Instigator / Pro
19
1774
rating
98
debates
77.55%
won
Topic
#3062
The military and the police are the most important agencies run the government
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 3 votes and with 9 points ahead, the winner is...
Benjamin
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
10
1469
rating
10
debates
40.0%
won
Description
Cambridge definitions:
-GOVERNMENT:= the system used for controlling a country, city, or group of people:
-AGENCY:= a government organization:
-IMPORTANT:= necessary or of great value:
BoP is shared.
Please ask for clarification before accepting.
Round 1
Thank you, DeadFire27, and welcome to Dart.
IMPORTANT NOTE: "state" refers to a country and nation, not the US understanding of a state
FRAMEWORK
PRO: The military and the police are the most important agencies run the government
CON: The military and the police are not the most important agencies run the government
Description definitions from Cambridge:
- GOVERNMENT: the system used for controlling a country, city, or group of people:
- AGENCY: a government organization:
- IMPORTANT: necessary or of great value:
PRO will be arguing that the military and the police are the most necessary or valuable agencies run by the government.
CON will be arguing that this is not the case -- he thus needs to provide evidence that there exists another agency that is more necessary than the military and the police.
I wish CON good luck.
I will now proceed to the arguments phase.
NECESSITY
Military
There can be no doubt that the military is the most important part of a state. Without a military, no state can continue to exist, the only exceptions being small states protected by larger states. States without military devolve into anarchy or are invaded by other nations or both. A military is necessary to guard the borders and ensure other states don't act aggressively or in other ways that breach national sovereignty. In short, a military is necessary and every single state needs a military. This has been true throughout history and is true today. Even today nations need a military, as can be seen in the Middle East, Ukraine, Indian Pakistani border and so forth. As a matter of fact, the main reason for having a strong military is that you want to avoid conflict; a strong military makes war an option that is simply not affordable, thus conflict is avoided.
Police
The police are very important. They enforce the laws of a country; and without them, no state could effectively control its population. Collecting taxes to fund other agencies by the government is only possible if there is a police force punishing those that refuse to pay -- thus without the police, a state cannot have any agencies at all. More importantly, the police prevent the state from collapsing into anarchy; they prevent terrorism, violence, theft, crimes in general in addition to enforcing law and order.
Trust
The economy is based on trust -- you trust that a paper signed by a stranger means something -- that people will keep their promises and follow the agreed-upon contracts. In fact, the whole concept of civilisation is based upon trust. Apart from the unstable anarchy, the only stable alternative to civilisation is called tribalism, which is when you only trust a few fellow men in your tribe. The entire concept of civilisation, as opposed to tribalism, is that there is ONE authority that protects the population in return for funding and obedience. This one authority ensures that you can trust everyone -- because breaking a contract or breaking the law is punished and you can be sure most people would never ever do such a thing. Yet if this authority lacks power and the ability to enforce its rule then people cannot trust each other, because nobody ensures that this trust is trustworthy.
The alternative to military and police are anarchy, occupation (aka: NEW police and military) or tribalism -- every single one of which is severely undesirable and important to avoid.
VALUE
One way to measure value is to check how much people are willing to give for something. The police and military are expensive agencies to run, and there is no direct incentive for anyone to pay for them. Rather, it is society at large that needs the police and the military, and they are willing to pay a lot of money to keep these organizations running. Once again, all states have militaries and police forces, even poor countries; thus we can know that society is willing to give a lot in order to have working police and military.
Another way to measure value is to look at prioritization. If you look at history you would see that police and military, in one form or another, were always present in all of the great empires and all of the nations of Earth. From Rome to China, from the British Empire to the Aztech empire, every single one of them had a working force of violence comparable to the military and the police. Yet very few of these states had government-run hospitals, road building and welfare systems. It is a fact that all of these countries prioritized the military and the police over these other agencies by the government. Thus, the police and the military are of THE highest priority, thus are most valuable.
Yet a third way to measure value is to look at the need and the effect of something's absence. The effects of a lacking police force is violence, crime and anarchy, and the lack of a military causes foreign invasion and the restoration of law and order by another military and police. Thus, the military and police have a value equivalent to that between anarchy and civilisation, between prosperous economy and criminal degradation, between peace and loss in war. That is THE EXTREME VALUE OF POLICE AND MILITARY.
THE RESOLUTION IS AN AXIOM
Max Weber defines the state as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” [britannica]
A state is by definition a group and a territory with military and police. Thus, according to Max Weber, the military and police are the very defining feature of a state.
State monopoly on violence, in political science and sociology, the concept that the state alone has the right to use or authorize the use of physical force. It is widely regarded as a defining characteristic of the modern state. [britannica]
State monopoly on violence is a defining characteristic of a modern state. Without a monopoly on violence, an entity can hardly be called a state. As a logical result, we know that the monopoly on violence is the most important aspect of government rule. By virtue of being the sole means of achieving a monopoly on violence, we can comfortably say that the police and the military are a "defining characteristic" of a modern state. Unless CON denies the authority of Britannica, he must agree that the resolution is an axiom.
I have shown that a state by definition needs a military and a police force; that is because these agencies serve as the defining feature of a state as compared to any other territory.
SUMMARY
- The police and military are of extreme necessity
- They are the source and cause of economic trust, the pillar of civilisation
- Without them, society collapses
- The police and the military are of extreme value
- They are the top priority in terms of resource spending
- One cannot avoid these, because their lack leads to foreign invasion and re-institution of their presence
- No stable civilisation can exist without the police and the military.
- The alternative is tribalism, a severe degradation of society
- The very definition of a modern state includes the requirement of the monopoly of violence
- Any entity with a monopoly of violence is by definition a state (might be unrecognized)
- The police and the military are the very defining feature of a state -- thus only a state can run these agencies
CONCLUSION
The military and the police are indeed the most important agencies run by the government. I have fulfilled my BoP. The resolution holds.
For CON to deny this he must (1) deny the validity of the definition of state by Max Weber, (2) Prove that another agency is more important than the police and the military
Good luck, CON.
Thank You Benjamin, Good Luck!
PRO: The military and the police are the most important agencies run the government
CON: The military and the police are not the most important agencies run the government
To deny, CON must:
(1) deny the validity of the definition of state by Max Weber, (2) Prove that another agency is more important than the police and the military.
Hello, I'm here to argue that the Military and Government are NOT the most important agencies run by the Government.
Denial Requirement 1: Deny the Validity of the definition of state by Max Weber.
Max Weber Definition: Max Weber defines the state as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” [britannica]
You have taken a definition from a dictionary, from which can be meddled with according to the writer's taste. According to state | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (cornell.edu)
1) A body of people that is politically organized, especially one that occupies a clearly defined territory and is sovereign.
This definition states that a state is a group of people who reign sovereign over a specific area. Your definition is legally incorrect, so I deny the validity of Max Weber's definition.
Denial Requirement 2: State a agency run by the government more important than the military and the police.
As of 2021, the most important agency I see is Education. Education is important for all countries, seeing that military and police are useless if they're not good at holding up the law.
Take Victorian England for example. Policemen were bad at catching criminals, BECAUSE they didn't have a decent education.
So, I deny that the military and police are the most important agencies, but Education is.
I await your counter argument.
Deadfire27
Round 2
Thank you, DeadFire26, and good luck.
PRO: The military and the police are the most important agencies run by the government
CON: The military and the police are not the most important agencies run by the government
REBUTTALS
Max Webers definition
CON accuses me of using a cherry-picked dictionary definition of "state". In doing so he falsely calls Britannica a dictionary, while it is in fact an encyclopedia; meaning not only is it the more scholastic source but also more accurate factually, rather than being strictly legal -- and remember we are discussing factual statements rather than the law in this debate.
State, political organization of society, or the body politic, or, more narrowly, the institutions of government. The state is a form of human association distinguished from other social groups by its purpose, the establishment of order and security; its methods, the laws and their enforcement; its territory, the area of jurisdiction or geographic boundaries; and finally by its sovereignty. The state consists, most broadly, of the agreement of the individuals on the means whereby disputes are settled in the form of laws [Britannica/state]
The very purpose of a state is the establishment of order and security. My R1 argument still stands, as the police and the military are the very agencies that establish order and security. CON did not refute my argument that without the police and the military, a state collapses into anarchy and gets invaded -- thus making it the most crucial agency for a state's survival. CON also did not refute that the military and the police upheld national sovereignty as well as guard the borders and enforce laws. The implication of these dropped arguments is that the military and the police, while not legally the defining feature of a state, are the DE FACTO defining feature of a state in political science.
State monopoly on violence, in political science and sociology, the concept that the state alone has the right to use or authorize the use of physical force. It is widely regarded as a defining characteristic of the modern state...The state can grant another actor the right to use violence without losing its monopoly, as long as it remains the only source of the right to use violence and that it maintains the capacity to enforce this monopoly. [Britannica/state-monopoly-on-violence]
As a matter of fact, if an entity cannot enforce a monopoly on violence it can hardly be called a state. Monopoly on violence, and hence the military and the police, is what defines a state. Even CON's legal definition of a state, "A body of people that is politically organized, especially one that occupies a clearly defined territory and is sovereign" requires military and police to be functional. Without the military and the police, one cannot be politically organized, as other states would invade the country, occupy the territory and breach its sovereignty, thus effectively removing the state. Despite the fact that its inhabitants are religiously dedicated to serving the leader, even the Vatican has a police force.
Education
Policemen were bad at catching criminals, BECAUSE they didn't have a decent education.
CON is mistaken in his interpretation of education. He words himself in a way that suggests education and learning are synonyms, which is not the case. The police can teach people to become good police, and the military can teach people to become good military personnel --- and calling this learning process "education" as if a separate agency from police and military would be absurd. CON's argument, therefore, is nothing except flawed and incorrect semantics. Learning and becoming skilled are not the same as education.
Even if we simply assume that the government runs an agency called "education", and without it, one cannot learn to become good police, it would still not be more important than the military and the police. Its absence would render services worse and decrease the effectiveness of certain agencies like the police. Yet Victorian England didn't collapse and was not invaded by other nations -- civilisation prospered -- which is a direct result of the military and the police. Even without being good at stopping criminals, the police is the deterrent that prevents crime from happening, by making people think twice before committing a crime, and before cheating the law system.
More powerful as an argument for the PRO side is the fact that the military is the necessary means to establish and enforce national sovereignty; without it, nations collapse and get invaded. Additionally, the military and the police are still needed to uphold the laws that allow for taxation; without the police and the military a government can't afford to run education -- thus, the military and the police are a higher priority as well as more crucial, necessary and important than education. Even in ancient times, they needed these agencies, while education is a modern concept that only exists because of centuries where the military and police allowed civilisation to thrive where there was once only tribalism. Hence, the police and the military are in every way imaginable more important than education.
SUMMARY
- CON dropped these arguments:
- The necessity of police and military
- The role of police and military in civilisation
- The value of police and military, as showcased by
- their priority
- a country's willingness to fund them
- the immense increase in stability, trust and security they provide
- The fact that police and military are inevitable going to exist, as their absence leads to invasions and their re-institution by another state
- The only alternative to violence-upheld civilisation is tribalism, a blatant degradation of society
- CON's two arguments were rebutted
- Education is not as important as CON claims. Even if CON's claim is assumed fact, it does not show education to be more important than the military and police
- State monopoly of violence was defended through sourcing Britannica, and it was shown to still be THE defining feature of a state
CONCLUSION
The military and the police are indeed the most important agencies run by the government. The resolution holds.
Good luck, CON!
Well argued Benjamin.
PRO: The military and the police are the most important agencies run by the government
CON: The military and the police are not the most important agencies run by the government
REBUTTALS:
Education:
While it is true Victorian England prospered, it prospered under the hands of the rich. Poor people suffered. People were killed. Laws were broken left and right, and nobody was there to stop them. With your own words:
The very purpose of a state is the establishment of order and security
You rebut your very own argument. If the purpose of a state is to establish order and security, with military, then how come people in England suffered?
Importance of the Police and Military.
Looking back at your R1 argument above, I may ask, nowadays, Police CAUSE more chaos than they stop. Take modern day examples of police brutality, such as George Floyd.
Brutality such as this is called "Police Corruption" The corruption of police has the potential to become a source of anarchy and fear.
We hear about it more now, in Myanmar, ever since a coup began, Armed Forces have been terrorizing citizens, leading to unruled and unfair deaths. Myanmar's brutal military was once a force for freedom – but it's been waging civil war for decades (theconversation.com)
The Myanmar military has been terrorizing civilians since a coup two months earlier. On the day of the parade, soldiers killed over 90 people for protesting military rule, including a 5-year-old boy and three teenagers. An estimated 564 people have been killed in Myanmar since the Feb. 1 coup.
How, may I ask, do you rule this fair and just? It's against your R1 argument. So, I deny the importance of Military.
It also goes against one of your dropped arguments:
- the immense increase in stability, trust and security they provide
The above examples disprove your statement. Police do not provide stability, trust and security.
This is all I will post for now. I look forward to your counter argument.
Deadfire27
Round 3
Thank you, CON.
REBUTTALS
You rebut your very own argument. If the purpose of a state is to establish order and security, with military, then how come people in England suffered?
PRO has not proved that the victorian age England was anarchistic, meaning the police DID ensure law and order, civilisation as opposed to the former tribalism. PRO's claim that the police did not stop all criminals is irrelevant, as that would be an impossible achievement even today. The victorian nation also wasn't invaded -- because of the military.
How, may I ask, do you rule this fair and just? It's against your R1 argument. So, I deny the importance of Military.
OBJECTION: I do not support a bad government, or rule its use of military just. But evidence shows that, even if your government is evil, they first and foremost needs the military and the police. Evidence also shows that only the military and police can protect your nation from invasions and revolutions by evil men. Thus, the military and police, despite being a tool for both goodness and evil, are indeed more important than any other agency.
nowadays, Police CAUSE more chaos than they stop
INCORRECT! Police not only fight crime before and after the fact, but they also deter people from becoming criminals. Their protection against terrorism as well as their constant upholding of law and order, trust and the pillars of civilisation, more than outweigh the losses at the hands of a few rogue policemen. CON's unsupported claim that police may incentivise anarchy does not make any sense, nor does his assertion that police corruption proves them to be unimportant. If anything, the fact that dysfunctional police is catastrophic just goes to prove that their jobs is important -- once again, value is measured by the impact of one's absence, which for the police is anarchy and downfall of civilisation.
I extend all arguments CON never addressed, as well as declare his rebuttals fallacious and defeated.
FRAMEWORK
CON mostly ignored the framework, and thus accepted that PRO defined the burdens and positions of each side. Here is a recap:
PRO: The military and the police are the most important agencies run the governmentCON: The military and the police are not the most important agencies run the governmentDescription definitions from Cambridge:
- GOVERNMENT: the system used for controlling a country, city, or group of people:
- AGENCY: a government organization:
- IMPORTANT: necessary or of great value:
PRO will be arguing that the military and the police are the most necessary or valuable agencies run by the government.CON will be arguing that this is not the case -- he thus needs to provide evidence that there exists another agency that is more necessary than the military and the police.
Implications:
- PRO's argument that the police and military are defining features of a state directly agrees with the definition of Government as "a system for controlling people". In fact, my argument backed by Britannica goes to show that without a monopoly on violence an entity cannot be called a state. Moreover, "a system for controlling a country" cannot exist without a monopoly and violence -- thus the truth of the resolution is backed by Britannica as well as Cambridge dictionary, by merit of the police and the government being the very defining feature of a state/government over a peaceful entity without the power to control people.
- CON's argument fails because he does not provide evidence that another agency than the military and police are more important than those two.
- PRO's argument that the police and the military are the most necessary and valuable agencies directly prove the resolution immediately and without the need for more evidence. PRO has thus proved the resolution and fulfilled his BoP, case closed. CON has not done the same, so his BoP is not fulfilled, case closed.
- The definition of AGENCY disproves CON's claim that education is more important than the military and the police. No agency called "education" exists in any country, as it is just a broad term that encompasses learning, while in fact military and police can themselves train new recruits.
CONCLUSION
PRO's case is built upon the correct framework, CON's case contradicts or at the very least ignores the framework. His case also does not include adequate evidence or support.
Thus PRO wins this debate. VOTE PRO!
I...….personally agree with PRO. His arguments were better, I admit.
I'm still learning though. For a 1st full game, I think I did well. What do you guys think?
Vote PRO!!
Thanks for voting
Thanks!!! I'll work on my length and sources.
Congrats on your first debate. I am impressed with your debating skills, especially after learning you are only 12; good job.
Thank you for voting
I'm not sure if he's good though. I'll tell you my thoughts after I finish my debate
no problem, i'm down to have a debate with him though
Don't mind him, he's just a friend I invited for a private debate.
Btw, we're doing "Video Games improve real life skills" I'm Con.
I think he accidently tagged you, sorry.
on what topic
for the debate what else?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
sorry what are you down for?
yeah ok im down for that
No problem, I’m up to debate anything.
Give me some time to improve, and I'll see about that.
Fair enough, fair enough, we can always have a rematch. I'm open to a one week debate.
Come on man, that was a 2 day debate time. I'm not sitting in front of this laptop 24/7.
I thought. you were to busy to debate...
Thanks for the positive output. I'll work on my length in the future.
Great idea, yet not so much perfectly executed. You would have benefited from a long argument with space to discuss implications as well as try to provide evidence of a society functioning without police -- that might have made your point more effective. By making the argument extremely short you are kind of wasting your round, as nothing is remembered or have any impact. Otherwise, you had a cool angle I hadn't expected.
I'd like opinions on my R2 argument.
I would argue that Social security is more important on the grounds that it costs more than the military.
The most important agencies that the government runs, that means the most important agency in general, not only in a specific state.
What do you think of my argument?
Do you mean the military and police are the most important agencies run BY the government, as opposed to some other agencies, such as EPA? I choose that one at random just as an example, and one which I find effectively too political in its current guise to be legitimate.