Critique my Argument for an English Class Debate?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>As part of an English project, I will debate a classmate on whether or not the government should play a role in people’s diets. He says yes, I say no, and we will argue our sides later this week. Since I have no experience debating / having to formulate virtually airtight arguments, I was hoping the CC community could look over the transcript of my speech and point out any errors in logic, opportunities for the other side to point out holes in my argument, places where I could strengthen my case, etc. Be as critical as possible! Thanks in advance. </p>

<p>I don’t need statistics or clever visual aids to convince you all that our nation’s already high obesity rate is on the rise. Most everyone realizes something must be done in order to reverse or at least slow down this disturbing trend, but I’m here today to explain why the three solutions most likely to come out of Washington in response to this epidemic simply will not do. These supposed cure-alls are the fat tax, the soda tax, and the ban on trans fats.</p>

<p>We begin with the fat tax, an incremental tax levied against those whose height and weight place them over certain Congress-prescribed body mass index thresholds for being overweight and obese. Such a tax is put into place to encourage the overweight and obese to lose weight as well as to make up for the statistically higher healthcare costs these groups incur.</p>

<p>However, a flashback to US History class and a visit to the Government Printing Office’s Congressional Pictorial Directory alerts us that such a duty constitutes taxation without representation. When scanning—just as I did— photos of all 541 members of this nation’s 111th Congress, one struggles to find any senators or congresspeople outside their seventies or eighties who are overweight, let alone obese. How can a legislature in good conscience vote to tax a group whose interests are not defended and whose opinions are never heard?</p>

<p>Additionally, the fat tax has the potential to be the first in a line of several punitive taxes on law-abiding Americans. For instance, Gallup estimates that homosexual males make up approximately 5% of the US population. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that this same demographic accounts for almost 50% of all HIV/AIDS cases. With direct medical costs for HIV/AIDS patients topping $15,000 per year, according to an article published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes in 2006, shouldn’t these individuals be taxed—just as the obese would be—for the healthcare costs they may or may not incur? Where does such a practice end? With those who smoke? Drink? Tan? And who decides?</p>

<p>Which brings us to the soda tax. As its name suggests, the soda tax is a duty on sugar-sweetened beverages meant to curb people’s consumption of such products as soda, energy drinks, sports drinks, juices, and teas. An added benefit, proponents say, the proceeds from such a tax would be earmarked for nutrition education and obesity prevention programs. A noble cause to be sure, but do the ends justify the means?</p>

<p>Trevor Butterworth, who wrote the Forbes Magazine article entitled “Can A Soda Tax Really Curb Obesity?” thinks not. In his column, Butterworth notes, “Indeed, the five most obese states—Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma—all have soda taxes, while three of the least obese, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Colorado, have no soda taxes.” Although the 33 states in which sugar-sweetened beverages are taxed managed to raise money for programs that encourage healthier lifestyles—an extremely admirable effort—they failed to achieve their primary objective in passing a soda tax: lowering the obesity rate.</p>

<p>After reviewing the relevant data, though, this fact should come as no surprise; the authors of the 2008 study “Can Soft Drink Taxes Reduce Population Weight?”, which appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Contemporary Economic Policy, calculated that taxing sugar-sweetened beverages at the same stratospheric 58% at which cigarettes are taxed instead of the average incremental rate of 3% would result in a meager 0.16-point drop in BMI nationwide.</p>

<p>Finally, we come to a ban on trans fats, substances known to have no nutritional value and to increase bad cholesterol while lowering good cholesterol. The catch? Trans fats, as ingredients or frying media, are inexpensive and convenient, and they make food taste—frankly—incredible.</p>

<p>Unhealthiness aside, Americans have a right to eat trans fats, and chefs, cooks, and manufactures, alike, have a right to cook with them. To rob any of these groups of culinarians of an affordable and delectable cooking medium constitutes censorship, and to deprive hundreds of millions of well-informed consumers of great-tasting foods tramples on their—as crazy as it might sound—constitutional right to eat as unhealthily and be as fat as the choose.</p>

<p>After all, the only reason nonsmokeless tobacco products and alcohol are taxed at such exorbitant rates is that these products have the potential to harm people beyond their users, whether in the form of second-hand smoke or drunk driving accidents. Whom, I ask you, do the overweight and obese hurt by being overweight or obese? The answer is nobody, and it is virtually nobody in any of the affected groups who will benefit from the federal government playing a role in their diets and instituting fat taxes or soda taxes or banning trans fats. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Dude. It’s supposed to be a debate, not an essay. Do you have a telepromter in class?
Learn your arguments, think of a few phrases and structures but don’t plan every freaking thing you’re saying.</p>

<p>First your preparation:
I don’t know what you would define as a “debate”, but two people reading an essay in my opinion doesn’t qualify. You should interact, respond and “go as you speak”.</p>

<p>Dont say full names of every random source and get all scientific. People won’t fact-check it anyways. Write a couple of them down so you can answer if questioned on them. Leave a couple of numbers out and get use adjectives that create a better picture.</p>

<p>Also: Do you really know that your opponent is going to bring up these three points?
There are faaaar more options on the table and if you focus on those three you make yourself incredibly vulnerable to your opposition.
Here’s the core: You’re not debating the government, you’re debating your opponent and the winner is not the one who’s scientifically correct, but the one the audience believes. Since this is supposed to be an English project I doubt that your teacher cares about diet-policy. The point of the project probably is to show you a little thing about rhetoric.</p>

<p>So try to throw some slings, work on your vocabulary (less numbers, less sources, more feelings, more stylistic devices) and be open (dont read your paper but speak freely and make use of gesture and mimic).</p>

<p>If you were to read this in class any proper debater would kick your ass. Hope i could help ;)</p>

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<p>@tobiz.int</p>

<p>Every debate, no matter how loosely organized, begins with both sides reading their respective contentions and constructing the framework for the debate. As this process is usually generic, there’s nothing wrong with reading out a prepped case.</p>

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<p>Tobiz is right. </p>

<p>Also, remember your audience. Chances are that the majority of your class are dumbasses…your teacher likely is as well. Telling them how unconstitutional it is does nothing for them. Most of them have never actually read the constitution. Our actual government doesn’t even care if something is constitutional any more, so I doubt that your English class will.</p>

<p>Instead, you need to give them something they can relate to. Show them flaws in the policy or why it won’t work. For example, you could tell them how unreliable BMI is in actually showing how fat someone is. Muscular people have high BMI’s as well. Name a few muscular famous people that come in over the BMI limit. </p>

<p>For the other 2, forget about what is “right” and just say it won’t work. Say that it hasn’t worked with smoking and other BS taxes and it won’t work here. Say that about 5 times in different ways and they’ll get it.</p>

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<p>@failboat
Well there are different styles of debate, but still as far as I see it, this statement would do the OP no good in any of them.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the comments, guys. The thing is, this wasn’t meant to be an off-the-cuff debate; it was assigned to my class as a project that would test our research skills and our ability to follow Toulmin’s Method of argumentation. Before presentations started, we had to turn in an outline that pointed out claims, warrants, backing, etc. as well as a works cited page. All of the pairs who have gone so far had notecards or transcripts since this is a 5-min. speech and our teacher told us to have prepared remarks and not to wing it.</p>

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<p>Then I take back most of what I said. Your statement will probably do fine. Your assignment appeared different from what you had described as your problem.</p>

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<p>Digression</p>

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<p>The construction of the contentions is universal in all types of debate. Whether new contentions are allowed to be introduced later on depends upon the rigidity of the debate. But regardless, for there to be a debate at all, one side must present a set of assertions that the other side must attempt to disprove. In this sense, it’s beneficial to have “cooked” arguments.</p>

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<p>The whole point of argumentation is to attempt to objectively impact a point or an argument. I strongly advise against merely warranting your arguments and announce “hence I must be correct”, because tell me, if I assert that so and so who is famous did something, therefore the action of interest must be justifiable, would you give me any credibility or would you attempt to (and in most likely cases, be successful) search your brain for counter-examples?</p>

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<p>Bump this.</p>

<p>Let me phrase my question another way: If you were the person I am to debate on this topic, what questions might you ask after I finished in an effort to poke holes in my argument?</p>