THW: Double the price of soju.
Hello Debaters,
I have to admit I'm personally biased on this one. I think the price of soju could easily be doubled (or at least significantly raised), and the social benefits would be immediate. Sure, it would cause some grumbling, but the status quo would probably go for it if the government laid out a clear plan. That's just my opinion. At nearly 20% alcohol priced at just over a dollar....my personal belief is that getting buzzed should be an occassion, not a habit. And pocket change shouldn't be all that's needed.
That said, soju is world famous and like Rachel said - "we love it." That's not true for everybody but let's face it - soju makes a big impression (sometimes a messy one) and it is a national symbol of culture. It's cheap, goes great with beef, and tourists are impressed by it (partly because it's so cheap).
This was a fun debate, and both teams had to dig to come up with arguments. Rather than comment on you individually, I'll comment on the debate itself - as I think your scores indicate your progress, and we all know what we need to do to improve. Some of you need to slow down, some need to speed up, most of you need to kick up the emotion a notch. Flow is something that comes with practice and motions we are comfortable with, so no point in pointing these things out repeatedly. In the future, you will get individual feedback on the Flowsheet posted below. Unfortunately, this class only has myself as a judge (apologies for that - you are ALWAYS welcome to argue my decisions - as it IS a class for debate), so unless we reduce to three person teams you will not get to participate in judging like other classes do.
I think the OPP has the disadvantage here, and I was surprised that you were all surprised that I chose the GOV. To be honest, I wasn't partial to the OPP's arguments or strategy ("We love soju!"). In my opinion (and no - I'm no expert like Wayne), the OPP should have made some allowances, and stuck with attacking "doubled." Doubling the price of anything is not the best move. Imagine if KMLA told you that your tuition was going to be doubled. Not over the course of ten years but overnight. Public outcry would not be pretty - even if it was a matter of one dollar. You can raise the price incrementally - even as much as 10%, but by 100%? That's asking for trouble. Many of the poor who earn minimum wage and depend on soju for comfort will very suddenly have to adjust in an unhealthy way. This may or may not feed into an increase in domestic abuse, robbery, and suicide. It's just too big an adjustment. You guys touched on this, but attacking doubled seems like a better strategy.
The above argument, I think, would cause some stress for the GOV, and is better than "Drinking is part of our tradition" as a central argument. That argument is good in it's own way to, but is a dollar more going to rob Korea of culture? The GOV could have done a lot better job of dancing all over this one, but they played nice. When the OPP asks "Why soju and not beer? Muckoli is cheap- why not that to?" - The GOV should simply reply - "Good idea. Now that you mention it - ALL prices are going up because this nation has a problem!" There were some good POIs early on this debate - Rachel really stung the GOV with the "soju creates crime" argument. Korea is safer than countries that consume less alcohol. True - in a sense. Yonsoo did a good job keeping the egg on the spoon after this - and came up with a good POI regarding moking in China as well.
All in all, I felt the GOV was more organized, had a clearer map, and how can we deny that extra tax dollars won't help the poor? No matter how you shake the lamb's tale - soju is still cheap even if we triple that price. The stats that the GOV produced that suggest social programs will have 400 times more budget seems mathematically awkward to me - but I'm not good at math. Even twice the budget would be a step in the right direction.
Also included is the Education Kills Creativity response scores below. They were good, and some of you are really raising the bar - doing more writing in debate than you probably are in writing class (at least in my writing class). This is good to see. Try to remember to suggest three motions, and remember pictures are awesome. So are videos.
See you soon!
Class 11L1 | CR#3 | Debate#3 |
Hendrix | 8.9/10 | 9.1/10 |
Lennon | 9.3/10 | 8.9/10 |
Page | 9.5/10 | 9.2/10 |
Presley | 9.5/10 | 9.1/10 |
Dylan | 9.1/10 | 9.4/10 |
Clapton | 9.2/10 | 9.3/10 |
McCartney | 8.9/10 | 9.0/10 |
Young | 9.3/10 | 9.0/10 |
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