Reasonable corporal punishment should be permitted in American public schools.

I am inclined to agree that spacetime and username are the same person.

I would add that they both should be relegated to the naughty corner.

That was the 69th comment. Nice.

spacetime may or may not be a test I made to see how people on an online debate site respond to the dunning-kruger effect

I can't help but wonder if Username & spacetime are the same person. Trolling us onlookers.

An excellent reply, I must say: it's simple, dismissive, and to the point. I see that you're really trying to emphasize the contrast between my long, boring, and meandering blocks of text and your brief, unenthusiastic rejoinders of brilliance . When I read it, I understand in my head: "spacetime is so far above me mentally, he won't even engage with me with more than one word". In short, your response is truly deserving of an IQ as high as yours.

Nah.

Feel free to DM me to discuss this separately if you like.

Spacetime, please teach us your ways. You clearly have the highest caliber of intellect and IQ on this (intellectual cesspool of a) site. I actually feel my brain growing, just from talking to you. We are all incapable of basic reading comprehension, and must be enlightened by the great swaths of knowledge that you bestow on us pathetic, miserable weaklings. But of course, only if we're worth your time. Your precious, glorious spacetime. I thank you so much for just reading this message. It means a lot to me. Really.

I refer to "mindless obedience" in R1. Why do you claim otherwise?

My concluding remarks from R3 are in R1. It's the first sentences in the whole debate. Why do you claim otherwise?

You don't know that Coal lacked characters. Why do you assume this?

Character management is part of debating. Why punish me for Coal's failures to manage characters? This doesn't make sense to me.

RJ isn't CP. Coal says RJ is "punitive." But empirical literature says it's "non-punitive." In my view, doesn't matter what you call it. The point is that they're different, and you can have RJ without CP.

Ragnar's vote doesn't make sense at all. He bends over backwards trying to justify his vote for Coal. I strongly recommend you don't model your voting behavior on Ragnar. Better models are Spacetime, the guy whose vote Ragnar removed.

you could've put your R3 concluding remarks ("mindless obedience" especially) way back to round 1 to establish a stronger critique of CP, and use the studies earlier on. Not sure Coal had enough characters to refute RJ's benefits. Also, I was considering unique benefits of RJ compared to CP, since Coal was basically saying you're doing the same thing as he is. The problem with your final round is that I can see why Und thinks it's enough to win by a landslide, but at the same time, there's a lot of stuff missing that allows Ragnar's vote to make sense. As such, I'm reluctant to vote for either pro or con. There's too much uncertainty in both sides' statistics and unique benefits.

Maybe you missed it, but this was the structure of the debate:

"Structure. The structure of this debate shall follow as such:

Round 1: debaters shall make their affirmative cases (absent any specific refutation of arguments made by the opposing side).

Round 2: debaters shall rebut the affirmative cases raised in round 1 (and may introduce new evidence in support of such rebuttals).

Round 3: debaters shall reply to the rebuttals provided in round 2 and provide any reconstructive arguments in support of arguments initially raised in round 1 (but may not introduce new evidence in support of such replies or reconstructive arguments)."

This structure expressly allows me to rebut things from R1 in R2 by introducing "new evidence," as well as to rebut things from R2 in R3 as long as I don't introduce "new evidence." I did precisely this, per the terms of the debate. Why do you judge the debate under the belief I'm wrong to do this?

I don't understand your take.

You say I should have done a bunch of stuff in R1 that, as far as I can tell, was done in R1.

What's the "ultimatum" that I should have delivered in R1?

I expressly argued in favor of "restorative justice" in R1. Why do you suggest otherwise?

I expressly discussed the "American values" in R1, noting that my system promotes them while corporal punishment doesn't. Why do you claim otherwise? (Also, why do you claim this stuff is useless?)

I rebutted in R2 by noting parent-child context. Pro was able to address this in R3. It was the structure of the debate to rebut in R2, not R1. Why do you say I was too late to make this argument, if I made it as early as allowed by the rules, and Pro had an opportunity to rebut in R3?

Coal didn't argue that RJ harms students. That's an argument of your own creation. Why do you make this argument in Coal's defense, when he didn't make it himself?

Coal says RJ extends to families because he misunderstood my argument. This was clarified in R3. Nowhere in R1 do I say families must participate. The benefit was that they "could" participate; it gives them opportunity. Why do you ignore this? Why don't I have the right to define the terms of my counter proposal? Why do you allow Coal to define it for me? I don't understand how this is even an issue in your mind.

Why do you say benefits of RJ aren't clear? Why aren't the studies sufficient? Did Coal contest the findings in these studies at all?

What's the purpose of R2 & R3 if I'm supposed to say EVERYTHING in R1? Don't understand this judging philosophy at all. Please explain.

Part 2

Pro re-points that Con doesn't prove the unique benefits of RJ -- he pushes it over in that it's unclear how different the punishment is. Certainly, if Con wins on the harms on the children, he can prove that RJ has a good case. But if he's unclear or tied on this, it seems to me that RJ and CP can both be permitted, just implemented at different times. In my opinion, this is a dangerous thorn on Con's side. Pro says Con says some form of discipline is necessary, and doesn't prove that the physical infliction causes some kind of unique harm. This may be the key point that forced Ragnar and Pie to vote for Con. Pro repeats that the Fuller source was only refuted by ad hominem, while the Baumrind accusations were only that Gershoff was incompatible with scientific standards. The co-mingling of statistics also doesn't help Con in this idea. He also says when you only focus on spanking, there is no lasting harm. He further uses Sweden to indicate that CP doesn't inherently relate to the violence. He ends the evidence with testimony support by repeating Hermann.

Con delivers his ultimatum a little late. If only he had done this in round 1. There's a lot of doubt I have in his case, especially since he argues against deliberate infliction of harm, rather than the "justice restoration". He states that the intention to repair are different, especially to negate the "mindless obedience to authority". I find this frustratingly useless -- it requires a better story built up for the case of CP. He relates this back to the inherent American values, but alas, this is also too late. He should have done this round 1. But okay. He continues that the Gershoff's later study in 2018 improves upon the previous work, in that the customary spanking was better than the punishment. There was enough experimental evidence to cast further doubt in Pro's arguments. He also re-asserts that L&B along with Fuller also talk of the parent-child relationship, rather than public school teaching. This is also very late in the debate, and Pro cannot address this. I like Und's advice about making public school look more friendly, but I don't think it's necessary without a fourth round involved. Finally, Con argues that Fuller doesn't successfully defeat Gershoff in depth. He repeats his American ideals, but this is completely useless.

In my opinion, there isn't enough information to make a decision. The time line seems to fix Con's problems with Gershoff's "better study" in 2018, with a potential fourth round that could've been used to negate this study. RJ seems to resolve the same problems as CP. Even if we accept that Con is self-contradictory, it's hard to say what we lose out on if we accept "both CP and RJ inflict harm on students", because Con infers there's a lot of negative impact. Pro argues that RJ extends this harm to families, but isn't really that specific on what we lose out on if we actually inflict RJ. Sure, I can buy that they're similar in philosophy, but there's definitely some slight harms that seem to be plausible. Since I know next to nothing on the subject, I can't say one side clearly won over the other, unlike Undefeatable's analysis.

Undefeatable told me he wasn't 100% confident in re-analyzing and told to be wrong or subpar again, so he asked me to give my thoughts. I'm typically worse at debating (and thus don't care about my pride), but I go into more detail about specific ideas because I don't think I can make conclusions as easily as Und. This should be a more fair/thorough vote.

Reviewing pro's round 1, he establishes that the suspension related punishment is terrible, especially with segregation and separation from school. He realizes it worsens academic performance, and with key stat of "15~20% more likely arrested". He also proves that the minorities and boys are especially affected. He uses Baumrind to prove there's no lasting harm, and that says Gershoff is junk science, though I'm curious how this research is flawed exactly. He uses appeal to authority and states that the current discipline is ineffective, and that children would often take CP allowing a deterrent through pain.

I agree with all voters' analysis that FT's round 1 is completely underwhelming and utterly destroyed by Pro's constructive. He tries to establish a rational foundation for no punishment at all, but the idea that children would just resolve themselves is a bit strange. The later Justice system is interesting, but I definitely need more on how it's effective especially compared to CP. So Pro is crushing Con here 10/10. Let's see if Und is right about Con over turning the argument.

Pro's round 2 counters immediately with a retrospective and prospective approach. He says that it's required by justice, and that the Con case isn't that different to exercise of power. The eventual means of deterrence would still be same in the end. So that's quite interesting. Pro also re-establishes that CP is meant to prevent misbehavior, and prevent disruption. He points out that Con's idea is still a "discipline system", and extends to families as well. He knows that Con has nearly no evidence, contrasted with his disciplined school climate including Hermann, CNN, and other ideas. He also adds upon the needs of society to create a power structure, with employee to supervisor. I agree with Und's note that this is a bad comparison because unpaid interns cannot be CP's by supervisors. Still, there's quite some substance to be rebutted here.

Con clarifies that the punishments means the deliberate infliction of harm on children, and states that Fronius along with Augustine says there's a great amount of improvement of school climate, potentially proving that Pro's case is non-unique (RJ and CP would both improve the situation). He does use a mostly emotional argument here, but there's definitely psychological studies he could've easily brought up. Anyways, I think I'd buy the idea of worse behavior in children. Con notes that 2018 study remedies the weaknesses in the sources. In particular, he says there's a casual inference, and Pro's "better outcomes" are not truly proved by Fuller or Larzelere and Baurmind. He also conclude in Gersoff 2016 in that the long-term compliance is poor. So I think I stand with Ragnar here that it's kind of 50/50 overall. There's a lot of ideas on RJ that have just been brought up, and the studies are not completely certain regarding who's correct and who's not.

Thank you whiteflame. Your decision & feedback is appreciated.

I am, or I was. I'm irrelevant now.

Been working my way through the debate, but probably won't get an RFD up tonight, unfortunately. That just means I won't be influencing the decision - I'll still post a decision over the next couple of days to throw in on this.

And for us to have that discussion, you would have to have a baseline of civility with your fellow peoples, you do not have that. And that's coming from ME of all people? What, do you find people disagreeing with you evidence enough for your dismissal of those people? My god you are a laugh.

you're YYW?!! Ah, that would explain why you're so tough to beat

Having a constructive discussion about this with you would require you to possess a certain baseline level of reading comprehension ability, and it is clear that you do not.

So.... do you have any substantiation or just ad hominems? Ya know, I read up on you, your history and such, I suppose I should expect the ad hominems huh?

Your welcome!

You, like most of the people on this intellectual cesspool of a site, are not worth my time. Sorry!

Lol I'll discuss these rfds layer. It's shameful for you to call these good, yyw. Especially after calling undefeatable RFD bad, and saying spacetime should be removed. Disappointing from you to just assume they're good because they are in your favor.

These really aren't the type of people you should be getting voting advice from. They're deeply unintelligent.

Many thanks to Ragnar and Pie. Given the amount of time spent on this debate, and the importance of the issues (both directly, as it relates to educational outcomes) and indirectly (as it relates to the integrity of social science research), I appreciate that you guys both read the debate and understood the arguments/evidence. Very good RFDs.

yes, we should totally take your assertion seriously because you said so. Thank you for your grand conjecture.

Ragnar and Pies rfds are terrible.

Ragnar shouldn't even be allowed to vote on this.

probably not enough time for you to vote, but I'm interested in your analysis and who you thought won. Your judgement tends to be more in-depth than most people on this site.

interesting. Was I too loose in my analysis and my attempt to pierce through their weaknesses and strengths? I didn't treat this as if I was debating them (likely a more thorough decision), but rather picking out the core of the arguments and thinking through if they were really correct when pitted against their opponent's stance.

None of you have any clue what you're talking about.

Below is my thought stream from as I read the debate. It supplements supports the RFD I'll be posting in a bit.

---(1 of 4)---
Trying to give fair feedback, unsure if this will lead to a score assignment. That said, having not gotten the benefits of public school (or literally any pre-college education), I am a rare impartial person to this topic.

First of all, a strong setup. In gist, pro is arguing for an option to be available. The only problem with it is the danger of a truism (all unreasonable still banned, so any precise application could be called unreasonable… I don’t think that tactic will be used, as good examples of unreasonable ones were given). On that note, good to see clearly identifies competing burdens.

R1 (initial cases):
Pro makes it clear that he is talking theoretically, without any precise form of it in mind (presumably not the bees or whatever he had in the description).
Pro builds that the currently applied treatments enhance the problems and deny the students an education, so a compounded harm without benefit. Then nicely magnified with details on the consequences to them later. An over the top bit with them more likely to kill themselves as a result (on that one I had to check the source, yup, the implications and causations are not well established, but the bullet point is there on the findings).
Having well established the problem, pro moves on to his suggested solution. He immediately gives evidence for lack of lasting harm from it (at least in one form of it), and points to the lack of evidence in favor of a ban (giving research papers as evidence of the lack of evidence… well played). He ends it with some anecdotal evidence of student testimonials in favor of it over other the current status quo method.
Overall, a clear case from pro, which at least initially allows him to meet his BoP (if he does it better than con, is TBD).

Con opens with a statement to the effect that it shouldn’t even be considered due to the harm it causes, and that teachers do not care about children (at least not more than their hourly wage).
Apparently we should just leave it up to God to fix the discipline problems…
He gets better with children self motivating.
He proposes an alternative system of a judicial committee which meets every day, which is not allowed to inflict any form of punishment. He outlines that there is no risk of any harm from this system… With this the debate could get really good, since we can compare the benefits and harms under each proposed system.
He builds a case against punishment systems from the 19th century (which pro will no doubt explain were not within the scope of reasonable). Then moves on to what looks like an appeal to replace the whole school system? It got deep into flowering imagery at the end, so I could have misread that.

At the end of this round, pro is well in the lead. I suspect con’s tactics would have worked really well in a speech, but I’m a highly educated numbers guy. I appreciate quick references to great philosophers, but not as much as scientific research into the subject matter.

R2 (pure rebuttals):
Pro is quick to define punishment within common usage, so as to identify that pro’s plan which offers the benefit of zero punishments actually contains punishments as pro has described it, along with submission to authority (another of pro’s benefits was getting away from that mindset). Pro does a hard counter to con’s claim that punishment cannot ever be justified, both in general terms to the two types of punishment (forward or backward looking), as well as to the context of children.
Pro gives examples of why it can be necessary to combat disruptive behaviors for the good of all other students in a class wishing to learn.
Pro targets con’s lack of evidence that his proposed system would net the promised benefits.
Pro counters the need of society, by pointing to workplace activity monitoring, to suggest an instilled sense of discipline is needed throughout life in our society.

Con blaims all of pro’s states problems on the increased punishments in schools after the removal of corporal punishment, and makes a very risky statement to a debate like this: “The problem isn't the means of punishment, but rather the use of punishment itself.”
He slides in an anti-Trump pathos appeal (“make American schools great again”).
He pulls out a good source for why his proposal is superior (really would have preferred that in R1, to build it up initially). And another which uses some good data mining on the status quo vs another system, to which an alternative to the status quo came ahead on several metrics including standardized test scores.
He notably does not use any source (saying “common sense” is a source, does not raise something above an assertion) when claiming the intent of corporal punishment is to harm the childen, rather than to seek any improvement. He cites that a paper cites it’s a proven cause, which much as I nitpicked the suicide claim earlier, the abstract to said paper states “ whether causal conclusions can be drawn from this largely nonexperimental research and whether the conclusions generalize across contexts are issues that remain unresolved.” Then ironically moves on to disputing what pro’s sources said, and should really really use some direct quotes for verifications (checking for “Optimism” I found it clearly in the table of contents for the one it was stated to not be in, but that big one about punishment should be done by families, that one could have sealed the debate were it cited better… like the cherry picking done for the CNN source (one which was giving both sides arguments, but still a good catch)).

On the edge. Very curious how each will defend their cases.

R3 (defense and closing statements):
Pro lays out several voting issues, one that really pops out is: “Likewise, CON provided no evidence illustrating that without punishment, the status quo's harms would be solved.”
Pro reiterates that con’s proposal of blame the existence of punishments so replace them with different punishments, is still just that, punishments.
He repeats that he’s not talking about random torture as a motivator.
Sources defense (could have been more detailed as per quotations, but decent). On this I must say, with Gershoff having been discredited in R1, con really should not have turned to them as a key source.
And more reiteration, such as one of con’s core contentions being any punishment is completely unjustifiable.

Con disagrees with anything he proposes being able to be called punishment.
Con denies pro ever showed that punishment can be justified, because we must leave all punishment to God to handle…
Some slippery slope hyperboles (not sure if I mentioned them enough above, but they’ve been seeded throughout).
A list of harms, some of which I clearly remember pro directly challenging earlier (like with sources about the lack of long term harm).
Some more copy paste, like his claims against teachers, insistence that the other one’s source support him (I think both are doing this a lot), and of course the claim that if pro is right we’ll all be living in a dystopian nightmare of mindless obedience.

I am going to sleep on this, but con has lost a lot of credibility to his side with the outlandish claims.

My bad, I meant fourtrouble, I was rushing that out, lol

My vote? I didn't vote.

The key problem with spacetime's vote was that even when pressured to, he could not name a single contention offered by pro.

I generally agree - though I do agree with the moderators removing it - you need to cover both side's key point at the very least. Yours do that really well, and Username just needs to point out what Pro said, and explain why Con is right.

I believe Spacetime's original vote was borderline sufficient. While he didn't outright say Pro's evidence was outweighed by con's analysis, spacetime focused on the counter plan and weighed it important enough that CP perhaps wasn't even that relevant to defeat any concrete impacts of RJ. His vote isn't as crystal clear as mine, but I think it's still satisfactory.

There are a few dimensions to this.

"Key" arguments will be those that the voter must cover in order to fairly justify one winner over another. Now, moderation allows a pretty large amount of interpretive variation on the part of voters as to what is most important, and usually we play off of what the voter themselves say in this regard. To see this in practice, let's say the voter is voting on an abortion debate. PRO says: "the fetus is a part of the woman's body, which thus gives her the right to do with it as she sees fit." CON replies: "the fetus is not part of the woman's body because it is genetically independent of the woman." The voter votes for PRO on the basis of the first argument, but neglects to even mention CON's refutation. The voter here has chosen both of the arguments above as "key" arguments for themselves (since they both pertain to whether the fetus is or is not part of the woman's body), but they don't fairly cover these "key" arguments (or how PRO beats CON in that interaction). In this case we would delete the vote and ask the voter to please explain how PRO's argument interacts with CON's refutation.

This is not to say "key" argument interpretations are left entirely up to the voter, though. There are (many) times when voters jump to one side or the other while ignoring broad swaths of important content that must be mentioned in order to justify one side fulfilling/dismantling the resolution. In these cases, moderation will point out that the voter cherry-picked and/or refused to address content integral to the debate and ask for revisions to be made.

What qualifies as a key argument?

**************************************************
>Reported Vote: Undefeatable // Mod action: Not Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: Winner to CON
>Reason for Decision: See Comments Tab.
>Reason for Mod Action:

I'm not certain why this vote was reported, a cursory reading showed a clear analysis of both PRO and CON's arguments with justifications regarding how those arguments interacted. All standards seem to be met and/or exceeded. Any nitpicking from me over the conclusions drawn would be an overstep of my role as a moderator.

I don't think you're really understanding what our standards are. You don't have to cover every detail, but you must show how KEY arguments interacted with each other. You must justify why one argument trumped another in your book (using only what was presented in the debate), otherwise voting becomes a simple argument popularity contest and the entire point of formal debate is undermined.

**************************************************
>Reported Vote: spacetime // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: winner to con.
>Reason for Decision: See Comments Tab.
>Reason for Mod Action:

The voter acted in such a way to suggest they did not give fair weighting to the debate content.

Any awarded point(s) must be based on the content presented inside the debate rounds. Content from the comment section, other votes, forums, your personal experience, etcetera, is ineligible for point allotments.
https://info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy#based-on-outside-content
**************************************************

spacetime
Added: 33 minutes ago
#2
Reason:
RFD

Coal opens up with arguments about current violation, failures of suspension based discipline, hurt of minority, and proof of corporal punishment successfully making children more "involved and optimistic". He adds upon authorities who agree that CP works, and that children would take it over missing out on school. This is the basis of his premise, and relatively solid.

FT counters with the idea that punishment should never be done, as it isn't necessary for learning or discipline. He also asserts that it conflicts with our needs. Here he creates a counter idea where you shouldn't need to correct children at all. I don't see how children can rehabilitate on themselves, but let's see if Pro notices this issue.

Pro notices that FT's idea of restorative justice may be problematic because punishment has still be universal in society. He also thinks about looking forward, backwards, to point out noticing the reason behind the punishment. The requirement by justice, or the prevent of future harm, are interesting ideas that somewhat echo with his first round. He continues by saying that CP is used to correct misbehavior, preventing disruption, and also that Con's system being quite vague to mitigate the problem -- something I noticed myself. Finally, he claims that the schools represent work, and that the submission to power is key. (However, this brings another can of worms in that Employees cannot be CP'd by Employers, potentially killing this comparison.)

Con continues with clarification by noting that the violence in particular makes the issue an issue, and that Restorative Justice is far more effective, using two strong studies. This is excellent and does big work to help support his impacts. Next, he uses common sense to show that psychological problems can form, and that the societal norm of harming children could be perpetuated -- bringing in the slippery slope of using CP on adults, something I noted myself. He counters that CP can result in worse behavior, and even says Pro has methodological weaknesses. The RCT's put the nail in the coffin to provide evidence supporting reduced spanking. Con also pierces through Fuller and L&B, noting that only parenting styles were analyzed rather than CP. Finally, he concludes with the same Gershoff Meta analysis to prove that compliance does not work. With this round in mind, he completely overturns all of Pro's arguments.

Pro continues asserting his same evidence, but he doesn't tell us how Hermann outweighs Gershoff's meta-analysis. He says Con's RJ system is contradiction, as it's a different type of punishment, but doesn't notice Con's crux that violence inflicted is the problem, not punishment. He says Con thinks some discipline is necessary, but doesn't tell us why the RJ has the same or bigger problems compared to CP. Then, he continues by arguing that Fuller 2015 was questioning the methodologies, going into detail about how Baumrind noticed he was overly broad in his analysis. This is excellent to reduce this study's impact. He also notices how Sweden's stats counter Con's slipper slope of violence. He concludes that CNN and other sources prove that CP have a significant effect.

Con crystallizes that the RJ is completely different from the infliction of harm, and that his case is uniquely strong especially in the promotion of responsibility while respecting rights, without mindless obedience. Con also notices that Pro drops most of the inherent harms, and that Gershoff's non-correlational ideas are still pretty strong, especially with 2016 and 2018 studies fixing the co-mingling of meta analysis. He furthers with the fact that the three sources only talk about parent-child relationship, rather than in-school CP. This greatly damages Pro's ideas. Finally, he concludes that RJ would promote a more democratic and free solution compared to CP.

With the anti-CP sources fixed by the end of the debate, and not much impact killed from Con's arguments about RJ, Pro fails to overturn the ideas that CP is inherently violent, damaging, and unjustifiable. Pro could have done better if he proved that the American school system was not all that different from parent-child relationship, and potentially bridge the gap between his studies and his results. However, Pro is losing by a landslide because he went into great detail about sources without noticing the bigger picture and the painted imagery of CP that Con produces. As such, vote to Con.

Thank you for the heads up. That is wantonly bad voting, to just copy/paste a vote from someone else. The Voting Policy literally states you may not vote based on the content of other votes.

I am not sure spacetime is allowed to vote like this. While his original vote certainly showed he definitely read out con's side, my analysis picks out key points that I believed were important, skipping over minor details. He is basically making my vote worth double, which is certainly a compliment in itself, but my way of reading into Coal's arguments may be different from other voters.

For the record, it's like this for a reason. Debaters can always engage with judges concerning other parts of the clash, and sometimes it's a waste of time to go over parts of it that you don't think are relevant to the RFD.

I suspect that there's an issue with the voting rules on this site. If it helps you to analyze all of the clash, that's totally fine.