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Post by Arrogant&Confident on Sept 8, 2013 15:31:29 GMT -5
Welcome To The...... NFO Presidential Debate!
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Post by Arrogant&Confident on Sept 8, 2013 15:45:55 GMT -5
General Information & Rules 1. The debate will begin promptly at 6:00PM Eastern Time. It will end Tuesday @ 6PM Eastern, giving everyone 48 hours to answer the questions. 2. A new question will be posted every 30 minutes. You do not have to stop debating about the previous topic when the new one is posted, just make sure you also debate about the new topic too. 3. When you are ready to reply to the new topic, please make an OPENING STATEMENT. Opening statements do not have to be long, but you need to have them. They basically just tell your opinion about the issue. Once you post your opening statement, you can respond to your fellow candidates. 4. Be respectful 5. When the debate ends, anyone and everyone is encouraged to PM me 4 people who you think did the best in this debate.
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Post by Arrogant&Confident on Sept 8, 2013 17:00:04 GMT -5
"Good evening from the University of NFO's Debate Center. I'm Mark Slater from CNN's elite program "State of the Union." We are here for the first Presidential debate, sponsored by the NFO Commission on Presidential Debates. This debate is between the Presidents ONLY. I will give the topic, the candidates will post their opening statements, then they will respond to their opponents. New topics will be posted every 30-45 minutes. I wish every candidate good luck. The top 4 candidates of this debate will have a chance to move on to the final round, so do good, everyone. Make it or break it. Here's your first question. Do you support gay marriage? What is your opinion on gay marriage?
Once again, good luck. You may begin."
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Post by Arrogant&Confident on Sept 8, 2013 17:45:01 GMT -5
"Question Number 2: What will you do to increase or perhaps decrease minimum wages? What do you think the minimum wage should be?"
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Post by Adam Awesome on Sept 8, 2013 18:04:50 GMT -5
Before I begin, I'd like to thank Mark for hosting this debate and I would also like to thank NFO University for allowing this debate to be done here. I wish good luck to all of my other Presidential contenders and also good luck on this race to the NFO White House!
Now regarding the topic at hand, I am a strong supporter of same-sex marriage. It's of course awesome and enlightening to know that same-sex couples can now receive the same benefits and equal rights as straight couples, but that's only on the federal level and this long, progressive fight for change still has a long ways to go not only on an international level, but also a statewide level. Now because this is the NFO United States of America, I won't get into some of the dreadful laws in places like Pakistan, Uganda, or Sudan used against gay people, but statewide as President I am sure I would be able to assist in giving more LGBT rights in states like North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, or even here in Ohio where gays are still discriminated against for who they are. : Simply put, homophobic haters, attackers and especially lawmakers including the Republican Party need to ask themselves one question. "Why would gay people choose to be discriminated against?" And when they can fully and honestly answer that question, they will understand that LGBT rights deserve to be protected just as much people who are straight because this nation was founded off the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and in today's day and age, I don't believe those are being followed at all and we have a large crisis on our hands that we need to try and fix together.
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Post by Adam Awesome on Sept 8, 2013 18:38:36 GMT -5
If you consider the basic economics of this, by giving workers more money in their paychecks they will go out and buy more goods from stores and businesses and that will not only help the worker more by being able to live off in better quality conditions, but would increase the revenue for those businesses. Another excuse not to raise the minimum wage is it would be too much of a burden for a lot of small businesses and they would have to lay off workers as a result. Well, as President I would guarantee that would not happen because I would issue several tax breaks to the small businesses that can't undergo higher wages for their workers and if necessary, I would also issue grant money from the federal government to them which, while it would have to be paid back eventually, could help them solve any financial problems then and could help them move smoothly in production once again.
So then as NFO President, I would ensure to increase the minimum wage for the workers to an amount that would make it fair to both the businesses and workers. As it stands, the minimum wage is currently at $7.25 which is just unacceptable because it's very hard to live off of that with the rising costs of inflation. It's because of this low minimum wage for why people often have to resort to going on food stamps which is horrifically rising and it's then as a result of these low prices on unhealthy foods and high prices on the organic foods for why our obesity rate is so high and it can all be connected back to this despicable, separating gap between the poor and the rich.
Therefore, to help in assisting to raise the minimum wage to $12.00 an hour, I would tax these large corporations who are sending jobs overseas to pocket even more money for themselves and I would raise the tax rates on those making more than $100,000 a year. We cannot allow for ourselves to live as a nation where there's these hard-working families of 4 or 5 in which one of the spouses has to work 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs to support their family just barely enough to survive and I promise the big guys will be held accountable for some of these tragic occurrences happening throughout this country.
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Post by daggdag on Sept 8, 2013 19:43:20 GMT -5
Before I make my opening statement, I would again like to wish all of my opponents good luck, and say that I am very honored to be here.
Now, to answer the first question, it is the position of myself, and the Exceptionalist Party, that marriage should be taken completely out of the hands of the government. The government should not be allowed to dictate whether or not consenting adults are allowed to marry each other. We support gay marriage, as well as polygamy, and even incest, as long as all involved of consenting adults. We would like to see marriage legally defined, in the constitution, as a social contract between consenting adults. The freedom of choice must always be respected.
Now, Mr, Fitzgerald is right on many points. We do need to pass laws to make sure that marriage discrimination is not allowed. States that have a history of descrimination against gays and other non-traditional couples, should have the same requirements for changes to marriage laws, as Jim Crow states have for changes to voting laws. Laws such as DOMA, which allow states to simply ignore legal marriages from other states, which violates a constitutional requirement that states must accept legal contracts and licenses from other states, can not be allowed to stand. They must be repealed.
However, his comparisons of US laws to the laws of the middle east and african are a little far fetched. Many of those nations punish homosexuality with death. Last time I checked, being gay is not a capital crime in the US. There are always nutjobs who will do harm to a person for being gay, shown in cases such as the murder of Matthew Shepard, but these types of people are a fringe minority, and have no real influence. We do, however, need to make sure to stem discrimination, against not only gays, but polygamists, incest couples, and all other consenting adults who are told that they do not have the right to choose who they want to marry.
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Post by daggdag on Sept 8, 2013 20:08:13 GMT -5
Now, I know that many on the left believe that simply raising the minimum wage would solve everything, but it's not true. We must build more jobs. However, large corporations have no stake in creating jobs. They are already as big as they will get. We must support small business. Take all money given to corporations like Walmart, and give them to small businesses. This would create competition in the market, making it a workers' market, and raising wages naturally, without the need for government intervention. The Corporatists, who want to give big corporations full control of the market will fight this tooth and nail, but we must not give in.
Now, that is not to say that I would not support raising the minimum wage, but it must be limited. I would rather allow the market to correct itself through added competition, and keep government intervention at a bare minimum.
I do believe that we will have to do something to assist underemployed workers who do not make enough to provide for their families. In lieu of raising the minimum wage to the 15 to 21 dollars an hour that is the cost of living for a family of 5 min many states, I would like to see a new corporate tax made, that is paid by all US businesses. This money would be used as a form of welfare to help make up the difference.
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Post by Arrogant&Confident on Sept 8, 2013 20:19:01 GMT -5
*Ehem...my name is Mr. Slater*
"The third question is: Do you approve of a military strike in Syria? Explain your answer."
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Post by Adam Awesome on Sept 8, 2013 23:32:09 GMT -5
Before I make my opening statement, I would again like to wish all of my opponents good luck, and say that I am very honored to be here. Now, to answer the first question, it is the position of myself, and the Exceptionalist Party, that marriage should be taken completely out of the hands of the government. The government should not be allowed to dictate whether or not consenting adults are allowed to marry each other. We support gay marriage, as well as polygamy, and even incest, as long as all involved of consenting adults. We would like to see marriage legally defined, in the constitution, as a social contract between consenting adults. The freedom of choice must always be respected. Now, Mr, Fitzgerald is right on many points. We do need to pass laws to make sure that marriage discrimination is not allowed. States that have a history of descrimination against gays and other non-traditional couples, should have the same requirements for changes to marriage laws, as Jim Crow states have for changes to voting laws. Laws such as DOMA, which allow states to simply ignore legal marriages from other states, which violates a constitutional requirement that states must accept legal contracts and licenses from other states, can not be allowed to stand. They must be repealed. However, his comparisons of US laws to the laws of the middle east and african are a little far fetched. Many of those nations punish homosexuality with death. Last time I checked, being gay is not a capital crime in the US. There are always nutjobs who will do harm to a person for being gay, shown in cases such as the murder of Matthew Shepard, but these types of people are a fringe minority, and have no real influence. We do, however, need to make sure to stem discrimination, against not only gays, but polygamists, incest couples, and all other consenting adults who are told that they do not have the right to choose who they want to marry. Mr. Dagg, if there's anything far fetched within this debate so far it's promoting polygamy and incest of all things. Now for those who don't know, polygamy is when a married spouse has more than one spouse and to make it worse, these are often practiced in cults and by Mormons (Romneyism) and is primarily legal over in the Middle East, Burma or North Africa which also happen to be the same places where same-sex marriage is unheard of and could be punishable up to life in prison or even death. Now just like with Adam & Eve or Mary & Joseph, it's clear that God only intended people to have one spouse to live the rest of their life with and religious practice or not, polygamy is wrong and deserves to remain abolished under U.S. law. And incest is just as bad. In 48 states it's punishable from 5 years to up to life imprisonment and rightfully so because incest is the practice of having intercourse with family or blood-related relatives. It's okay to tell your family that you love them or even hug them or kiss them on the cheek, but when you have sex with members of your family, I think the love and care among family and relatives is being taken way too literally. There are millions of other humans that aren't related to you on the planet and while it might be harder to find that non-blood related soul mate, in the long run, you know it's the right thing to do. I also see a problem in calling marriage between "consenting adults." By the age of 16, I think boys and girls are smart enough to know what the right choice is especially when it comes to something as serious as marriage. If they love someone enough, they should be able to marry before they legally become an adult at age 18. All that would be required is simple parental or guardian consent in order to make sure it's the best possible decision for the two teenagers. Here in Ohio, that's exactly how it is for teens 16 or 17 years old and it's still protecting what the definition of marriage is while still ensuring via the government that all requirements are met for minors before marrying. You see, Mr. Dagg, I agree that freedom of choice should be protected in marriage, but only to a certain, common sense extent. When there is minimal government intervention to make sure we don't have any cases of marriage with polygamists or incest, it can prove to work. The idea behind a functional government is that order is maintained and that no havoc or flaws happen in the correct definition of marriage which is a relationship between two consenting adults or two consenting minors. And in my last statement, I was in no way comparing the laws of Sudan to ours. I was merely just saying that we need to work on our own laws because as much as we would like to end a law over in a sickening country like Sudan which puts gay people to death or in Russia where gay people get jailed, it would too extremely hard to do while maintaining a good, foreign relationship with some of these homophobic countries. I do believe that when the time comes whether it's in decades or maybe even centuries, they will evolve just like us and that's my next point. Mr. Dagg, these crime-filled, gay hating "minorities" as you call them are still all around. We hear stories every day in the news somewhere around the country that someone was attacked for being gay. In fact, less than a week ago, a gay guy named Jared Fox right over here in Cleveland, Ohio was about to enter a gay bar when a homophobic, white gang went up to him and beat him so bad he got a ruptured eardrum and nose with some other damage around the face as well and they stole his phone and credit card. To make it even worse, just like the 2 guys who attacked Matthew Sheppard, the cops never did anything about it and while they're "trying" to find the gang, in reality, their going to get away with this for awhile before justice finally catches up to them and the federal government will need to step in again to throw some of these gay hating, crime dwellers in prison. That's just one thing. Not only discrimination against LGBT from fellow pedestrians which more than 50% isn't even properly dealt with, but also prejudice that states including mine here in Ohio that allow for such things to take place. There used to be a native, gay couple that lived here in Ohio and since we have a ban here on same-sex marriage, they went over to Maryland where Governor Martin O'Malley recently signed marriage equality into law and got married there. However, when they went back to Ohio, even though they were legally recognized by the state of Maryland and by the federal government, our Republican controlled government here refused to recognize them simply because they were gay. And here's the thing. Ohio law states that if you get married in another state where some type of marriage is legal that's not legal in Ohio, it would be legally recognized than in Ohio if they got married in that other state under those certain conditions and then moved back to Ohio. For example, if two 14 year old teenagers from New Hampshire get married (where it's legal under conditions) and then move to Ohio, then under Ohio law it's legal. But bare in mind, the same kind of thing happened with this gay couple, but just because they're gay, it wasn't recognized. To make it even worse, one of them had Lou Gehrig's Disease and died soon after, and it had to go to the courts where a judge finally ruled that was unconstitutional and Ohio had to recognize the marriage. That's what's being dealt with across the country. It's simply Republican obstruction taking place and I can guarantee there would be marriage equality in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Ohio and so many other states if it wasn't for Republicans restricting the rights that LGBT deserve in a nation where the Pledge of Allegiance states, "with liberty, and justice for ALL." This means NOT all of one kind, but all....everyone.
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