable for smaller stores, the mega supermarkets will raise the prices since there is no more competition and they can sell at whatever price they like, because as the only suppliers, consumers will have no one else to turn to. Thus, consumers will be harmed, so to prevent this scenario from coming to pass, the government should keep the policy of mandating a day off for mega supermarkets.
Subpoint B. The money earned by the mega supermarkets ultimately goes back to the mega corporations, whose headquarters exist not in regional provinces, but elsewhere. Therefore, even if local residents buy from mega supermarkets, this would result in capital outflow and harm the regional economy. Since the owners of small to medium businesses in traditional markets are also the consumers of that region, they spend their earnings in the area of their residence, which would lead to greater money flow in the regional economy. However, mega supermarket’s sales revenue would travel back to the shareholders and the owner families, which does not result in wealth distribution nor money flow within the region, and this will slow down the local economy.
Argument 2. Effectiveness Now moving on to our second argument. This policy is proven to be very effective by the following evidences. Firstly, according to a survey on the effects of this policy on sales for traditional markets, the Small and Medium Business Association has showed up with the result of 15% of sales increased in traditional markets. Also, it has shown that small to medium markets around the mega supermarkets’ sales and consumers had incredibly increased for about 15% ~ 30%.
Argument 3. Benefit We have 4 subpoints to prove in our last argument.
Subpoint A. Economic Growth and reduce wealth gap If mega supermarkets are allowed to operate everyday, people would continue to shop at those places and avoid traditional markets, resulting in greater wealth gap between large conglomerates and small business holders. Therefore, this policy of mandated holidays is necessary to remedy this situation because the statistics show that with this policy, small markets will also be able to grow resulting in alleviation of wealth gap. According to the survey done by Agency for Traditional Market Administration in May 10th, 2012, small to medium retail companies and traditional market’s average sales increased 11.7% compared to May 3rd, 2012, when mega supermarkets were open. Also, its consumers actually increased by 11.5% also compared to May 3rd, 2012. This shows that government mandated day off for mega supermarkets to promote sales growth for small stores is promoting sales growth for small to medium markets and even traditional markets too.
Subpoint B. Promote Economic Democratization According to Korea Times article written on 2012, economic democratization is defined as regulating big conglomerates and promoting small to medium businesses in order to curb economic polarization between the haves and have-nots. Economic democratization is the key factor to reduce the wealth gap between rich and poor and ultimately, to flourish the country’s economy. Government mandating a day off for mega supermarkets will ultimately lead to economic democratization and benefit the country’s economy due to following two reasons. According to documentary named ‘Truth and Fallacies of creation of employment in mega supermarkets’ broadcasted in Han-gyeong TV, traditional markets create more jobs than mega supermarkets. As of 2007, traditional markets create 3 times as more jobs as do mega supermarkets. This shows that traditional markets are able to employ more people than mega supermarkets and if more people are able to be employed in different sizes of supermarkets, it will lead to economic democratization since different people will earn money in different places.
Subpoint C. Importance of Small Business Owners for the Korean Economy According to an article written by Won Jae Lee, the Chief Manager of 한겨례 research institute, in 2001, traditional markets and local stores’ share of the sales’ pie was 51.7% however, it has decreased to 40.5%, more than 11%. Yet, about 28.8% of owner-operators (자영업자) open their markets in the local and traditional markets. Even if they are office workers right now, their is a high possibility of them being owner-operators after retirement. 21% of people aged over 60’s turns out to be a owner-operator and only 4% of them still work in a permanent job position.
Subpoint D. Beneficial For the Welfare of Employees at Mega Supermarkets Mandating day off for mega supermarkets is not only about protection of economy and small to medium sized market owners. It also links with the environmental problems and labor welfare programs too. There are lots of the mega supermarkets runs for 24/7 because of competition between each other. However, the government should mandate day off for mega supermarkets also to protect laborers’ welfare and can save energy during the hours mandated by the government to close at night time in addition to the protection of small stores. Resolved: that governments should almost never censor political or social dissent on the internet.
Resolved: that governments should almost never censor political or social dissent on the internet.
Pro
Contention 1: Government gets too powerful
The definition that we provided clearly stated that democracy is a system of the government by the whole population of a state, typically through elected representatives. In easier words, democracy is the world where citizens are the owner. However, when government gets too powerful, the government will take over and it turns out to be a dictator society, not a democratic society. According to John Locke, one of the philosophers, stated that the government should be there in order to protect people’s natural rights such as people’s liberty. Freedom of speech, is the one inherent right that are given to each individual. We have to continue following John Locke’s point of view, or else we have to listen to Thomas Hobbes’s point of view where the government can take all of the individual rights from each people in that society. This is going against the democratic principle that we live in. According to townhall.com, there about 54% of US citizens claimed that modern day government gets too powerful. The percentage of citizens who claims are highly increasing each year. This evidence strongly shows several ideas. The first impression we get from this evidence is, the US government is over using their power to censor information over their limits. Limitation of the government provides more harm so therefore supporting a full democratic society will produce less harm. The primary obligations a democratic government is to respect people’s individual rights. The government is not doing their duty if they censor or limit freedom of speech. Therefore, we as the pro team strongly affirm with the resolution.
Contention 2: Lowers Productivity
Not only it can limit the knowledge and creativity due to censorship, but there is another huge problem that needs to be considered which is lowering the productivity. According to “The Economic Cost of Internet Censorship in Australia”, it found some several important facts that everyone needs to keep note of. Filters are required in order to censor or limit freedom of speech. Filters turned out to slow the Internet by 2% to 75% depending the amount of censorship in a country. Since it would decline the Internet speed we can see that it is already losing productivity right there but we have to see more heavy analysis. According from the same source, people would complain about the lack of speed in the Internet, and the government needs to ask for additional cost in order to increase the speed of the Internet and it has shown that it would cost 2.169 billion dollars. If there is high speed Internet, it would increase the GDP of 12 to 30 billion dollars but this would not be gained due to the censorship and limitation on freedom of speech. Competitiveness between countries would be a primary concern because if a country has low productive due to the less speedy Internet, then of course that country will lose that credibility and will have less exports. This eventually will increase the high unemployment rate which will endanger the national security. So it is necessary not to censor or limit freedom of speech.
Contention 3: Misinform people
If censorship comes into play, not only does it hinder education, but it is also going to hurt the citizens directly in a short run as well. Censorship is the suppression of speech or other forms of public communication. This not only limits the environment in which we can learn, but the government has the power to give and direct what information we learn, which does not sound like a democratic society. Also, no matter what the situation is, limiting free speech for any reason is not the answer to fix any problem, because it is one of the fundamental rights that are given to each individual. According to Jeffrey Miron, one of the senior lecturers and director of undergraduate studies in the economic department at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, believes that limiting free speech is not one of the options that the government can choose. After several issues related with free speech such as in January 8th, Jared Loughner killed six people and wounded 13 in order to express his feelings, one member of the Congress named Brady suggested that federal law should limit inflammatory speech. Yet, the argument of free speech does not assume that free speech has no negatives, much less that freedom of speech is always “civil”. Moreover, harms from government restrictions on speech are worse than the harms from free speech itself. If the government can determine what constitutes acceptable speech, it will use that power to restrict speech in inappropriate ways. Also, to keep in mind, political speech deserves the highest protection since this speech is key to all other freedoms. So if we are restricting freedom of speech, we are also restricting other rights such as right to choice.
Contention 4: Clear and Present Danger Test
In U.S. history, federal and state governments have passed sedition laws to prevent people from speaking against the government. Sedition laws were designed to foster respect for the government and to prevent people from starting a violent revolution. In Schenck v. United States (1919) case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to whether the federal Sedition Act of 1918 violated freedom of speech. Passed during World War 1, the Sedition Act made it a crime to say anything to cause disrespect for the U.S. government. Schenck, the secretary of the Socialist Party in America, was convicted under the Sedition Act for distributing pamphlets urging people to resist the military draft. The Supreme Court ruled that Schenck's conviction did not violate freedom of speech. In the Court's decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., made a famous observation about freedom of speech. He said free speech is not absolute because a person is not allowed to shout "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire. In other words, the government may punish words that create a "clear and present danger" of causing evils the government has a right to prevent. Because Congress had a right to stop people from avoiding the military draft, punishing Schenck for encouraging such conduct did not violate the First Amendment. It is important to realize that sedition laws usually are enacted during times of great national stress, such as war. Generally, the First Amendment says government may not prevent people from speaking against war. Moving onto the sixth argument which is “lowers productivity”.
Contention 5: Freedom of Speech
According to Oxford Online Dictionary, freedom of speech means the power or right to speak, or think as one wants. So basically by looking at this definition that the Oxford Online Dictionary provided us, we have to ask several questions in order to clarify. Does the definition ever state that citizens can do say whatever they want, or that the government can come by and restrict what we can say? It clearly did not say that the government can step in at any time and start censoring us. Everyone has freedom and the fundamental right to speak. Moreover, according to the UN declaration of Human Rights, it provides for freedom of expression in Article 11, which states that “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizens have right to speak, write and print with freedom, but will be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law”. Would any feel comfortable without the freedom of speech? Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 states that “everyone has the right to the freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. So in other words, it clearly states that no one can interfere with each individual, including the government by censoring what they have said in public. Not only it lowers productivity of the business, but there censorship is really related with the GDP.
Contention 6: Internet is a free domain
Due to the Internet existence here today, it led to another revolution called the Information revolution. Internet was made just for the sake of people’s freedom of speech. If the Internet is limited, it destroys the whole purpose of it’s own existence. The Internet has earned its own reputation by endorsing promotion of great quantities of information in a short amount of time, which is a great link to education. If we limit what we can say on the Internet, we are also at the same time, limiting the educational information that one can access. The first one which is the threat to the democratic nature of education happens because of restriction to freedom of speech through books. The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) argues that the censorship threatens the democratic nature of the educational system in the United States. The supreme court agreed in 1967 when it ruled in favor of a New York teacher with suspected communist affiliation keeping his job by arguing “the classroom is peculiarly the marketplace of ideas”. The goal of the educational system according to NCAC is to produce thinking citizens, with rights to freedom to read or speech/expression under the First Amendment are endangered by the censorship of reading material whether in print or on the Internet. Also, the second category is missed opportunity for critical thinking. Reading challenging materials teaches students critical thinking skills they need to flourish for any kind of citizen. Without reading a wide variety of materials representing diverse range of beliefs and ideas, students will lose out on the opportunities to judge ideas that may oppose what they believe or have been taught to believe. The last category is the suppression of ideas that challenge the status quo. Censorship will lead to no independent media and high education. For an example, North Korea and other heavily censored countries, citizens have no access to information from outside their country and are forbidden to criticize the government. Many people from these censored countries live isolated and ignorant of alternative ways of life and thinking. If our brightest and most capable young adults can not be trusted to think for themselves, who can? And if our greatest people won’t protect their words, who will? The answer is clear.
Contention 7: Economic Argument
According to inquisitor.com, the internet censorship in Australia is currently harming the economic cost of Australia. The Australian government is filtering the information that is provided on internet for their citizens which leads to slower internet speeds. At the end of June 2008, there were about 7.23 million internet users in Australia. An increase in costs of only $10 per month would immediately cost internet users $867.6 million a year in direct cost. $25 increase for internet access would result in an additional $2.169 billion in direct costs. Australia has an average internet speed of 1.7 mphs, which put them into 26th out of 27 developed countries. Slower speeds meant it takes longer to do business, and which could negatively effect on productivity. Also, slower speeds refers to low competitiveness. For example when Korea is trying to trade with Australia and China, there is more of a chance that Korea will not choose Australia as their trading partner because of their slow internet speeds. Slow internet speeds can occur slow response, more expensive price compared to others and less information about goods. Slower internet speed can damage economic GDP. The current GDP of Australia is $1520.6 billion.
CON
Contention 1: Economical Progress
According to inquisitr.com authoritarianism helps countries grow in economy because of long term predictability and social stability through censoring social dissent. Censorship helps the economy because censorship is a form of authoritarianism and has long predictability with social stability, which is essential for economic development especially for developing countries. For example, China currently has been growing rapidly, their GDP grew after using the Great Firewall of China. According to China Daily, the firewall project started in 2003. After the firewall was enabled, China’s GDP grew significantly. China’s GDP in 2003 hit 1.414 trillion US dollars, 9.1 percent over the previous year. This clearly shows that censorship actually helps economies to develop. According to a contributor of Forbes, China blocks out sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Flickr, and Youtube and redirects them to their own sites. For example, Google is redirected to Baidu and Youtube is redirected to Youku. This redirection helps China develop and flourish because these are the companies made by China. For example, Youku is the the second largest video sharing site on the internet, but also a substitute for Youtube in China.However Chinese citizen’s are not the only people using Youku, many other people use this site to watch videos that are not on Youtube. This proves that Youku and Baidu is a way China’s economy can grow. Also, other countries can follow China because of their economy growth.
Contention: 2 Minorities
According to Kang Hyun-kyung’s article written on May 2, 2013 Hwang Min-U or better known as “Little Psy” was bullied. People wrote harsh words and racial slurs because of his multiracial background. Hwang Min-U had read some of the messages. In order to keep minorities safe from the racial slurs, the government should limit the information that the internet provides.According from the same source, Choi Young il, executive director of the non profit group Borderless Village, which helps migrant workers, said some Koreans hold inexplicable grudges against migrants and people with multiracial backgrounds. It was explained from his quote “Some blue collar workers such as laborers and temporary workers feel that foreign workers have stolen jobs. Some experienced steep cuts in wages because employers are trying to take advantage of undocumented workers”. Some society just like Korea are very racist and very cruel to the foreigners. “There is another group of people who consider themselves the victims of interracial marriages after their relationships with foreign spouses went wrong. I think these people are the main sources of the backlash against multiculturalism.”
Contention 3: Hate Speech
There are many victims of hate speech because of simple race, skin colour, and thought. However, these victims do not tell and start to get problems. According to the Michingan Law Review, victims of hate propaganda experience physiological symptoms, emotional distress, suicide, difficulty in breathing and rapid pulse rates.In order to avoid receiving hate messages victims quit jobs and education, leave home, avoid places , curtail their own exercise of speech rights, and modify their behavior and demeanor. One professor called the blow of racist messages “spirit murderer.” Also, victims have no support because the government disagrees with them.The government says hate speech is freedom of speech and allow their citizens to write hate messages. In the end the victims are helpless and cannot do anything except grow problems. Judges please think about the victims of the hate speech, is this not enough struggle for the victims to get censorship, then what is?
Contention 4: Social Contract
According to Scottish socialist John Maclean’s article “When is Censorship Justified”, social contract is an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits. In other words, some people give up some of their rights or have limitations in order to gain benefits. One of the things that the citizens give up is the absolute freedom of speech, instead, they received limitations as a return. Citizens give up a little bit of tax, liberty, and freedom in order to receive freedom to live and protection. .As the Con team, we strongly believe that freedom of speech should be restricted when it impedes on other rights. What everyone needs to understand is that people can not use their right to speech in order to harm another individual’s rights. Governments should protect their own citizens, since they have the primary obligations to aid them due to the social contract that is established between them. In this sense, it is vital that government should be censoring information that may potentially harm people’s rights.
Contention 5: Holocaust Denial
Freedom of speech with no restrictions leads to physical acts. Thus pornography, hate speech, and political polemic are causally linked to rape, hate crimes, and insurrection. Both scientific creationism and Holocaust denial have been serious and dangerous, hidden agendas. Deniers of the Nanjing Massacre believe that the Japanese did nothing wrong in the Second World War and continue to claim that it was a war of liberation against Western colonialism- feeding Japanese militarism today. Holocaust deniers, in claiming that a Jewish conspiracy is responsible for the widespread belief that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, who are closely allied to anti- Semitism and neo- Nazism. We should not allow such views the legitimacy which being debated gives them.
Contention 6: Cyber Bullying
Cyber bullying is a concern that the government should censor. Regular people, celebrities, and even minors are getting cyber bullied everyday. For the protection of all humans, governments should censor the internet. Celebrities are getting cyber bullied because regular people are jealous of their popularity. Also, minors like Hwang Min-U gets cyber bullied because of his multiracial background. Also moreover, John Locke, one of the well respected philosophers stated that the government exist because they have to protect people’s natural rights. So what the government should do is to censor information in order to help out people that are suffering from cyber bullying. According to the cyberbullying research center, it stated that the cyber bullying suicide rates starting from 2003 compared with 2012 increased by 4.32%. Something that is more alarming than this is according to the global news, Dr.John Leblanc, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Dalhousie University stated “The terrible thing about cyberbullying is that one can never escape it. If you are a youth, you want to be involved in social media. It is a very important way to stay connected, which means that you can not escape it. You go home, it is there. You are at school, it is there”. It sounds like according to Dr.John Leblanc, not using Internet can not be one of the viable option since it everywhere. This can only force the government to censor some acts so that it can prevent much more further deaths. The government can not be responsible for more deaths than right now so censorship is necessary considering the factors of social and political dissent. RESOLVED: Public schools should use student-based teacher evaluations in teacher quality assessments.
PRO
Argument 1 Why kids can and should evaluate their teachers
Students are best placed to assess their teachers because those students are the ones who experience teacher’s teaching style everyday in their classes. It is not the school board who actually sticks around with the teachers every time whether, it is students who learn and engage with the teaching styles that each teachers promotes. Students deserve good education, and the best that they can get. They are the ones who receive benefits and harms from the teacher’s teaching method since they are the ones who actually go to the universities, not teachers and parents. Schools also have great amount of responsibility to provide the best education that they can afford to their students. By implementing this policy, students will be able to judge and receive the type of teaching that they wanted to receive.To evaluate their teachers, students necessarily does not have to be mature and know what kind of teachers are bad or not. They just need to understand for themselves what works or not, and whether they understand what the teachers say to them in class well or not. Therefore, our side of the house believes that students should be allowed to evaluate their teachers to maintain their own responsibility of managing the type of education that they want to receive from their teachers and to benefit from them.
CON
Argument 1. Why this policy cannot be effective
Students do not have intellectual ability to judge their teachers whether they are good or not students of schooling age (teenagers and children) are immature since they are young (aged 3-19) they lack emotional maturity and intellectual capacity to understand it is your (student) capacity to stand outside of your self your ability to view yourself from an objective standpoint ex) is it because teacher is bad or is it because you yourself are not trying the hardest in class and that is why teacher is strict on you? if the teacher was an objectively bad teacher, taught poorly, boring, and did not understand what the students needed, than in that case, their dislike of the class is actually justified. but because the kids does not have the capacity to stand outside of themselves and view themselves objectively, this means that therefore, they can’t really tell they dislike the class because their teacher is a poor teacher or teachers are strict on them because they are not trying their best in classes you cannot choose to hire and fire somebody based on student’s unreliable feedbacks. whether their teachers are good or not what are the qualities and criteria that determines a good teacher how well is their teacher doing to meet the criteria of being a good teacher therefore, their assessments are mostly unreliable and unjustifiable. and discolored by personal feelings students cannot be trusted to make reliable and accurate decisions firstly because they are immature secondly because those students are under the period of teen angst so they are generally angry and they are prone to become sensitive so, any type of criticism that might just be a natural part of regular teaching can very possibly be taken personally, as an attack against themselves abuse of power so because they are generally untrustworthy, we should not give them this power to judge their teacher and determine whether the school should extend the contract with teachers
Argument 2. Why this policy will actively harm the classroom environment
This policy creates distrust between teachers and students because of the fact that the reports are anonymous why this will harm the classroom environment / creates distrust between teachers and students reports must be anonymous to allow students to be honest without being penalized for it and teachers must read those anonymous judgments of their performance, in order to gain better insight and improve their work the problem of anonymity is that it allows students the ability to be vicious and ruthless in their comments, without fear of the consequences, and thus may be even be aggressive and rude in an unwarranted way considering how kids are likely to say mean things in general, because they are immature and have not yet developed a sufficient sense of social decorum, the reports will likely be unjustly rude and unpleasant reading such reports by students will cause teachers to be turned off by them, and may even brew in teachers a feeling of distrust and antagonism toward students especially made worse because of the element of anonymity, because the teachers don’t have a specific target upon which to target their feelings of anger and distrust, but feel a general sense of doubt and suspicion toward all students.
RESOLVED: On-balance, the policies of the South Korean government to demonopolize mega-corporations do more harm than good
PRO Arguments
Contention 1: Income inequality
Currently, there are many problems stemming from large conglomerates. There are income inequality problems which is leading to severe social distress. The income inequality is also leading to higher debt rate which could actually slow down the Korean economy, since the middle-income households have to borrow huge loans from the financial groups because their wages are too low and the unemployment rates are way too high. According to the Mckinsey Global Institute’s study released in April 2013, South Korea’s GDP increased over 3 times but the actual citizens’ income has only increased half that rate. Also, over 50 % of the middle-income households are paying much more than they earn. This shows that although our economy is becoming richer, the revenues are not being distributed equally and the actual people living in our society is not wealthy or happy at all. Furthermore, the middle-income household saving rate plunged from 19% in 1988 to 4% in 2012, and the household deficits jumped from 15% to 25%. These evidences clearly show that the middle-income households are suffering hugely to provide necessities out of deficits because of the wide wealth gap that the conglomerates are creating. Consequently, since the middle-income households are suffering so much from high debts and low incomes, the social distress and even suicide rates are evidently increasing over time. 31.7 per 1 million people have committed suicide in 2011. South Korea’s suicide rate is the highest of all OECD economies, while the fertility rate is the lowest, since educating a child takes a lot of time and money. Furthermore, the divorce rates of Korea tripled up since 2012, which evidently shows that the social distress caused in Korea is increasing. This devastating situation is all caused by the mega-corporation widening the gap between the rich and the poor and us, as the con team, strongly suggest that we should implement (..policies..) to solve this critical social and economic problem.
Contention 2: Unfair competitions from mega corporations Currently, South Koreans are witnessing a lot of unfair competitions from mega corporations. This problem is divided into two different parts, price collusion and focus of supplies from affiliates. Due to price collusion happening in our domestic market, SMEs are loosing its chances to sell products to its consumers. According to Economist article, Bakers and Chaebols written on February 4th 2012, it stated that consumers and SMEs are suffering from Chaebols price colluding. From the same source, Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC), detected over 3,000 cases of price colluding in 2010 however, it only led to 60 fines. The average penalty was amounted to 2.3% of unfairly earned money. There were several mega corporations that were caught for more than 3 years straight but never paid its fine the amount that they were supposed to. Another problem that leads to unfair competitions of mega corporations is the focus of supplies from affiliates. According to article written on February 29th, 2012, by Chosun Ilbo it stated that Korea’s 35 major mega corporations increased 50% of subsidiaries over the last 4 years, according to government statistics. In other words, this means that these companies have increased its subsidiaries about 2.3% per year. Since these companies have increased its subsidiaries, the focus of supplies naturally went over to these subsidiaries. If the focus of supplies stays within subsidiaries, SMEs would soon die and would not be able to maintain its companies. According to Chung Joong-won, who oversees competitive policy at the FTC, said, "It's a problem in itself if major conglomerates boost the number of subsidiaries, but the real concern is that big businesses are encroaching on the territories of small and mid-sized companies." This devastating situation where mega corporations are having unfair competitions with SMEs should be solved by implementing the policies of South Korean government to demonopolize mega corporations. Contention 3: Unemployment / low wages for SMEs Mega-corporations’ dominance of the South Korean economic market is causing lack of labor force and wages for the SMEs. According to the Korean Federation of small and medium businesses, 23% of SMEs are currently facing severe labor shortage and 17% is estimating that sooner or after they will be suffering from labor shortage as well. Also, according to the Mckinsey global institute's report on 2013, the SMEs have only 35~40% of the productivity of large conglomerates, which clearly shows that SMEs have much less work force, and therefore is harder to produce massive amounts of products. Also, according to 조선일보, the SMEs and the mega-corporations’ income difference is as much as 100 million dollars, which is not trivial. This means that the SMEs are not getting as much income as needed, and is therefore having to give less wages to their workers. More straightforwardly, the share of domestic employment in Korea by mega-corporations fell by one third from 18% to 12%, and Korea has the 2nd highest unemployment rate in OECD. Because the full-time jobs in mega-corporations are such a minority, in fact only 10% of all job spaces in Korea, the unemployed workers try to work as part-time workers to earn money. However, the part-time workers earn only 65% of full-time pay, so the unemployed workers cannot earn a high, stable wage anyway. This unfair case caused by the mega-corporation’s dominance over the economic market is resulting in a focus of work population only for the mega-corporations, deterrence of productivity of Korea, and furthermore, in a biased society where people who have the equal amount of potential doesn’t have the same number of opportunities given. As the government responsible for justice and fairness over their people, the South Korean government should implement the policies (...specific..) to de-monopolize mega-corporations.
CON Arguments
Contention 1: Deters Productivity
The policy to restrict the business areas of conglomerates were first intended to give space for the SMEs to set a foot in. However, as my evidences will show later on, this economic ambition is working the other way round and casting a rather cataclysmic effect on the Korean economy and causing productivity decreases. Currently, the productivity level of South Korean services is only 40% of that of manufacturing industries, according to the MGI report in 2013. Overall, our service-sector productivity, measured as value added per employee, is 30 to 57% below levels in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In total, services account for 60% of South Korea’s GDP, far below the OECD average of 70%. These evidences clearly show that our services productivity is very small and slow growing. To make matters worse, by 2030, the Mckinsey Institutes project that a third of exports from advanced economies will be in services, ranging from tourism to business services. If we don’t expand our productivity in services now, Korea’s future is very dark. However, the Korea government barred mega-corporations entering into certain industries and limited their abilities to help increase the lacking productivity. According to the Economist, in 2010, nine representatives of the conglomerates (including Lotte and Samsung electronics) who had plans to invest in the service sectors cancelled them and was restricted to only tread lightly in about 100 designated sectors. Then who is working in the service sector for Korea now? Well, of course, the SMEs are. However, as you would have noticed in my previous evidences, the SMEs are being very inefficient in terms of productivity, even with 70% of Korea’s labor force. Inefficiency will slow down the Korean economy and hamper job growth, when we should be reforming the service industries and pulling economic growth for our bright future. In fact, Korea needs more of mega-corporations entering into the service industry and reforming. According to the Corporate armistice, if South Korea is to sustain productivity growth, its chaebol may have to spread themselves even wider. Services may be lagging because the chaebol have not paid enough attention to them, argues Richard Dobbs of the Mckinsey global institute in Seoul. The chaebol still attract the country’s best minds, managers and workers, so the service sector misses out on these. The Economist also agrees with our point, strongly suggesting that the Korean government should push the chaebol to expand into services, which they have diplomatically refrained from doing. Retailing, tourism, local transport: all these need some chaebol clout and efficiency. Without the mega-corporations’ help, our economy will start to decline and South Korea’s future will be as miserable as ever.PRO Arguments
Contention 1: Income inequality
Currently, there are many problems stemming from large conglomerates. There are income inequality problems which is leading to severe social distress. The income inequality is also leading to higher debt rate which could actually slow down the Korean economy, since the middle-income households have to borrow huge loans from the financial groups because their wages are too low and the unemployment rates are way too high. According to the Mckinsey Global Institute’s study released in April 2013, South Korea’s GDP increased over 3 times but the actual citizens’ income has only increased half that rate. Also, over 50 % of the middle-income households are paying much more than they earn. This shows that although our economy is becoming richer, the revenues are not being distributed equally and the actual people living in our society is not wealthy or happy at all. Furthermore, the middle-income household saving rate plunged from 19% in 1988 to 4% in 2012, and the household deficits jumped from 15% to 25%. These evidences clearly show that the middle-income households are suffering hugely to provide necessities out of deficits because of the wide wealth gap that the conglomerates are creating. Consequently, since the middle-income households are suffering so much from high debts and low incomes, the social distress and even suicide rates are evidently increasing over time. 31.7 per 1 million people have committed suicide in 2011. South Korea’s suicide rate is the highest of all OECD economies, while the fertility rate is the lowest, since educating a child takes a lot of time and money. Furthermore, the divorce rates of Korea tripled up since 2012, which evidently shows that the social distress caused in Korea is increasing. This devastating situation is all caused by the mega-corporation widening the gap between the rich and the poor and us, as the con team, strongly suggest that we should implement (..policies..) to solve this critical social and economic problem.
Contention 2: Unfair competitions from mega corporations Currently, South Koreans are witnessing a lot of unfair competitions from mega corporations. This problem is divided into two different parts, price collusion and focus of supplies from affiliates. Due to price collusion happening in our domestic market, SMEs are loosing its chances to sell products to its consumers. According to Economist article, Bakers and Chaebols written on February 4th 2012, it stated that consumers and SMEs are suffering from Chaebols price colluding. From the same source, Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC), detected over 3,000 cases of price colluding in 2010 however, it only led to 60 fines. The average penalty was amounted to 2.3% of unfairly earned money. There were several mega corporations that were caught for more than 3 years straight but never paid its fine the amount that they were supposed to. Another problem that leads to unfair competitions of mega corporations is the focus of supplies from affiliates. According to article written on February 29th, 2012, by Chosun Ilbo it stated that Korea’s 35 major mega corporations increased 50% of subsidiaries over the last 4 years, according to government statistics. In other words, this means that these companies have increased its subsidiaries about 2.3% per year. Since these companies have increased its subsidiaries, the focus of supplies naturally went over to these subsidiaries. If the focus of supplies stays within subsidiaries, SMEs would soon die and would not be able to maintain its companies. According to Chung Joong-won, who oversees competitive policy at the FTC, said, "It's a problem in itself if major conglomerates boost the number of subsidiaries, but the real concern is that big businesses are encroaching on the territories of small and mid-sized companies." This devastating situation where mega corporations are having unfair competitions with SMEs should be solved by implementing the policies of South Korean government to demonopolize mega corporations. Contention 3: Unemployment / low wages for SMEs Mega-corporations’ dominance of the South Korean economic market is causing lack of labor force and wages for the SMEs. According to the Korean Federation of small and medium businesses, 23% of SMEs are currently facing severe labor shortage and 17% is estimating that sooner or after they will be suffering from labor shortage as well. Also, according to the Mckinsey global institute's report on 2013, the SMEs have only 35~40% of the productivity of large conglomerates, which clearly shows that SMEs have much less work force, and therefore is harder to produce massive amounts of products. Also, according to 조선일보, the SMEs and the mega-corporations’ income difference is as much as 100 million dollars, which is not trivial. This means that the SMEs are not getting as much income as needed, and is therefore having to give less wages to their workers. More straightforwardly, the share of domestic employment in Korea by mega-corporations fell by one third from 18% to 12%, and Korea has the 2nd highest unemployment rate in OECD. Because the full-time jobs in mega-corporations are such a minority, in fact only 10% of all job spaces in Korea, the unemployed workers try to work as part-time workers to earn money. However, the part-time workers earn only 65% of full-time pay, so the unemployed workers cannot earn a high, stable wage anyway. This unfair case caused by the mega-corporation’s dominance over the economic market is resulting in a focus of work population only for the mega-corporations, deterrence of productivity of Korea, and furthermore, in a biased society where people who have the equal amount of potential doesn’t have the same number of opportunities given. As the government responsible for justice and fairness over their people, the South Korean government should implement the policies (...specific..) to de-monopolize mega-corporations.
CON Arguments
Contention 1: Deters Productivity
Contention 2: Hinder Investment
Another few backfiring policies of the South Korean government are: the unwinding of cross shareholding, high corporate taxes and the business area restrictions of conglomerates. With 70% of Korea’s workforce working in the service sector, ironically, they are producing less outcomes than the 30% conglomerates working in the manufacturing sector. This critical loss of labor force for nothing is causing our economy to drop. As I explained in contention 1 earlier, we need conglomerates to back up the SMEs businesses in the service sector, but the policy to limit business areas are restricting them from giving help. Also, the high corporate taxes towards mega-corporations are holding them back from developing their businesses, although the mega-corporations take up 77% of our GDP, and is doing a vital role to keep our economy out of recession, according to 조선일보. Along with the loss of labor force and incomes from conglomerates, the unwinding of cross shareholding is creating even more problems by preventing the mega-corporations to provoke entrepreneurships by setting up new businesses using their shares, which leads to higher unemployment rates and concentrated economy. This whole vicious cycle about to occur in South Korea is causing the investment to drop hugely, both domestically and internationally. Without the investment, the companies in South Korea, small or big, will suffer hugely, and without innovation, productivity, exports and consumptions from the companies, South Korea will soon lose our national competitiveness.
Contention 3: Foreigners take over mega - corporations
Currently, cross shareholdings between mega corporations and its subsidiaries are being a big issue since the government announced the new policy where new cross shareholdings should be banned later in July 2014. Yet, according to DongAIlbo, Trade Watchdog chief issues strong warnings against conglomerates, written on June 10th, 2013 23:38, stated that banning cross shareholding policy will increase the possibility for foreign corporations to take over Korea’s mega corporations which could encounter insufficient funds for mergers and acquisitions, and that it could cause a serious loss of national wealth as a result. This example is clearly showing what would happen if the foreign companies take over Korea’s mega corporations. Therefore, we as the pro team strongly believe that our choice is to keep Korea away from the outflow of Korea’s national wealth and know-hows.
Status quo
In September 11, 2001, the United States was struck by Al Qaeda, in the most devastating attack on American soil since the Pearl Harbor in the WWII. Nearly 3000 American lives were lost, more than 10 billion dollars in infrastructure damage occurred, and the incident left an indelible mark on the American psyche. Such an attack must never be repeated ever again, and therefore, we propose the resolution that the United States ought to prioritize the pursuit of national security objectives above the digital privacy of its citizens. We define the resolution as including such programs as the US Patriot Act, and other programs that more recently came under fire as a result of Edward Snowden’s information leakage, such as the PRISM program, which allows the US government court-approved, front-door access to American citizen’s Google and Yahoo accounts, and the NSA’s surveillance program which includes the searching of millions of email and instant messaging contact lists, tracking and mapping the location of cell phones, and tapping into Google and Yahoo data centers to collect information. Therefore, I propose on this side of the house that such programs will allow the government valuable insight regarding people’s financial records, internet surfing habits and search histories, which will help it pinpoint and track down suspicious movement and eventually curtail potential loss of lives. My value is national security and my criterion is how do we best prevent terrorism and ensure peace. We have two arguments on our side of the house,
1. The Importance of National Security and the Threat of Terrorism
On the first level, we think that national security is the paramount national interest for any state. All democratic governments have the fundamental responsibility to protect its peoples, but it cannot do that very basic job if the state in and of itself doesn’t exist. In fact, for the state to perish would be ultimate failure of its responsibility to protect its citizens, because invasion is war and war entails mass destruction and loss of lives. Therefore, national security, which is to ensure the survival of the state, is a fundamental precondition to the state doing its primary job. On the second level, terrorism is a grave threat to national security, because first, it is more likely to occur than war, and second, it is by definition a greater threat to civilians. First, of the types of threats faced by states, terrorism is the most relevant today. Threats to peace can be either from other states, through war, or from hostile individuals and organizations, through terrorism. However, terrorism is the much more relevant and dangerous threat for this particular period in time, for the reason that war is less likely in the age of globalization than is terrorism. War is less likely in the age of globalization, because states are less likely to go to war the more that that are economically liberalized. The more states trade with each other, the more they have to lose should any conflict happen to jeopardize their trade relations. However, terrorism is committed by individuals and organizations who are not bound by such disincentives, and therefore more likely to occur than war. Second, terrorism is more dangerous, because terrorism is a greater threat to civilians than is war, by its very definition that terrorism is an attack on civilians. States have learned throughout history the hard way, that where possible, war and conflict should be limited to military personnel and targets, and the Geneva Convention forbids torture and hard to civilians. However, terrorism is by definition, the attack of civilian populations by individuals and groups with a political motivation. Finally, the threat of terrorism is a constant and unlikely to go away any time soon, because terrorism is a relatively inexpensive proposition for organizations. The minimal cost of orchestrating an operation means that foreign terrorist groups will likely continue to regard U.S. homeland operations as both desirable and a financially feasible option. Therefore, because terrorism is more likely to occur than war, is more dangerous to civilian populations, and because the threat of terrorism will always continue to exist, the state should do anything and everything it can to prevent such activities from coming to pass.
2. Why sacrificing security in this situation will be effective Because of the nature of homegrown terrorism and the information age, access to the private digital information of people would be invaluable in uncovering potential terrorist threats. Homegrown terrorism are attacks that originate from within the nation, for example when American citizens become radicalized by coming into contact with international organizations. Homegrown terrorists are dangerous, because they are already living amongst us as one of us. They are hiding in plain sight, and therefore have fewer logistical problems, such as figuring out how to enter into the target nation (in this case the USA), become familiar with the society and their customs, and identify targets more easily, which means that they have higher chances of success. Furthermore, statistics prove that they are very real and on the rise. According to an FBI report in 2009, there were roughly 15,000 websites and web forums that supported terrorist activities around the world, with around 10,000 of them actively maintained, and 80% of these on US-based servers. Homegrown terrorism is very present. What’s more, the internet is particularly important in the radicalization process for many domestic (homegrown) terrorists, breeding the extremist ideology that sows the seeds for future terrorists. One example of this is the online English language magazine, Inspire, which is published by the Al Qaeda and purportedly created by the American cyber-jihadist Samir Khan. The magazine is intended to help acquaint English-speaking individuals with what to expect when traveling to jihadist-training camps in the Middle East. Given the way that society operates in the Information Age, because every piece of information is digitized, and every individual is connected to the Internet, accessing people’s digital data is an effective and most surefire way to detect suspicious activities that could potentially lead to terrorism. Finally, in the Age of Information, people’s online footsteps are highly likely to reveal terrorist tendencies. Because most people are highly connected to the web, and because their digital footsteps are an excellent indicator of any behavior that could be suspect. As of January 2014, 87% of US adults use the Internet, according to the Pew Research Center. This means that most people use the web for various purposes throughout their lives, and this means that there’s a lot of information that could be potentially useful. A person's browser history can be a very revealing thing indeed, and the perfect source of information to determine whether that person could be a threat to society or not. For example, search queries such as “how to make a bomb,” or “how to travel to countries forbidden from travel,” would be highly suggestive of suspicious behavior, and the state should rightly have access to such information and thereby track them down.
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