Modern Debate Is Abused

Hello RationalMadman,
thanks for accepting this debate. I hope we can figure out something about the great art of debate and hopefully figure out where our society is headed. 
Such a debate topic is not easy to answer. In order to make it more objective I will ask all that view to set aside all bias and experience in order to get a clearer view of the arguments presented.
I wish to have 2 main arguments, one from popular wording and views of debate and two that political debates have abused it. Remember that both sides must provide reasoning for and against debate's abuse. 
To make this debate short I will start with my first argument:
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Contention (1) Popular opinion
My argument relies on a misinterpretation of the art of debate. If debate is the organised exchange of ideas with the intent to figure out the truth of a controversial matter, then a deformed view of debate would necessarily not to find the truth. Instead it would be to win others to your side regardless of the truth of your position. 
Remember this: Win = deformed. If all I am focused on is winning, then I fail to find what really matters: The Truth.
Now let's preform an experiment. Since I cannot get the opinion of everyone, a simple understanding of modern culture is to use the internet to figure out what we tend to focus on about debates. 
The internet is a dead give away, as an old saying goes: "Debating politics on the Internet is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how skilled you are at the game, the pigeon is going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and then strut around like he’s won."
We can simple search google and find numerous headlines about whether someone "won" a debate. Example: For the recent democratic debates, headlines dot the internet such as: (Who won the Democratic debate? - NBC News) (Who won the Democratic debate?-CNN) (Who Won Night 1 of the Democratic Debate? NYT) etc...
Impact: If all we are worried about is who "won" (whether it means gained voters/in the polls), we will never examine the truth about what these politicians are saying in these debates. 
It is also telling when you examine the language we so often use for debate such as Winning and Arguing.
This leads to my second argument: 
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Contention (2) Political Debates
First why the political debates? They are the most talked about and most popular debates, as they directly affect us. 
The website psmaq sets up this argument well when it said,
"Because political beliefs are connected to deeply held values, information about politics can be very threatening to your self-image. Imagine coming across information that contradicts everything you've ever believed about the efficacy of Medicare, for example. If you're wrong about such an important policy, what else might you be wrong about? And if you're wrong about a bunch of things, you're obviously not as smart or as good or as worthwhile a person as you previously believed. These are painful thoughts, and so we evaluate information in ways that will help us to avoid them."
I highlight the last part because our beliefs tend to get the best of us. Politicians know this and use this in their debates. If you have watched the recently aired democratic debates for example you would see each candidate attack each other with logical fallacies and outlandish promises (as politicians do) in order to convince us without real argument, instead of outlining a rational position and defending it. They are like the pigeon above and will stop at nothing to ruin the great art of debate for their political gain.
 
https://psmag.com/news/why-even-your-best-arguments-never-work-64910

Forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't that just Pro outlining what debates are? Debates encourage you to outwit, outcharm and outmaneuvre the opponent via logic, emotional appeal and anything to get the votes that doesn't break the rules.

If an environment is severely competitive, it is not abusive then to dodge points that you believe the audience won't catch onto from your opposition; it's just good strategy. Equally, it's not abusive to strut around like you won if the debate has no clear win-condition (forum debating). Instead, it's not debating that's being abused at all, it's debating itself that is conducive to harsh and cunning behaviour as a necessity to correctly engage in it.

To put this simpler, it would be like highlighting the techniques, damage to the body and stress both mentally and physically that's involved with being a professional boxer and then saying 'modern boxing is being abused'. It's not being abused, what's actually true is that the sport is such that you cannot engage in it without being harsh and/or very damaging to the opponent.

The focus here is on what is being abused not that abuse is happening. It is not debating itself that's being abused rather my opponent has a romantic view of debating and then is shocked that it's so harsh and corrupt in reality.

I think the most pertinent thing to do here is to define 'debate' in the context of the resolution.

- https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/debate

If you don't like that one, let's look to another:

- https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/debate this is Oxford Dictionaries' new website.

If the aim of debating is to convey ones view in the face of opposing ones and especially since we are discussing 'modern debate' we are more so referring to the refined competitive sport such as that which we are engaging in right now, the aim of debating is to 'win' in part for sure. It's true that we also should be aiming to understand the opposing view but is that really abusing to not do? When you 'abuse' the opponent you are not abusing debate, you are if anything abusing yourself if you do it wrong as it's more likely you'll get exposed, out-debated and the audience as well as your opponent will agree you lost the debate. On the other hand, if your opponent is too weak or their side is up against a high-up conspiracy that falsifies data but is well-respected, you will find that the abuse you use is the only way to win at all and to express the truth in the latter scenario of a well executed conspiracy being what your opponent is backing up.

The issue is that when Pro says that we are deceiving, insulting, dragging our opponents' ego through the mud etc, what should be realised is that unless you do that in a very skilled manner, you end up the loser in debating. Rudeness gets you conduct marks down, or in forum debating makes others dislike your opponent more and gang up on them or at least think 'what an a**' right? Muddying the waters and giving false facts is nothing to do with debating; that's the very thing that we'd all be completely susceptible to if it wasn't for aggressive debaters fighting against it and opening our minds.

The crux of my case is that the one abused in debating is only done so either to win the debate (which is the correct thing to do in one spirit of debating) or to encourage the opponent to fight back harder and better (to 'lose the debate' but 'win' as you change your mind and realise how wrong you were). Nothing motivates opponents like a rude and deceitful opposition, after all.

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Truth is being abused apparently, I didn't know you could abuse it. Trust is not debate, so if truth is being abused, that is not proof that debate is, if anything debate is the means/weapon.

Nonetheless, I don't even stand for that. Truth being obtained is only true for a very small niche of debates; scientific, mathematical or historical-fact ones. Pretty much all other debate revolve around ones interpretation of truth and how one wishes to go about processing that. This is not a new point in the last Round, feel free to disregard it, I am expanding on something I stated in Round 2: Debate is designed around battling to convince others or to bring out the full wrath of the other debater in order to open one's own mind to theri side.

Both scenarios result in optimal play revolving around some tactics that can be called 'abusive' but this is a natural, necessary and dare I say healthy part of debate. Voters will punish it if the opponent exposes it well and doesn't do it back (or if the opponent does it back just as much/well, the voters will maybe pick a side, bias does exist). In less official win-styled debating, you can have others on the forum upvoting, downvoting, backing up and all kinds of 'approval' but if your motive is to find truth and not to 'win' then you cannot be abused after all, because all means of abuse won't get in the way of you finding that truth.

So either debating is about winning, and the 'abuse' is a natural part of it and not 'abusing debating' or you want to find truth via debating and the harshness of the opponent is simply them at their most motivated to prove you wrong, which then will most likely reveal truth you hadn't come across before to you (or affirm to you, you had the truth all along).